Book Review: Performance Scorecards, by Chang & Morgan

This reads like fiction, but it’s all real stuff.

And it’s because it reads like a story that I think it’s so appropriate to the idea of building a performance culture.

Read this book and you’ll pick up a plenty of simple, quick ideas for how to engage people in a conversation about performance and measuring:

Vince looked at Libby with a weary expression: “How do other companies do it? How do they keep growing when it’s this tough? We just downsized… We’re not satisfying customers… I don’t even know if we’re making money…”
“Wow,” Libby said, “you need Performance Scorecards.”
“Scorecards?” Vince asked. “Libby, this is a business, not a bowling league.”

And so the story continues. It’s about how Vince and his team go through the journey of working out what to measure and how to improve the performance of his business.

It covers the typical challenges that people face when they embark on measuring performance, like arguments over which measure is the right measure, how to get the data, and who’s responsible for what.

And as the story unfolds through the pages, you get snippets of real life case studies thrown in, plus summaries of the process that Vince is following, which you can adapt and follow in your own business or organisation.

It’s one of the most practical books on performance measurement there is, despite the fact that it’s been around since 2000!

I do have a few words of caution, though.

Firstly, the book does very little to solve the very big problem of articulating strategy (goals or objectives) in tangible and measurable terms.

Secondly, it recommends that you brainstorm your measures. Don’t follow this advice! It looks fine in the book, but the objectives they are trying to measure are easy to measure—like profit and revenue and costs. Remember that you need a rigourous measure design process when it’s not that obvious. And often, it’s not that obvious! (See http://www.staceybarr.com/measuredesign.html)

All in all, this one is a must for your performance measurement library. A great model to follow to ease people into measuring what matters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stacey Barr is the Performance Measure Specialist, helping strategic planners, business analysts and performance measurement officers confidently facilitate their organisation to create and use meaningful performance measures with lots of buy-in. Sign up for Stacey’s free email tips at www.staceybarr.com/202tipsKPI.html and receive a complimentary copy of her renowned e-book “202 Tips for Performance Measurement”.