School of Management Students taking the Strategic Performance Measures spent three hours role playing as Board of Trustees developing a Strategy Map for the School of Management. Their two classes on the Balanced Scorecard equipped them for the task. The output was a draft strategy map for the Simmons School of Management, the oldest all-women's business school in the country.

"Management meetings should be fun!" was the challenge from Dave Norton, originator of the Balanced Scorecard and first speaker at the networking breakfast last Thursday. With the Gauntlet thrown, the fun really began when our guest speakers from Catholic Charities and ACCION told us about the transformation their board meetings have taken since they started reporting their strategic measures on their Balanced Scorecard to the Board. When board members exclaim that they are thrilled, give standing ovations and actually take strategic action – you know you are onto something!

I recently had the opportunity to lead a clinic at GSMI's Enterprise Risk Management summit in New York. It was a very interesting and interactive session where we really had the opportunity to "roll up our sleeves" and talk about how risk management works (or doesn't, for that matter) in the trenches.

Ascendant has teamed up with the Association of Research Libraries to help several of its members build Balanced Scorecards for their organizations. This initiative kicked off not a moment too soon as one of the libraries was notified of a 12% cut to its funding next year. The idea of a library scorecard is not entirely new.

In London, some interesting news broke last week. The Department of Health hired McKinsey to draw up Balanced Scorecards for their Primary Care Trusts. The PCTs are the providers of primary healthcare in a centralized healthcare system like the UK. So of course the PCTs are not happy about it, but it does raise the question about whether a third party can build a scorecard for your organization.

I gave a presentation at the GSMI Corporate Social Responsibility Performance Conference last week in New York City. This clinic was fun and interesting. The topic was about aligning social responsibility with the Balanced Scorecard. If you have heard any of my presentations about the Balanced Scorecard in the past, you can imagine my approach.