Just a brief entry today for you.
I have finished and already sent in my 2nd assignment about Managing People and Performance. I have to admit that it was quite a hard journey. Having a look at my previous entry about managing people I guess that I found a reasonable way to apply all the required materials. By the way I decided to come up with the introduction of a balanced scorecard to broaden the approach how performance is measured and secondly to use the BSC as a tool to steer strategy.
Kaplan & Norton did a fantastic job with the invention of the balanced scorecard. I can really recommend all the materials about it. Just ask yourself the following questions:
Is your HR linked to your business strategy? Do you measure performance in accordance to your business strategy?
If the answers are no, or „partly“ etc. then it might be an idea to have a look at what Norton & Kaplan suggest with their Balanced scorecard. The BSC therefore expands the way how you measure performance at your company because it includes 4 dimensions of measurement:
- Financials (no, a BSC is not undermining financial measurement, but extends it)
- Customers (Yes, a very important fact to keep an eye on your customers as well)
- Internal processes (How can we contribute with internal processes to business objectives)
- Learning & growth (How can we improve our performance in future)
Balanced scorecard by Kaplan & Norton
In conclusion, the Balanced scorecard is a useful tool to measure performance holistically and to steer and a review your business strategy regularly.
If you want to know more about the BSC I can recommend Kaplan & Norton’s articles on Harvardbusiness.org or just drop me a line….
And now I have to immerse into my next module called: Managing Processes, Systems and Projects which I’m really looking forward to, although the timeline is more than tight and Christmas season is almost here.