Top Ten Bsc Mistakes
Monday, December 20, 2010 7:47:51 PM The Top Ten Balanced Scorecard Mistakes: Best of Reader Feedback A few weeks ago, we asked for input from this community in compiling a list of the top 10 mistakes of the balanced scorecard. Obviously we touched a nerve because we were overwhelmed by great feedback. Thank you for all your insightful comments. We’ve sorted through your observations and boiled them down into a list. Any such list is necessarily subjective, so we hope this generates more discussion and feedback. 1. Lack of focus: Too many people, too many objectives, too many metrics, and too many scorecards When it comes to scorecards, less is more. Too often, beginners start out with too many people, too many objectives, too many metrics, and too many scorecards. When an organization tries to juggle too many things, it inevitably cannot deliver on all of them. When too many people are involved, the process slows to a crawl. Often these groups wind up with too many objectives because they cannot reach consensus on a few key ones. This kind of confusion obscures clear lines of accountability and discourages employees. Therefore, err on the side of less at the beginning. Weed out objectives by asking yourself tough questions: Can you realistically manage all the objectives on your list? Are they complementary or conflicting? What is the impact of not doing them? Do they really matter? Similarly, less is more when it comes to teams. When starting a BSC process, don’t involve so many people that it becomes unwieldy or political. Limit it to a few people who know what they’re doing and who have executive support and the authority to make the appropriate changes. They should have a broad understanding of the organization and good people skills so that they can inspire others. Rather than holding big meetings, assign team members to work individually with other players or business units to tackle specific questions and then present their findings to the group. 2. Biting