Balanced Scorecards for Colleges and Universities: Development and Deployment

1. Balanced Scorecards for Colleges and Universities: Development and Deployment

2. Balanced Scorecards Jan W. Lyddon, Ph.D. Executive Vice President San Jacinto College

3. What is a Balanced Scorecard ? A measurement system Strategic management system, and Communication tool

4. Why A Balanced Scorecard? • Increased requirements for accountability • Keep our eye on what’s most important • Focus especially on major outcomes

5. Primary Uses • Monitoring key items • Communication of priority areas for action • Myth busting – real results

6. What Is It? Visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives which fits entirely on a single screen or sheet so it can be monitored at a glance. Stephen Few, 2006

9. What is on it? • Performance Indicators: • From strategic or other plan • Of key decisions or objectives • Usually highly aggregated data • Maximum 15 – 20 • Called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

10. Kinds of Indicators • Indicators should be: • A balance of perspectives • Student perspectives, process perspectives, learning perspectives are examples • Also called categories

11. Kinds of Indicators, cont’d • Indicators should be: • A balance of leading and lagging indicators • Inputs as well as outputs or outcomes measures

12. Who uses it? • Key decision makers • Monitor regularly • Key policy makers • To make informed decisions • To communicate with external stakeholders • Internal stakeholders • To help align their actions with overall purposes

13. Components of the Indicators • The actual performance, expressed in numerical terms • The target, benchmark, or objective • The difference between actual performance and the objective • Signal values indicate how far from the objective or target (“best, middle, worst”)

14. Categories for Indicators • Four or five categories: • Strategic plan goals, or • Perspectives, such as: • Stakeholder • Processes • Learning and innovation • Financial

15. Examples of Indicators • Stakeholder: • Student satisfaction • Student retention and graduation rates • Community support • Processes: • Continuous improvement initiatives • Time required to complete DE • Efficiency measures (e.g., percentage of seats filled)

16. Examples of Indicators, Cont’d • Learning and innovation: • Professional development impacts • New programs • Resources: • Enrollment • Donations • Budget balance

17. Jackson Community College - Balanced Scorecard

18. Development Process Steps in Building Your Balanced Scorecard

19. Development Process • Identify project partners: • Project champion • Content provider • Technology support

20. Development Process • Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) • 15 – 20 maximum

21. Development Process • Work with process stakeholders • Refine definitions of data • Develop methods of display and update • Ensure their understanding

22. Development Process • Set benchmarks, targets or signal values • Comparisons with other institutions • Comparisons with past performance • Comparisons with goals

23. Development Process • Signal Values • Three levels – • Best • Middle • Worst

24. Signal Values – Example 1

25. Signal Values – Example 2

26. Establishing Signal Values • Base them on: • Institutional past performance • Institutional goals • Comparisons with other organizations

27. Development Process • Design the display and delivery mechanism • One screen or one page • Avoid clutter • Provide detail by using hyperlinks • Decide who will have access

28. Development Process • Hyperlinks example: • KPI = overall student satisfaction • Detail = student satisfaction with • academics • services

29. Hyperlinks in Excel

30. Development Process • Usage and updates • Project champion should monitor frequently • Other key decision makers should monitor also • Inform others of how often the data change • Who should access • Wide-spread  few users • Help with “fear factor”

31. Benefits of a Scorecard • Useful in guiding strategic plan development: • One college used its scorecard data to identify areas where it was consistently below targets. • The Board identified five strategic goals for the new strategic plan.

32. Benefits of a Scorecard, cont’d • Increased internal alignment: • Visible targets and performance informs operational unit and individual plans

33. Increased Alignment

34. Benefits of a Scorecard, cont’d • Establishes a culture of evidence at the college

35. Next Steps • Evaluate and improve some of the measures, such as those that: • Are not a valid measure of what is being done • Not possible to measure often enough or difficult to measure • Benchmarks with better measures are available

36. Next Steps • Evaluate and improve some of the measures • Develop leading indicators: • “Measures that indicate progress against a process or behavior. These measures are helpful in predicting the future outcome of an objective.” Balanced Scorecard Collaborative

37. Next Steps • Review the signal values: • Develop more robust targets • Achieving the Dream database • National CC Benchmark Project • IPEDS Peer Analysis System • State data • Other professional sources

38. Next Steps • Increase alignment of departmental or unit data with overall performance indicators • Develop cascading scorecards

39. Lessons Learned • Monitor regularly • Presidential commitment is crucial • Be sure measures are balanced • Align the measures with the plan • Keep the scorecard display straightforward (“Keep It Simple & Straightforward – KISS)

40. Lessons Learned • What is measured gets noticed • What is noticed gets acted on • What is acted on gets improved Dee W. Hook presentation Phenomenon of Measurement

41. Want to know more? • Contact me: • Jan W. Lyddon, Ph.D. • Jan.lyddon@sjcd.edu • Read: • Few, Stephen. 2006. Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data. Sabastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media, Inc. • Kaplan, Robert S. & David P. Norton. 1996. The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy Into Action. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. • Niven, Paul R. 2003. Balanced Scorecard Step-by-Step for Government and Nonprofit Agencies. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.