Building a Government

Balanced Scorecard

Phase 1 - Planning

Paul Arveson
The Balanced Scorecard Institute

March 2003

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 Example of a Government
Balanced Scorecard
Implementation

Mecklenburg County, N. Carolina

Howard Rohm, Consultant and Facilitator
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 Step 1: Team Formation and
Organizational Assessment

Selected strategic team

Developed team plan, schedule, budget
Examined mission, vision statements; draft a vision
of the futurefor the organization
Identified needs, key success factors to achieve the
vision
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 Engagement Timetable

3 Weeks 4th Week 5th-7th 8th-32nd

Weeks Weeks
Management Team Team Build and
review, selection orientation implement
resource and training processes
commitments

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 Tools for Organizational
Assessment
Mission & Vision statement reviews
Organization chart review
Customer Analysis
Organizational Assessment survey
SWOT Analysis
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
Benchmarking against other organizations
Gap analysis

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 Mecklenburg County
Vision Statement
In 2015, Mecklenburg County will be a
community of pride and choice for people to
LIVE, WORK and RECREATE.

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 Step 2: Define Strategic Themes

Derived from vision & assessments

Sorted out related issues
Provided more specific focus for planning

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 Examples of Strategic Themes
for Mecklenburg County
1. Effective and Efficient Government
2. Social, Educational, and Economic
Opportunity
3. Community Health & Safety
4. Growth Management &
Environment

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 Step 3. Define Perspectives and
Desired Outcomes

Perspectives: diverse ways of looking at the

organization
Desired Outcomes: meaning of mission success
for each perspective & strategic theme

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 Example of Strategic Framework
(Perspectives & Strategic Themes)
Theme 1: Theme 2: Theme 3: Theme 4:
Effective & Social, Community Growth
Efficient Education, & Health & Management &
Government Economic Safety Environment
Perspective: Opportunity
Customers

Business
Processes Desired Outcomes
Financial
Value

Learning &
Capacities

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 Examples of Perspectives
and Desired Outcomes
Perspectives:
Employee and Organizational Capacity
Internal Business Processes
Customer View
Financial Value
General Goal:
Mecklenburg government will provide services in
a highly efficient, effective and inclusive manner,
and be accountable for results.
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 Step 4. Create a Strategy Map

For each strategic theme, the team proposed a

chain of causes and effects that they believe will
lead to the desired outcomes.
They mapped the chain on a strategy map.

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 Strategy Map (example)
Improve
Returns Improve
Broaden
Operating
Revenue Mix
Efficiency
Financial
Increase
Increase Customer Customer Satisfaction
Confidence in Our Customer Through Superior
Advice Execution

Understand Develop Cross-Sell Internal Shift to

Minimize Provide
Processes
New the Product Appropriate Rapid
Customer Problems
Products Line Channel Response
Segments

Increase
Employee
Productivity

Provide
Develop Align
Access to
Strategic Strategic Personal
Skills Information Goals

Learning & Growth

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Example of Mecklenburg
County Strategy Map

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 Step 5. Define Performance
Measures and Targets

For each theme/desired outcome goal, the team asked how will
we know if this goal is being achieved?
Team identified how each goal should be measured, e.g. surveys,
data collection, etc.
Team examined baseline data (where available) to set schedules
and targets

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 Example of Strategic Plan
Strategy Map Metrics Targets Strategic Initiatives

Customer
approval
rating
Each Strategic Initiative
Plan contains:
Cycle Sponsor
time Schedule
reduction Resources
Budget
% strategic
skills
available

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 Measures Before Projects!

Strategy Objectives Measures Targets Initiatives

The strategic planning process should use initiatives to help the

organization achieve its strategic objectives, not as ends in
themselves.

Public sector and nonprofit organizations are especially

guilty of often confusing initiative completion as the target
rather than improvements in mission objectives
and agency effectiveness. -- Kaplan & Norton, 2001

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 Example of Performance
Measurements
5

4
Score

TARGET
3

0
95% Confidence Limits
Launch Months
Initiative
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 Step 6. Develop Strategic
Initiatives

The team prioritized needs based on strategic

importance and performance, and created
initiatives for improvements
Each initiative was linked to strategic
measurements so its progress could be
monitored
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Example of Strategic Initiatives

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 Mecklenburg County
BSC Implementation Milestones
October 2002 County results reported in local news
May 2002 Department/Division Scorecards
Completed
February 2002 BOCC Approved Community &
Corporate Scorecard
June 2001 BOCC Adopted Mecklenburg Vision 2015
March 2001 BOCC Established Vision Elements
January 2001 BOCC Agreed to Develop a
Community Vision

(BOCC = Board of County Commissioners)

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 BSC Implementation
Milestones, Cont.
Nov. 2002 Request for Proposal to acquire an
automated BSC system
Feb. 2003 Select best bid and award contract for
initial system
Apr. 2003 Initial system demonstration
June 2003 Expand coverage of data collection
and reporting

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Step by Step to Specific Plans

General Mission What do we do?

Specifically, what
Strategic Themes is important to us?

Desired Outcomes Specifically, what

results do we want?
Metrics Specifically, how will we know
when we have achieved the results?
Strategic
Initiatives Specifically, what actions do we
believe will lead to the desired results?

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