Apporter la carte de pointage équilibrée à la vie: le Microsoft Balanced Scorecard Framework (document en anglais)

Bringing the Balanced Scorecard to Life: The Microsoft Balanced Scorecard Framework

Abstract

This paper describes the Microsoft® approach to developing and implementing a Balanced Scorecard for enterprise performance management. It presents basic information on the Balanced Scorecard performance management methodology, and identifies key business issues that must be addressed in developing and deploying a balanced scorecard. The paper then presents the Microsoft Balanced Scorecard Framework (BSCF)—a comprehensive set of techniques, tools, and best practices to speed scorecard implementation using toolsets with which organizations are familiar.

An extensive body of research and literature describing the Balanced Scorecard exists. That body of knowledge is constantly being expanded by The Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Balanced Scorecard Institute, various consulting organizations, software companies, and client organizations. This paper cannot comprehensively cover such a complex topic or reflect accurately many of the nuances of scorecard development and implementation. Instead, it presents a basic conceptual overview of the Balanced Scorecard. Interested readers are encouraged to use the bibliography presented at the end of this paper as a guide to more detailed information.

Contents

Executive Summary 1

Introduction 2

About the Balanced Scorecard 3

Background and History 3

Empowering the Knowledge Worker 4

Elements of the Balanced Scorecard 4

Critical Success Factors for BSC Development 8

Common Pitfalls 9

Automating the Balanced Scorecard 10

The Microsoft Balanced Scorecard Framework 12

Facets of the Framework 12

Conclusion 22

Selected Bibliography 23

Useful Web Sites 23

Executive Summary

Traditional performance measures are insufficient to gauge performance and guide organizations in today’s rapidly changing, complex economic landscape. Organizations need to link performance measurement to strategy, and must measure performance in ways that both promote positive future results and reflect past performance.

The Balanced Scorecard has developed over the last eleven years as a powerful way to implement strategy and continuously monitor strategic performance. Creating a strategy focused organization (the phrase coined by the founders of the Balanced Scorecard methodology) is a significant, challenging culture change for many organizations. Success in achieving this change requires:

• Consistent executive support and involvement.

• Education, communication, and visibility of the strategy and measurements of its effectiveness throughout the organization.

• Constant feedback loops so that strategy is an every-day consideration.

• Tools to enable non-technical users to understand the key drivers of the measures.

• Translation of the strategy to operational terms so that alignment to strategy and implementation of it occur at all levels of an organization.

Organizations that have successfully implemented the Balanced Scorecard have achieved remarkable transformations in their financial performance, in many cases vaulting to the top ranks in their industry groups.

Many aspects of Balanced Scorecard development and deployment depend on effective use of technology to be successful. Numerous software packages have been developed to help automate the Balanced Scorecard, but it is very difficult to deliver the needed capabilities in a single software package. Therefore, the Microsoft Balanced Scorecard Framework has been developed to allow organizations to:

• Develop and deploy a scorecard economically using an existing infrastructure.

• Manage and display the data and knowledge pertinent to Balanced Scorecards.

• Facilitate analysis of measures so that prompt corrective action can take place.

The framework provides a comprehensive, flexible, cost-effective way to deploy the Balanced Scorecard and deliver superior returns on people, processes, customers, and technologies.

Introduction

How do we communicate strategy through a complex, multi-faceted, decentralized global organization? How do we align our organization and minimize superfluous activities so that we’re all working efficiently to the same ends? How do we measure the effectiveness of our strategy and its implementation? How do we promote a culture of agility to respond to the rapidly changing business climate we face?

As business leaders wrestle with these questions each day, they confront the reality that, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” In other words, effective performance management requires accurate performance measurement.

Leaders also understand that performance measurement itself is not enough. The value of measurement is that it identifies where action should be taken. So, effective performance measurement systems must be able to:

• Accurately reflect a business situation.

• Guide employees to take the right actions in situations where action is required.

• Gauge the effectiveness of those actions.

A performance measurement system, then, is a closed loop system that embodies situational analysis of information, corrective actions, and result evaluation.

The Balanced Scorecard is a proven performance measurement system. It is a comprehensive strategic performance management system and methodology. It is a framework for defining, refining and communicating strategy, for translating strategy to operational terms, and for measuring the effectiveness of strategy implementation.

This paper briefly describes the history, evolution, and key elements of the Balanced Scorecard. It then identifies the critical success factors for a Balanced Scorecard implementation. Finally,

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