The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide reimbursement incentives for eligible professionals and hospitals who are successful in becoming “meaningful users” of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology.
The discussion regarding the difference between dashboards and scorecards is very relevant to the process of increasing dashboard use. What are the circumstances under which one is used vs. the other? Perhaps a brief overview of planning will help clarify the issue.
Without going into too much detail, we can state that planning (and the corresponding execution) takes place at three levels: the Tactical level, the Operational level and the Strategic level. Strategic and tactical levels are generally well understood. Strategy addresses overall direction in keeping with the organization’s mission. Tactics refers to execution at the “line” level. Operational planning however tends to be either misunderstood or ignored.
At the Operational level, the key operating word is Synchronization. It is here that one seeks to coordinate and synchronize all the tactical activities in order to insure that the strategic objective is achieved. Additionally, it is at this planning level where you address issues pertaining to the agility and versatility and depth of your tactical initiatives as you work towards that strategic objective.
So what does this have to do with dashboards and scorecards?
Well, scorecards are generally used to help align objectives, initiatives, and measures to an organization’s strategy. They integrate your financial measures, your operational processes, your customer’s perspectives and your organizational growth, learning and innovation.
Dashboards, on the other hand, tend to focus on specific measurement of processes or activities.
So (in order to keep this post relatively short) we can say that the scorecard is a tool which offers greater benefit at the strategic and operational levels, whereas dashboards can provide measurement of key performance indicators and success factors at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.
It is important to keep this in mind when you seek to increase dashboard use… because you can address audiences at different levels in your organization, and adjust your presentation to their level of concern; tactical, operational or strategic.
Angelo
Hi Gang,
My short answer is not exactly and I’d like to hear your take on this. http://polls.linkedin.com/p/74717/pgdpj
Successful leaders use the terms interchangeably. However, here’s how I define the two:
Let me know if you’re interested in hearing more on this…
Hello! I’m very excited to be writing my very first blog post. Thanks so much – I’m proud to be part of this blogging community.
My name is Stan and I’m just starting to learn about dashboards. I wear many hats in my job with a major company, but my governance work is what has led me to dashboards.
As a member of several committees tasked to oversee and approve various expenditures and provide suggestions, I see the power of the dashboarding approach to present a “big picture” understanding of things.
I’ll be posting here about the various dashboarding projects that I’ll be involved with. They will be about accountability metrics and kpis.
Issues of corporate governance, transparency and reporting really thrill me.
This is exciting! Stay tuned.
Stan