A balanced scorecard presents data that falls within the Kaplan/Norton four groups (See my post of Aug. 24, 2006 on dashboards.). An example comes from the law department of United Technologies Corp. (UTC). Its scorecard collects metrics in four areas: Financial Performance; Quality Processes & Products, Leadership, Culture & Environment; and Customer Satisfaction (From Jan. 2005 materials of ACC at 7, provided at a conference organized by the ABA Section of Business Law and ACC, Nov. 2005)
As Kaplan and Norton themselves write, “Balanced scorecards tell you the knowledge, skills, and systems that your employees will need (their learning and growth) to innovate and build the right strategic capabilities and efficiencies (the internal processes) that deliver specific value to the market (the customers), which will eventually lead to higher shareholder value (the financials).” Harvard Business Review on Advances in Strategy (HBR 2002), an article originally published in Sept. /Oct. 2000 at 75. The areas in parentheses are the four groups of the traditional balanced scorecard.