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With the advent of improved financial reporting, and several management, self-help books outlining the benefits of Scorecards and other tools, the past few years have seen a surge in their creation and use.
The three main areas as defined by Ventana Research include:
- Scorecards. They show progress towards strategies, goals, and objectives by using key performance indicators. Scorecards can appear inside dashboards, but differ from dashboards because: a) they can have multiple perspectives or points of view and b) they apply a management methodology that maps a strategy.
- Dashboards. These are reporting tools that arrange measurements, metrics, etc. as compared to a goal on a single screen to be monitored at a glance. They differ from scorecards in that they are concerned with a specific role, or metric, and do not confirm to a management methodology.
- Performance alerts. These are notifications in various forms, email, portal, wireless device, etc. of a key trend or business alert associated with a goal.
We will revisit this area in the future to review the results of the Ventana Research. It offers some interesting feedback on these tools. In the meantime, how effective is your use of these tools?