By developing the scorecard you look for the right measures that will cascade as meaningful drivers of the behaviours and results of others.  However, in making those steps [...]]]> If you have ever tried to cascade measures on a balanced scorecard you have a problem that is common to many starting down the balanced scorecard route.

By developing the scorecard you look for the right measures that will cascade as meaningful drivers of the behaviours and results of others.  However, in making those steps the gap between strategy and action widens.  What is the right measure?  Will this be meaningful?  Will it encourage the right results?  Will it encourage the right behaviour?  The uncertainty grows.  The meaning starts to disappear.  The worries build:  will these measures be meaningful and create the  right behaviours?

Let me explain where some of these problems lie…

Back when I started working for Norton & Kaplan in 1994, soon after their first book was published I would look at old projects and cases on the servers and talk to people about them.  I realised three important things:

1)      that the scorecard was the last piece you developed.

2)      It was about engaging managers and how they were thinking.  That is what needs to be communicated.

The first insight helps you realise that BEFORE to think about any measures you have to develop a strategy map for that team.  You also need a view of the future  and how the strategy will change the organisation.   This is where 90% of so called “Balanced scorecards” go wrong.   Only when this strategy map has captured the strategy, the business model and the thinking of the management team do you even think about starting the scorecard.  If you miss out capturing the strategy you have mere operational measures.

The second insight is that it is about how managers think and talk about their strategy.  Strategy maps help you tell the story of the strategy so people get it.  (That is why my first book was “Communicating Strategy”).  Mere scorecards don’t do this.  Strategy maps and scorecards together do achieve this (If you develop them by engaging the hearts and minds of the team).  This way they can tell the story of their strategy (backed up with the scorecard). When you track progress you use both.  That way you can tell whether things are working operationally and the strategy is working as well.

Developing a balanced scorecard is not an intellectual exercise.  It is a social process.

3)      Finally, there is one piece that almost everyone misses.  YOU DO NOT CREATE A BALANCED SCORECARD FOR AN ORGANISATION!

Yes really!  What you do is create a strategy map and scorecard for each management team.  The problem is that in Norton & Kaplan’s books, to simplify the story, they tend to show a strategy map for the executive team and describe it as the organisation’s strategy map.  It is, but there are others beneath it.   I know because I worked on a few of those cases and examples.  It is this cascade of strategy maps (before you develop scorecards) the solves the problems you are facing.  Miss this out and you will have one strategy map and 120 measures!  Precisely the problem that the balanced scorecard approach was designed to solve.

So what can you do?

1)      You could buy my book, “Strategy Mapping for learning organizations”.

1. Dear David Norton said, It is a must read book for anyone doing a strategic balanced scorecard based performance management system.  That was very kind given he has written 5 books on the subject with Bob Kaplan.
2. There are whole chapters on cascading scorecards (or rather strategy maps) and it introduces the cascade map that solves your problem at source.  How to buy Strategy Mapping for learning organizations

2)      You could have me do consultancy for your clients.  My contact details for Balanced Scorecard consultancy are at the top of the page and here on the main website

Strategy maps are fundamental to effective balanced scorecard design and this book describes not simply a set of [...]]]> There was a short delay before Strategy Mapping for learning Organizations was available in the US, but checking in with Amazon.com it is now available.    You can link through to Amazon.com easily via this link.

Strategy maps are fundamental to effective balanced scorecard design and this book describes not simply a set of strategy maps to copy, not simply what you do to create strategy maps, but how you think about strategy maps and their implications for executives, and staff during their  design, implementation and use.

Armed with this knowledge your organisations will be far more likely to leverage the benefits of your balanced scorecards.   As David Norton himself says,

“…the work of Phil Jones makes a unique contribution to the field of performance management.”

“This book is a ‘drivers manual’ for anyone who is implementing a Balanced Scorecard performance management system. [...] it is required reading.”

David P Norton, October 2011
Author: The Balanced Scorecard. Founder and Director: Palladium Group, Inc.
(David, along with Robert Kaplan, is one of the originators of the Balanced Scorecard Approach.)

What better recommendation could I have?

So if you are looking for David Norton’s “Required reading”  then you can get it now.  Here is a quick link to more details [...]]]> Checking in with Amazon UK again and they have re-stocked “Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations”.  So hopefully they will keep a good stock in place now they it is in demand.

So if you are looking for David Norton’s “Required reading”  then you can get it now.  Here is a quick link to more details about “Strategy Mapping for learning organizations” and how you can buy it.

Alternatively click on the image to go straight to Amazon UK.

So a big thank you to all who are buying my book.  Presumably you also want agility in your [...]]]> A friend ordered a copy of my latest book, “Strategy Mapping for learning organizations” from Amazon earlier this week and discovered there were only two left.   Today I checked and there are on back order.

So a big thank you to all who are buying my book.  Presumably you also want agility in your balanced scorecards.

If anyone is desperate for a copy of “Strategy Mapping for learning organizations”, and Amazon is out of stock you can either get it from the Publisher Gower (Where to buy Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations) or in extreme circumstances I have a few.   If you ask me nicely I might even sign it for you.  ;-)

Thanks for your support

Phil Jones

If you are looking for an electronic version of my Book about strategy maps, balanced scorecards for agile organisations and how to design, implement and use them effectively, then there are several links available.

UK versions (priced in pounds) are available [...]]]> My publishers tell me that Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations is now available as an ebook.

If you are looking for an electronic version of my Book about strategy maps, balanced scorecards for agile organisations and how to design, implement and use them effectively, then there are several links available.

UK versions (priced in pounds) are available from

• ebooks.com will sell you an electronic copy of Strategy Mapping via this link.  It can either be an online version or via a download.

US versions (priced in dollars) are available from

• Powells books an ebook version of Strategy  Mapping for Learning Organizations
• Diesel books an ebook version of Strategy  Mapping for Learning Organizations

At the moment the ebook edition of “Strategy Mapping for Learning Organizations” is only be available in PDF (Adobe Digital Editions) format with DRM and will be priced the same as the print edition so in this case £70.00/$134.95. However there is VAT on ebooks so it may work out more expensive.  You may find that different sites will sell it at a variety of discounts so it always worth looking around.

For Kindle fans, you might have to wait a while.  Amazon decide when they convert books to Kindle format and it is not in the control of the publisher.  As soon as it is available we will let you know.

I understand many corporates will have access to libraries where electronic copies can be borrowed and even shared amongst their colleagues.    This sound particularly useful when doing strategic balanced scorecard implementations.  In these cases contact your corporate library provider who can get hold of ebook copies via the  publisher, Gower/Ashgate.

Phil Jones

Author, Speaker & Consultant

I give away a lot in this book. I recently met a colleague over dinner and we discussed Balanced scorecard design for over 2 hours.  Almost everything we talked about I could [...]]]> It’s official folks.  You can now order and get copies of my guide to developing, implementing and using Strategy Maps to create effective, agile, strategic balanced scorecards.

I give away a lot in this book. I recently met a colleague over dinner and we discussed Balanced scorecard design for over 2 hours.  Almost everything we talked about I could reference sections in the book, particularly when we were talking about engaging the executive team in then strategic balanced scorecard and designing strategy maps that captured and communicated the business model of the organisation

There are currently two ways to obtain the book and both can be accessed  through my website:

a) Amazon.co.uk now has it available and I am reliably informed that they are delivering pretty quick.

b) Through Gower.  Clicking through to the publisher’s website will get you a 10% discount.  More importantly they will ship Strategy Mapping to anywhere in the  world for you.    This is where I point my overseas (non-UK clients).

Although listed in Amazon.com, for the  US market, Strategy Mapping was not yet available at the time of writing on Amazon.com.  However  you can get a copy through the publishers US arm Ashgate publishing via this link (Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations published in the US)

If you are after multiple copies of the  book for your balanced Scorecard training course, team or performance management specialists, do drop me a line and I can put you in touch with the publisher.

Happy reading.

Phil

They had a really good lean deployment methodology which they had learnt  from [...]]]> Recently a client was having a few problems with their planning process.  How to engage with their managers, getting the tools of strategy and performance to make coherent sense as a whole, making the story of their strategy clear, making it easy to manage and deliver.

They had a really good lean deployment methodology which they had learnt  from Unipart: it included the Lean Policy deployment Matrix (Sometimes known as the Strategy deployment Matrix). This was being used to cascade the overall corporate objectives, to cascade the main change programmes, and align projects, deliverables and results locally in business units.

At the same time they were using a simplified scorecard, from the  balanced scorecard approach, for Business As Usual measures and targets.  This was divided into domains and contained “KPIs” and targets.

The problem was there appeared no clear link between the cascade of strategy using the  Policy Deployment Matrix and the  BAU scorecard.   They were therefore using, what they called, at strategy map, to create a set of local objectives that showed how a local business unit would contribute to the overall strategic objectives.  However this was not a Norton & Kaplan Strategy Map, but simply a link of strategic to local objectives.

All this was not fitting together well: How did the policy deployment matrix’s measures and deliverables link to the Business as usual  (BAU) scorecard measures/KPIs?  How did change affect BAU?   Were these the right things to be measuring?  Would they distort behaviours?

They were also in  the middle of their planning round.  They needed to find a way through this set of tools that made sense, without starting again.  (A catch was  that neither the BAU scorecard, nor the Policy Deployment matrix could be changed.  They were corporate standard.)

Now, the scorecard clearly derived from Norton & Kaplan Balanced Scorecard thinking (excect they had missed some steps, lost cause and effect, discarded local objectives and ignored the projects).

The Unipart Policy Deployment Matrix also derived from Norton & Kaplan thinking:  The Unipart guys acknowledged this in their paper “Hoshin Kanri, or get your ducks in a row (See my article specifically about Lean Policy Deployment matrices).

So we took a step back, created some proper Strategy maps, from the modern balanced scorecard methodology, that described the local business units,  and then laid their existing measures, targets, deliverables, objectives and KPIs on top on these new strategy maps.  (You can read more about developing strategy maps in my book).

Guess what?  Everything suddenly became clear.

• They had a picture of each business unit and how it operated.
• They had a clear description of how that business unit supported its customers, which in turn contributed to the wider strategic objectives.
• They could see where Business as usual measures were located in the process and clearly see what they were measuring.
• They had a clear view of where the change projects affected the local units and how they would drive change.
• They also had a view of the underlying capabilities that each business unit needed to learn, grow and develop to become more effective and position itself long term.

Most importantly, from a facilitator’s perspective  they had tools that facilitated conversation and discussion with the executives and managers in the business units

• They had a tools that they could check the  overall picture.
• They had the understanding of how these pieces fitted together
• They had tools of conversation about strategy and performance as well as business as usual

They did not need to change their existing tools (The policy deployment matrix or scorecard ) but they were able to see clearly how they could adapt it, without breaking the corporate rules, to make them both clearer and easier to use.

Our approach is to help clients understand their tools so they can use them better.  Such tools should support strategy and change and should make managing business as usual, easy and clear.  When they get in the  way and act to obscure the  picture they are doing the organisation a dis-service, rather than service.  Potentially distorting behaviours, causing people to focus on the wrong thing, and managers to manage the wrong things. All of which leads to missed opportunities, poor operational performance and a failure to implement necessary change and transformation in the strategy.

To avoid these sorts of problems and improve your planning and performance management approach, give us a call.  We are happy to have an initial conversation about your needs.

Well, my new book, “Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations” is due out in December 2011, and I am delighted, honoured and humbled that David Norton himself, has written a Foreword for [...]]]> I cannot tell you how chuffed I am.  I will admit I even did a little dance the other day.  Why you might ask?

Well, my new book, “Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations” is due out in December 2011, and I am delighted, honoured and humbled that David Norton himself, has written a Foreword for the book.  Yes David P Norton of Norton and Kaplan fame, who together co-authored the original “Balanced Scorecard” book, and four other books since: “The Strategy Focused Organization”, “Strategy Maps”, “Alignment” and most recently “The Execution Premium”.

To have David Norton write a foreword for my book is in itself is a great honour. You can imagine how quickly I got onto my publishers to ensure that “Foreword by David P Norton” was included on the front cover.

However, I want to tell you what really made me chuffed.  Of course David picks up on the fact that I am talking about Balanced scorecards and strategy maps from a perspective of behaviours: how people think about strategy and performance.  Particularly, that the book explores how executives think about their strategy, their approach to performance management and the role of their Strategic Balanced Scorecard.  David Norton refers to the book’s emphasis on both the left and right brain activities involved. Not simply the processes and techniques that “the engineers amongst us” so love (David’s background is engineering).

David picked up the point that much of the book is written from the Balanced Scorecard Faciliator’s perspective, as well as the executive and leader:

“Using the Balanced Scorecard/Strategy Map methodologies as his point of departure, Phil describes their use in practice from the perspective of a facilitator.”

So of course the facilitator is working with the executive and management teams, the leadership teams, when they are developing their balanced scorecard and their strategy map. From the leadership perspective, David highlighted that successful leaders are also right brained. As he puts it:

“Our experience, however, indicates that effective leaders need more than a toolkit. 

Successful leaders are intuitive; they have a sense of what needs to be done. Successful leaders are communicators; they need to simplify and target complex messages.

Successful leaders are motivators; they need to show ‘what’s in it for me.’

Successful leaders have a strong ‘right brain’. “

Building upon this he continues:

“The reality of a performance management system is that it must support both the left brain (structure) and right brain (intuitive) of a user. In fact, the left and right brain activities should be integrated.”

He makes an interesting point that I had not explicitly mentioned in the book, thought all the clues are there.

“Jointly building a strategy map (a “left brain” approach) helps create the teamwork.

An executive senses a need to break down traditional siloes (a “right brain” need). Cascading the strategy map (a “left brain” solution) helps to cut across siloes and create a holistic view of the organization.

Cascading the strategy map (a “left brain” solution) helps to cut across siloes and create a holistic view of the organization.”

He continues to a point that for me gets to the heart of why so many balanced scorecards become operational collections of measures.  And why so many people miss the important subtleties and principles that he and Bob Kaplan talk about in their books.  The underlying difference.

“We tend to think of a performance management system as a collection of structured methodologies and tools.  By its very nature, it is easier to describe that which is structured than that which is unstructured.

I believe the Balanced Scorecard approach has been effective, in part, because the left-brain structured approaches complement the right brain needs of a leader.“

Then he asks a vital question: 

“But what are these leadership needs that help mobilize, focus and align the organization?“

I will admit the next line he wrote shocked me.  Not because I disagreed or the answer he gave, but how he framed the answer.  He says…

“This is where the work of Phil Jones makes a unique contribution to the field of performance management.”

I will admit I was stunned by that.  I had to read that again, “Phil Jones makes a unique contribution to the field of performance management.”  Wow!   I firmly believe that the whole behavioural side of strategy and performance management is not given enough emphasis.  It is all too process and toolkit based.  Much of my work over the last 15 years has been focused on the behavioural aspects.  many regular readers will know I frequently say, “It is not about measures, it is about behaviours Stupid!”  So to have David Norton endorse my “Strategy Mapping for Learning Organizations” in  such a way was truly humbling.  (And I did indeed do a little jig at this point).

David’s final paragraph also made me smile, for two reasons.  Its complement and it humour.  For David finishes off the Foreword with the paragraph

“This book is a “drivers manual” for anyone who is implementing a Balanced Scorecard performance management system.

Whether you drive on the left or the right, it is required reading.”

Well!   David Norton finishing off with “Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations” is required reading, put the icing on the cake.

So I am very grateful to David for his kind words and taking the time from his busy schedule to do a foreword for me.  And also very honoured.  I am delighted that David picked up on the left and right brain aspects of the balanced scorecard, strategy maps and the whole approach in the book.  This sort of thinking underpins the Fourth Generation Balanced Scorecard approach I have developed.   I hope you don’t mind me sharing my small moment of glory with you.

If you would like to read the Foreword in full, or even buy the book, you can find out more about Strategy Mapping for Learning Organizations, on the book’s page of my website.

Signed,

A rather chuffed Phil Jones.

You can find out more about “Strategy Mapping for Learning organizations” here

As is fairly common it was simply an excel spreadsheet showing a collection of measures, without any actions, projects, objectives or ownership. They had or course categorised them into perspectives, but in true “not invented here” fashion they had [...]]]> Working with a management team the other day, they showed me their recently created “Balanced Scorecard”.

As is fairly common it was simply an excel spreadsheet showing a collection of measures, without any actions, projects, objectives or ownership. They had or course categorised them into perspectives, but in true “not invented here” fashion they had decided to call them “domains”. Most were activity or process measures, a few were customer, and a few financial.  Fairly typical thinking for a first generation balanced scorecard consisting simply of a set of measures, in this case around 50-60 with various colours showing trends and targets.

There were no objectives, no drivers of performance and no relationship to projects, or organisational change.  Typical first generation balanced scorecard thinking.

You will know that first generation balanced scorecard thinking is very much of the mindset “How do we get a wider perspective of the measures in the organisation?” This was a classic of that thinking and mind set.

Digging a little deeper we got to an interesting truth. This was the scorecard presented to the executive team and board. When i asked, who produced it, the response came back was that it was “produced by middle managers and represented what they though the executive and board needed to know”.

I think this is quite a revealing comment. Using the principle, “A strategy map and balanced scorecard for a management team: a set of balanced scorecards for an organisation” this was clearly a middle management scorecard presented to the executive. It also explains why the board were complaining that they felt they had few levers of control that were working. The control of these levers was the domain of the middle managers: they were the ones who primarily gathered, managed and influenced these measures.

Again this breaks the principle, “Create a scorecard for a team to influence their decision making.”

I invite you to have a look at the balanced scorecards in your organisation. Who designed them, for whom to managed? It creates some revealing answers…