When to cascade to individuals?
03/26/08 8:31 AM

Hi, I'm new to posting on any forum, but I saw this site, and it looked interesting. I hope it really takes off as I could use the support of a community.

Anyway, our Association started using the BSC about 18 months ago. We started with a top level scorecard, and then cascaded down to our divisions. This is working in an OK fashion. I say OK, because we just haven't been doing it very long, so we are feeling our way around a bit at this point. Fortunately, our leadership team and board is open minded, so we are conducting meetings and really trying to do it the right way.

I am the VP of our Human Resources department. We have a scorecard, but I am thinking about how to integrate the BSC into our annual performance management plans. At what point do we start driving this to the individual level? Do we need to see success in our other scorecards? Also, how should we go through the process? Help or Guidance on any of these questions is greatly appreciated.

Kim

RE: When to cascade to individuals?
03/26/08 10:39 AM

Kim,

In my experience, the best time to cascade the BSC to individuals is after you've seen corporate buy-in to the overall Balanced Scorecard process. This doesn't mean you need to already be enjoying results from your BSC, but everyone should understand the BSC and what it means to the organization.

In your case, if you've been doing this for 18 months, and you've cascaded down to divisions, and you're holding management meetings on your strategy, it's probably a good time to get started. I suggest that you pilot the program in one division, then roll out broadly after you've had success.

Dylan Miyake
Managing Partner, Ascendant SMG

RE: When to cascade to individuals?
04/04/08 10:19 AM

Thanks Dylan, I'll see what aspects of the BSC we can integrate into our upcoming performance management process. Kim

RE: When to cascade to individuals?
06/19/08 9:14 AM

We took a different approach and tweaked our current PDP process to align with the scorecard that we were using. We did not make a big program out of this process. I'm not even sure that our employees saw it as a big change. So far it has been pretty smooth.

RE: When to cascade to individuals?
07/09/08 2:44 PM

We have more volunteers than employees in our organization. Is it possible to "cascade" to volunteers? It seems like a necessary alignment process for us?
-Jeanne

RE: When to cascade to individuals?
08/20/08 9:00 AM

I have never involved volunteers, but IMHO, it seems like if volunteers play a big role in your organization, that you would want them contributing to the strategy. Thus, you have to involve them in the strategy. I know you don't reward volunteers the same way, but nonfinancial rewards, including recognition help to motivate all types of staff.
-Martin