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Anybody undertaken ways to get public sector bodies to adopt balanced scorecards / performance reporting and overcome the objections

Mark's picture
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Burnsp-

Yes - that's been my job several times for public sector clients.

I would urge you to NEVER try balanced scorecard there. It's terribly difficult to implement, and too complex to follow for most, and too many implementations have subjective factors in them. Don't.

Performance management is also tricky in most public orgs. Historically, they have resisted. As long as there are prohibitions to significant punishments/terminations, there will be resistance.

This is not motivational, I know. Can you tell me more?

Mark

brucen's picture

We did a Balanced Scorecard at the University of Edinburgh. In some respects it differs from the textbook Kaplan and Norton approach, but the buy-in from senior management and lay governors has been very good. And it has fed back into improvements in our strategic planning, including longer term targets focussed on the BS, and now a review of the BS to better fit with our Strategic Plan.

The fundamental thing which made the process work was strong support from our CEO.

There is a lot of material on the web at:

http://www.planning.ed.ac.uk/BSC.htm

Bruce

DavidB's picture

Are balanced scorecards covered in the pod cast yet (I am still behind on my cast listening). If not, can some provide a summary of them. I have not heard the term much before reading these forums, and I am unfamiliar with what they refer to.

Thanks
David

Mark's picture
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Bruce-

Well done on the implementation! Glad it went well.

CEO encoruagement is quite the effective motivator in all implementations, but in BSC efforts, it's really make or break.

Mark

Mark's picture
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David-

You could buy The Balanced Scorecard by Kaplan and Norton, or just type "balanced scorecard" into Google. The images that show up on Google are excellent, and there are many many websites that will tell you everything you need to know.

here's the wikipedia entry, which is good at a high level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_scorecard

Mark

pburns's picture

Thanks for the comments, unfortunatly do not have buy in from CX and most senior management are just paying lip service to BSC. met with each Head of Service and got agreement of measures and to use BSC. Got a reporting mechanism set up to report to CX and Directors but still feel the BSC is not being used

Any other advice would be welcome