Scorecard Best Practices

Organization Levels

SHAPs study results showed that scorecards can be used to measure organizational performance at many levels. Most commonly, scorecards are used to measure the overall performance of an organization (see Exhibit 7.1 ). Exhibit 7.1 also shows that scorecards are commonly used for reporting for strategic business units, operating units, and at the departmental level. Less common is reporting at an individual level.

Exhibit 7.1: Levels Currently Using Scorecards

The implementation level is important because the benefits gleaned from the scorecard correlate with how pervasive it is in the business. The SHAPs study results show that the greatest relative benefits from implementing a scorecard system are achieved when the system is implemented at least down to the operating unit level.

Among the Best Practice Group of the SHAPs study, all used the scorecard system to measure the overall performance of the organization, while significant numbers used the scorecard system to report on performance of strategic units, major divisions, operating units, with a sizable number of organizations reporting to the individual levels (see Exhibit 7.2 ).

Exhibit 7.2: Levels Currently Using Scorecards for Best Practice Group

Lower level scorecards, which translate the organization's ...