Strategic Performance Management Specialists
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by designing and implementing Balanced Scorecards, properly.


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Strategic Performance Management Specialists
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Performance Management Benefits

The Benefits of Strategic Performance Management
The benefits of well designed and implrmented balanced scorecards
Different demands on
performance management
Developing a culture
of performance


Introducing Strategy maps
Ensuring strategic alignment

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Strategy Maps and Strategy Mapping 1 The benefits

"I can carry the strategy around in my pocket. If I want to discuss the strategy with another manager I simply say, hey, let's have a look at your strategy map"


On these pages we explain what strategy maps are, explain some of the benefits of strategy maps, relative to balanced scorecards, and point you at some strategy map examples. We also describe some common mistakes people make when designing strategy maps, and how to avoid them.

What are strategy maps

Whereas balanced scorecard place measures in perspectives, strategy maps sit above the scorecard and provide a structured description of the strategy, from which you can choose the most appropriate measures and targets.

Using a strategy map, can dramatically improve the effect of your balanced scorecard and make it a much more strategically useful tool, rather than a mechanism of operational detail.

Strategy maps are a powerful visual tool. As you will see from the few examples we are able to publish, you can read the strategy very quickly from a strategy map. This means that you can communicate the strategy more effectively and easily so people will get it and be able to contribute to it and execute it for you.

The benefits of strategy maps as part of a modern balanced scorecard performance management approach

You all understand what each other has to do which improves management performance

You have an excellent strategy communication tool

Employee attitudes are significantly improved

    You have more confidence in the strategy and its execution

    You are more likely to deliver your strategy

Obviously your performance improvement will depend upon where you are and the particular problems and challenges you are facing. ( For more details of this research and sources read our "Making the case document")

What do strategy maps do?

They tell the story of the strategy

Well designed strategy maps enable you to tell the story of the strategy easily and allows people to read the story of the strategy as well. This dramatically increases understanding of the strategy so people can contribute to it.

They put the strategy on a single page

They are extremely powerful at creating a conversation around the strategy and checking understanding. Instead of strategy being in thick documents, it is on a single page. Many say this is the most powerful part of strategy maps.

They describe how the strategy will be executed with a simple cause and effect model

Strategy maps don't just say what you are trying to achieve. They explain very simply, how you plan to get there. because they contain a simple, but powerful cause and effect model, they explain what differences you want to make in the organisation, that will filter through to better results for your customers and ultimately improved financial outcomes.

They provide objectives rather than measures.

We have all seen examples of measure madness where organisations are inundated with measures, as well as dysfunctional behaviours caused by a poor choice of measures. Strategy maps help you avoid this by starting with objectives, so that you describe what you want to achieve (as well as how to measure it). That way, inappropriate measures get replaced with more suitable ones that better represent what you are trying to achieve.

They show the themes of the strategy

Strategy maps help you explain the themes and components of your strategy. Quite often you will have a strategy with tensions and internal pressures: build more sales, but don't increase costs, or improve quality and service with less people. Most strategies have these tensions, otherwise they would not be interesting or challenging.

Strategy maps help to explain these on a single page, so that the organisation does not become like a car with the brake and accelerator being used alternatively.

They also provide the framework for designing and managing the programmes of change in an organisation.

They ensure balanced scorecards can be cascaded.

If you have ever tried to cascade measures through an organisation you will have hit problems relatively quickly. Whilst some do drill down easily, others are incompatible with different departments, functions, areas, and levels of management.

In contrast strategy maps deal with objectives and so at each level you are asking, how we we achieve this objective, or how do we contribute to this objective? From these questions, you can ask, "What is the best way to measure these objectives at this level?"

So strategy maps are a powerful way to cascade objectives through the organisation so people can understand them and contribute to them.

They can be used to review progress against the strategy

Strategy maps are not static tools. They are tools of management that get refined and developed as management learn from their strategy and the strategy evolves.

When management teams use strategy maps in their meetings the conversation rises to a highest level, there is less operational detail and more time spent reviewing whether the strategy is working or not, and why.

This also raises the heads of people in the organisation who are also then able to discuss, understand and contribute to the strategy so that it is more likely to be delivered.

If you are interested in improving your organisation's performance, talk to us

To learn more go to:
Strategy mapping: Some examples
, or
Strategy mapping: Mistakes to avoid

We are real experts in strategy mapping and have some of the deepest and most varied experience available anywhere. In 2008 Gower will publish our book, Strategy Mapping.

To get advice on how to develop your own strategy maps, contact us.

 


Our clients say:

“The big benefit has been clarity of purpose. You allowed us to approach issues in a less emotional and more systematic way. It makes the debate far more rational.”


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