What Gets Measured Gets Done!

Interested in developing a system for measuring the critical components within your business in order to strengthen your company and reach your goals? Then the Balanced Scorecard may be just the tool for you.

The Balanced Scorecard is a measurement and management system that can channel the energies, abilities and specific knowledge of people in your company toward achieving long-term strategic goals. Utilization of this tool allows a company to measure its performance in critical areas that are key to its success.

Each business has a unique path to success. The steps to developing a Balanced Scorecard force a company to clarify its strategy and key success factors. The underlying principle here is that "what gets measured gets done!" Therefore, measurements developed in this process will focus your work on the activities that are most important to your success.

The scorecard then becomes a tool that improves communication, empowers people to make informed decisions and aligns work throughout the company. It reinforces the behaviors that are important to reach your company's goals. And it provides you with a time-efficient means to evaluate your progress toward strategic goals. With just a few measures, you can monitor your company's business health!

The Missouri Small Business & Technology Development Centers (MO SBTDC) now offer a nine-step process to create your company's Balanced Scorecard:

• Step 1 - Define your key success factors
• Step 2 - Identify common themes (perspectives)
• Step 3 - Select measures for each perspective
• Step 4 - Establish goals for each measure
• Step 5 - Narrow the measures to a vital few
• Step 6 - Develop a collection system
• Step 7 - Communicate
• Step 8 - Trickle down the measures
• Step 9 - Evaluate, revise and redeploy

The process is not difficult and can be completed in three sessions. Further support is available from a local Small Business & Technology Development Center to help you implement and evaluate your Balanced Scorecard.

Read more about MO SBTDC's Balanced Scorecard.

- Jackie Rasmussen, business specialist, MO SBTDC. For Creating Quality Newsletter, Apr. 2003. Revised 2/21/08.