| There have been so many different Bright New | | | | effectiveness. |
| Buzzword ideas, in the last forty years or so, and | | | | The idea is fairly simple. First, you have to really |
| most of them have already passed so far into history | | | | understand your enterprise, on every level. - "Oh, no! |
| that you could shout their names in a crowded theater | | | | You think that's simple?" you ask. Well, it may not be |
| and nobody would know what you are talking about. | | | | simple to do, but harkening back to the initial days of |
| That applies to programming languages, and equipment | | | | the first baby steps of Office Automation, we taught |
| as well as new management techniques and systems. | | | | the corporate world that you can't program a |
| Most of these new ideas get hyped and marketed | | | | computer to run your business, until you knew how |
| way beyond their worth, but occasionally one shows | | | | you were running your business. Amazingly, at that |
| up on the market that has a great amount of merit. A | | | | time, many small and medium sized businesses had no |
| lot of these very special ideas gain popularity almost | | | | idea how they were operating. |
| stealthily. Some are so stealthy that as they grow to | | | | Best Practices came about from the automation |
| groundswell proportions, nobody notices them or writes | | | | process, and from there we traveled along a |
| about them in the Magazine D'Idee D'Jour. | | | | superhighway of computerization/automation of |
| Here is such an idea. Balanced Scorecard | | | | everything in the process of business to a point where, |
| Management, and its associated Balanced Scorecard | | | | again, we may need to stop and take a deep breath |
| Software constitute a new way of viewing, | | | | and relearn how we are running our corporate world. |
| transforming, and running a business, no matter how | | | | The concept of Balanced Scorecard is that you can |
| big, or how small. The Balanced Scorecard framework | | | | and should assess your corporate efforts from |
| sheds a whole new light on how you can shed new | | | | various viewpoints and achieve a "balanced" state by |
| light on the formerly dark recesses of how your | | | | dealing with those areas that are out of balance. The |
| enterprise works. You can, with the scorecard, grade | | | | viewpoints represented include, but are not limited to: |
| your performance daily (or more often) and adjust | | | | ownership; management, and; customers. The areas |
| your activities to improve your position vis a vis your | | | | reported on are usually defined variously as Mission, |
| own corporate goals. | | | | Vision and Strategy, or as Results, Operations, and |
| A Balanced Scorecard is used to effectively give you | | | | Capacity. There is no fixed rule as to how to slice the |
| real-time metrics on your enterprise from several | | | | enterprise or how to name the various viewpoints. |
| viewpoints, so as to allow you to, perhaps for the first | | | | What is important to the system is that the reporting |
| time, get a good look at what you are doing, and how | | | | be done in each area of operations, (as you define |
| you are doing it. More than that, you can share the | | | | them), and that the analysis, and implementation of |
| balanced reporting with any level of management you | | | | corrective measures be implemented as required to |
| choose, in clear and concise terms which will allow | | | | start the sequence again. |
| them to grade themselves and improve their | | | | |