Company Scorecard

[Xsorovan]

I'm an IT manager for a fairly small non-profit and my company has decided that they want a "Scorecard" from each department. When I ask my boss what this is or even looks like I got a kind of vague list of what they want it to DO, and when I asked what that meant he said he simply wants "Key Indicators". *bang head against wall*

Can you guys help break down this Business Buzzword chatter into something I can actually use? I've tried Googleing the phrase for some help but with very little success.

Thanks...

 

[tw1164]

You need think outside the box after you touched base w/ each of the departments

 

[Atomic Playboy]

You want help with the phrase key indicators? That seems self-evident. Key indicators are just how well a department is living up to its stated objectives. Find out the stated objectives of a particular department (or the job descriptions if it's being done on an individual basis), and restate them as questions with a likert scale response.

Example: If the department has listed "foster communications with potential donors" as a stated objective, put a question on that says: "Has the department fostered communications with potential donors?" And then a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being "not at all" and 5 being "mad real yo." You could keep it even more vague and just ask if the department met their stated objectives, but that's poor surveying as it tries to address multiple issues within 1 question.

 

[Xsorovan]

Originally posted by: tw1164
You need think outside the box after you touched base w/ each of the departments

You rock. That was great. I'm going to go read some Dilbert comics now to make myself feel better.

 

[Xsorovan]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
Example: If the department has listed "foster communications with potential donors" as a stated objective, put a question on that says: "Has the department fostered communications with potential donors?" And then a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being "not at all" and 5 being "mad real yo." You could keep it even more vague and just ask if the department met their stated objectives, but that's poor surveying as it tries to address multiple issues within 1 question.

Hmmmm, ok. Getting a better idea of what this needs to look like. Thanks for that Atomic Playboy.

 

[kranky]

You start with a list of departments, then ask each department what are the measurements that best indicate how they are doing. Those are your "Key Indicators".

For example, a non-profit may track how their spending is divided between programs, administration, and fund-raising. That would be a Key Indicator. The IT group might track help desk requests handled per month, and percent of server uptime.

Any measurement that indicates how a department is performing is a Key Indicator.

Then you put a bunch of key indicators together on one screen, and you have a Scorecard. For extra style points, color-code the numbers so green means a good score, yellow is caution, red is poor. You might also hear the term "dashboard" used for the same thing.

 

[Cattlegod]

Sadly, this is the stuff I deal with every day.

A scorecard is essentially an excel document with rows and columns. each row is a separate 'indicator'. The column headers can be:

Key Indicator | Champion | Rating (RYG) | Status | Target | Comments


Coming up with quality key indicators is the hard part. Here is an example (from the automotive world). I'd try to come up with some for your business, but I really don't know what your department does.

Indicator: 430 engineering tests completed on time
Champion: Engineering Manager
Rating: Yellow
Status: Currently 200 tests complete, 220 tests on track, 10 tests late to completion with recovery plans identified
Target: Green if 100% testing complete on time, yellow if recovery plans identified for late testing, red for late testing w/o recovery plan
Comments: Currently 10 tests related to the cooling system are late to completion due to late delivery of vehicles. Plan to work next 3 weekends to contain testing completion dates.

 

[PepePeru]

in order to foster a culture of communication, you must first ascertain what your organization hoping to communicate with your key indicators.
more often than not, key indicators are tossed aside as a business creates its way forward.
this is one of the downsides of rabid recapitalization.
it is important to remain on the bleeding edge AND use key indicators as a success-a-metric.

there. i hope that cleared it up for you.

 

[Xsorovan]

Originally posted by: Cattlegod
Sadly, this is the stuff I deal with every day.

A scorecard is essentially an excel document with rows and columns. each row is a separate 'indicator'.

Wow... this is why I typically try and stay out of the business world as much as possible. I can make it sure look pretty in excel though.

Thanks for the tips on this. Very helpful.

 

[Fritzo]

What you need to do is get your ducks in a row and then run it up a pole to see if you hit critical mass. The synergy of everyone being on the same page will allow you to tackle things head on.

Now, if you get down to the wire, get yourself a point person so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
What you need to do is get your ducks in a row and then run it up a pole to see if you hit critical mass. The synergy of everyone being on the same page will allow you to tackle things head on.

Now, if you get down to the wire, get yourself a point person so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

lol

 

[Xsorovan]

Any buzzwords for "scape goat" I should know?

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
What you need to do is get your ducks in a row and then run it up a pole to see if you hit critical mass. The synergy of everyone being on the same page will allow you to tackle things head on.

Now, if you get down to the wire, get yourself a point person so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

That's a dramatic new paradigm. Blast fax kudos all around.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Originally posted by: Xsorovan
Any buzzwords for "scape goat" I should know?

Never make it obvious that you are setting up a scapegoat. Just say "responsibility for this lies with x." For example, "responsibility for the Martian rover slamming into the surface of the planet at thousands of miles an hour lies with Canada, who employed a voodoo curse against our success out of jealousy, as they lack a dedicated space program."

 

[JulesMaximus]

Here are some actual buzzwords from a company I work for:

Reach Out
Step Up
Build Trust
Be Aligned
Embrace Process

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

OK, Kranky? Cattlegod? That fact that you guys not only know about this form of corporate doublespeak but, deal with it often, is seriously scary. How do you maintain sanity in that kind of environment? I would either go postal and staple the person who requested a "scorecard" from me to the company logo in the breakroom or, I would go to lunch and never come back.

 

[Cattlegod]

Originally posted by: MagnusTheBrewer
OK, Kranky? Cattlegod? That fact that you guys not only know about this form of corporate doublespeak but, deal with it often, is seriously scary. How do you maintain sanity in that kind of environment? I would either go postal and staple the person who requested a "scorecard" from me to the company logo in the breakroom or, I would go to lunch and never come back.

Haha. Well, I hate my job (not because of the type of work, but because of the work environment) but the stuff grows on you.

Last week I was typing a letter and used the word commonize. spellcheck didn't recognize it and I was thinking "wtf, how did I mispell the word". I then proceeded to dictionary.com and google. Come to find out, it is a completely new word that either my company made up or the industry made up. I had just used it so much and everyone around me used it, I just assumed it was an actual word lol. The stuff just becomes like a second language.

 

[kranky]

Once you've seen enough buzzwords come and go, they don't affect you any more.

But take the scorecard example. Someone might say they want a "scorecard". Buzzword? Maybe. I know what they are trying to do, though. They want to have a way of monitoring how the company is doing that is easy to understand. That's to be expected of managers. They are supposed to know how things are going.

Not long ago, they would do that by looking through long, dry, printed reports full of numbers, making up a complicated spreadsheet, keying in many of the numbers from the reports, generating a graph, and interpreting the results while hoping they didn't make any data entry errors that would invalidate the results. The scorecard saves them lots of time. It's useful. It should help the company perform better. So I don't write it off as corporate doublespeak. It's just a word that communicates what they are talking about.

To me that's very different from blather like saying they are implementing a "Productivity Transformation Program" when they mean "We're laying people off". [that's real - from Schering-Plough] Or, "BHAG" which was popular for a while some years back. It was an acronym for "Big hairy audacious goal". The idea was that you should establish a very challenging target for something (productivity, sales, whatever) you want to achieve in 10 years. But somehow it was supposed to be more exciting to call it a "BHAG" (pronounced bee-hag).

 

[Jeff7]

The best one I saw thus far in my Project Management course was "Performance Gates," so called because you need to "pass through them." This is what happens when marketing people come up with business terminology - it makes the intelligent world want to lobotomize itself, just to end the pain.

 

[Modular]

If the initiative is to be seen through to sundown; that is, in order to build proper synergy among the various business sectors it is necessary for you to pass your key indicators through the quality control champion.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I'd ask what metrics your boss will present to whoever is above him and then decide what you need to measure.