Scorecard Best Practices

Provide Adequate Time to Implement and Realize Benefits

On average, the Best Practices Group from the SHAPs study took about six months to implement their scorecard systems—from the time the decision was made to adopt a scorecard system to the time reporting with the system began. Expect that some time will elapse from when you kick off the scorecard system project to when you begin seeing significant benefits.

Once the system is in place, managers and other employees need to be trained to use it and to get comfortable with it. The more communication and training you have completed to enable the use of the system, the better your chances of success (and the sooner you will see benefits)!

Exhibit 4.4 shows that a small percentage of the Best Practices Group accepted and used the system immediately upon implementation. Adding the time to implement the system to the time it takes for managers and employees to orient themselves to the system, it is more common for it to take between six months and two years to experience significant benefits. For this reason, it is important to appropriately manage expectations of executives and board members—in order to avoid the expectations of a “quick fix.” Employees and managers may experience some benefits once they are able to access reports and begin to analyze results, but significant benefits often take a little more time.

Exhibit 4.4: Best Practices Group: Time to Accept and Use the System