Scorecards vs. Dashboards
Both
scorecards and dashboards belong to the most common tools supporting
performance management. Each of them has its followers and adversaries,
but the point isn't to determine which one is better. None is better.
Although they're being used for quite similar purposes, they're totally
different. And although they couldn't be used at the same time, their
functionalities differ.
Scorecards
Scorecard
is a tool predestined for controlling the progress toward strategy proceeding,
but not exclusively. As a quite a universal tool, scorecards are being
commonly used for all purposes connected somehow with strategy - from
inventing it, to measuring the progress. Thereupon, this tool is rather
for managers concentrated on tight range of company's operating.
- Scorecards measure the progress towards the strategy.
They do not help with monitoring
company's general performance
- Scorecards are being used by all employees connected with realizing the strategy, regardless of
management-level they're placed on. Thank to that, every single employee - including managers, executives, and usual staff - becomes personally-involved
in company's life. That influences on general performance, as well.
- As scorecards allow to control executing the strategy - what doesn't change significantly in a minute
or two - no one expects them to provide real-time information. There
are periodic snapshots provided instead, which allow managers to focus
on what's truly important instead of incessantly-changing numbers.
- Scorecards present summaries - total values of crucial metrics, not the particular data which these
metrics are being summed of.
- The method of displaying data depends on each user's needs. In case of scorecards, one can choose
from visual graphs and text notes.
Dashboards
In
comparison to scorecards, dashboards enable looking from another point
of view. Being thought to consider the whole company's performance, dashboards
allow managers to focus on what's actually important for them as well as they can immediately dives into more detailed data, if needed. The main differences
between scorecards and dashboards are as follows:
- What's already been pointed, dashboards are being used for measuring general performance and its concrete aspects. They do not constrain managers to focus exclusively on strategy.
- Dashboards - in general - are being used by executives, at most. Often, specialists have also an access to them, while they're not being provided for employees from lower levels of company management.
- The matter of data timeliness, in case of dashboards, is complex. In fact, data isn't updated in real-time, but in right-time, what means that it answers exactly on user's needs.
- Dashboards present data concerning each event, rarely the summaries.
- Finally, with dashboards data may be visualized or, if a user wants, presented raw.
Summary
Scorecards, the same as dashboards, provide their users with multiple functionalities, and it is not possible
to determine which ones are generally better. It depends on their users, users' requirements, company's type, and plenty of other factors.
All
in all, better is the one that suits user better. Due to that, the choice
of tool supporting performance management isn't crucial. After all,
it's not about which tool we use, but how efficiently we do that.