In last month’s newsletter, an article discussing “Data Driven Decision Making in the School Business Office” was presented. As schools work toward becoming more transparent, making information more easily accessible and understandable to our public, the use of Balanced Scorecards and Dashboards are tools worthy of consideration.
What are Balanced Scorecards and Dashboards, and how can we use these two important tools? In moving schools toward meeting their strategic plans, a Balanced Scorecard provides measurement metrics. This allows users a basis for understanding whether their actions are achieving their desired outcomes. An initial Balanced Scorecard would detail strategies and potential measures. The Balanced Scorecard identifies those strategies that are most important and establishes a baseline. As part of this, we use strategy maps. The map is a visual representation of the agreed upon strategies and direction of the school district and serves as a tool to reference in determining if planned and current actions serve the mission.
Now think of a dashboard of a car. The Dashboard is real-time data, which identifies where the District is at various stages relative to performance targets that have been set.
A logical sequence to follow in developing a Scorecard includes:
- Identification and alignment of the vision, values and mission of the district.
- Creation of strategies to achieve the vision and mission, focusing on key result areas.
- Identifying performance measures for ongoing monitoring.
- Creation of a Dashboard to track the scorecard measurements, so they are aligned.
There are many stakeholder groups to consider: the board of education, parents, students, community, partners, employees, etc. The Balanced Scorecard will only become a tool for improvement through shared use and acceptance. Using the Dashboard, the information from the Scorecard should be updated on a regular basis. If the information in the Dashboard is not current, users of the Dashboard may not be willing to work towards the strategies to make the Scorecard a useful tool. To keep the school district on track and stakeholders engaged, the progress of the Balanced Scorecard must be monitored. Timeliness is critical to keep the Dashboard current, if this is to remain a transparent and meaningful tool.
To keep the school district’s focus on the strategic goals, the Dashboard must track the Scorecard measurements. The agreed upon measurement terms, both financial and non-financial provide information at a point-in-time of the school district’s performance and overall success. The benefits of the Dashboard include easy visual monitoring through (dashboard) pictures, making the data more easily understandable, highlighting positive and negative trends, and the ability to make informed decisions based on data. Continued alignment of the school district’s strategies and organizational goals, through integration of Balanced Scorecards and Dashboards, provides staff a unified direction for meeting the goals and strategies of the district. This will also create a valuable tool to report how we are doing to the public and our other stakeholders.
In this environment of continued and increased information disclosure and availability, these management tools help us meet the need for transparency in information reporting. Not only do they provide an easily understandable visual presentation, they continue to inform our stakeholders of our progress. Balanced Scorecards and Dashboards move the district towards measuring the success of meeting its mission, goals and objectives.