Performance Scorecards: Measuring the Right Things in the Real World

I've never read a better, more concise explanation of a beginning-to-beginning performance evaluation and management system. In fact, I surprised myself by getting a little wrapped up in the storyline of the fictional case study being used to illustrate the steps in the process. "Page-turner" isn't a term usually applied to management books, but this one almost deserves it. The actual "story" itself is sometimes almost painful as fiction -- I really wish the authors had consulted a dialogue editor -- but the story acts as a thread to connect the key elements and illustrate some of the issues faced when building performance management systems.The authors' thesis is that executives and managers spend too much time tracking too many performance indicators, often focusing time on unimportant measures or indicators outside their scope of control. Front-line employees and supervisors are uncertain what they're being measured against, and feel they are powerless to influence quality or efficiency.The performance scorecards approach can be initiated at any management level. Through a series of data collection and staff meetings, goals, objectives, indicators, and responsibilities can be agreed upon. Each manager, project, and even many employees can have "scorecards" that interlock with everyone else's in the organization, reflecting the interdependencies required for organizational success.There are six key steps in performance scorecards: Collect, Create, Cultivate, Cascade, Connect, and Confirm.There are strong team-building aspects to this model. Not only does it stress interdependence, it also fosters decentralization of responsibility, authority, and accountability. Further, it encourages openness about results and how they are expressed and communicated.The process does depend on a quantitative as well as qualitative expression of indicators and results. This may scare off some service organizations. However, the team-based, consensus approach to determining a way to translate the qualitative to the quantitative minimizes the friction and suspicions of "unfairness" in the process. The process allows no wiggle room for the employee who says that a particular objective or outcome is not measurable. If it's not measurable, then it shouldn't be an objective, according to the authors.The authors are consultants, and they stress the importance of a trained facilitator as part of the process. The investment is well worth the outcomes in employee morale as well as productivity and success in fulfilling a mission and being able to demonstrate it. The book contains numerous illustrations, figures, and a few tools to help the narrative explanation of the process.

Outstanding summarizes this book very well! Richard and Mark have a very common sense yet powerful approach in helping organizations link their strategies, processes and people together. This book is very easy to read and difficult to put down. They explain their methodology through the use of an example in which an organization implements the scorecards, walking the reader through each of the six steps in scorecard development. I wish business leaders would read and implement this type of a system, forcing them to look closer at their processes and people and how they tie together to impact business performance. Highly recommend this to anyone for use in business, but could even be applied very well to one's personal life. Thanks guys!!

The various perspectives of the scorecard allow you to apply measurement to the critical areas of your business performance. We curently use the scorecard in our business and the application of it forces you to ask probing questions and to measure the right things. Richard and Mark, both of whom have helped us design our scorecard, are experts in this area. Their book avoids the all-too-prevalent techno-jargon and leads the reader on an everyday experience we can all identify with. I don't remember the last time I read and learned a measurement tool that actually left me feeling entertained! A great read!

I am highly impressed with this outstanding book on Performance Scorecards. It is the best book which I have read on performance management and scorecards and is written in a clear style with no buzzwords. This book will be useful for any company which wants to implement a scorecard system in their organisation since it gives a detailed case study of how to implement the concept of a scorecard in a hypothetical company.Brilliant and Outstanding. I wish more books were written in a clear style as this one. There are no detailed academic theoretical concepts which do not make sense. Just a large dose of practical and useful ideas which will improve the performace of your business.

"Performance Scorecards" is a book about performance measurement. The book follows the management team of a fictitious company and their first attempt at developing a performance measurement system. It is written in an engaging style. The reader gets to listen in on conversations at the management team's meetings and even gets to see how the group visually displays their results. Along the way, the authors include a number of helpful illustrations and surveys. In addition, each chapter concludes with a brief case study of a real company.As a seasoned manager, I initially thought this book was too basic for me. The content seemed appropriate for new managers or companies new to performance measurement. By the end of the book, however, I changed my mind and would recommend "Performance Scorecards" to anyone. I found a number of valuable ideas and because measuring the right stuff is so important, a few valuable ideas can be very powerful. The importance of the topic, combined with the fact the book is a quick and interesting read, makes "Performance Scorecards" an excellent choice for most managers.