Hi
Implementation of Balance Score Card:
Implementing an established valuation program like the Balanced Scorecard is a significant change in the way employees view their job. The natural paranoia that comes with change is bound to surface, so it's important to ensure that everyone is into it at every level of the company, from the senior executives all the way to the entry-level employees.
To make that happen at Castle, Nordin relied on systematic, organizationwide communication of the Scorecard concept. Initially, Nordin and five other top-level execs trained on the Scorecard and agreed it was worth a look. Then, instead of emerging from the mountain holding a pair of tablets and an edict for the organization, they grabbed the next 12 managers down the chain, trained them on the Scorecard and solicited their feedback.
They continued this process until 80 people were involved. Only at that point did they commit to the Scorecard, sending those 80 managers back to their business unit to talk it up with their employees. "We told them to go back and tell their employees what they'd been working on for three days, and to say, 'I'm not sure I'm convinced—what do you think?'" says Nordin. This tactic involved everyone in the entire organization—a critical factor in the Scorecard's success.
Once the staff was ready to go, A.M. Castle hired a training company that developed visual "learning maps" for employees to better understand the Scorecard concept. The company also developed a board game on the Balanced Scorecard that was similar to Monopoly and sent managers to play the game with their business unit. "We laminated them, stuck 'em on a wall and gave out game cards," says Nordin. "It was a huge success."
Balanced Scorecard Collaborative's Norton says that approach is the most effective way to implement the Balanced Scorecard, adding that the Monopoly game is a cool idea. "What this tells me is they understood that to make this work, they had to push it all the way down to the bottom of the organization and to make strategy everyone's job," he says.
Susan Dallas, research director at Gartner in Stamford, Conn., says the best way to tell if the Balanced Scorecard is working for your company is if you set higher measurement goals every year and continue to meet them. Obviously, it takes time to make this type of assessment. In the short term, however, you should be able to see anecdotal evidence that the approach is working, such as whether or not the organization is meeting budgetary and project goals.
Bob Sheridan, head of market support systems at Hartford, health insurer Aetna, says you know it's working if after you ask people what they do, they define their job in the perspective of where it fits in with the strategic business goals of the organization, rather than simply saying, "I write code."
Finally, says DuPont's Bankston, you should see vastly improved alignment between business and IT. "We're now seeing real joint decision making around what we do or don't do because of how it fits in around the work of the Scorecard."
Source:
http://www.cio.com
Regards
Julie