Balanced Scorecards for Colleges and Universities: Development and Deployment

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Balanced Scorecards for Colleges and
Universities Development and Deployment
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Balanced Scorecards

• Jan W. Lyddon, Ph.D.
• Executive Vice President
• San Jacinto College

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What is a Balanced Scorecard ?

• A measurement system
• Strategic management system, and
• Communication tool

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Why A Balanced Scorecard?

• Increased requirements for accountability
• Keep our eye on whats most important
• Focus especially on major outcomes

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Primary Uses

• Monitoring key items
• Communication of priority areas for action
• Myth busting real results

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What Is It?

• Visual display
• of
• the most important information needed to achieve
  one or more objectives
• which
• fits entirely on a single screen or sheet
• so it can be
• monitored at a glance.
• Stephen Few, 2006

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What is on it?

• Performance Indicators
• From strategic or other plan
• Of key decisions or objectives
• Usually highly aggregated data
• Maximum 15 20
• Called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

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Kinds of Indicators

• Indicators should be
• A balance of perspectives
• Student perspectives, process perspectives,
  learning perspectives are examples
• Also called categories

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Kinds of Indicators, contd

• Indicators should be
• A balance of leading and lagging indicators
• Inputs as well as outputs or outcomes measures

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Who uses it?

• Key decision makers
• Monitor regularly
• Key policy makers
• To make informed decisions
• To communicate with external stakeholders
• Internal stakeholders
• To help align their actions with overall purposes

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Components of the Indicators

• The actual performance, expressed in numerical
  terms
• The target, benchmark, or objective
• The difference between actual performance and the
  objective
• Signal values indicate how far from the objective
  or target (best, middle, worst)

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Categories for Indicators

• Four or five categories
• Strategic plan goals, or
• Perspectives, such as
• Stakeholder
• Processes
• Learning and innovation
• Financial

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Examples of Indicators

• Stakeholder
• Student satisfaction
• Student retention and graduation rates
• Community support
• Processes
• Continuous improvement initiatives
• Time required to complete DE
• Efficiency measures (e.g., percentage of seats
  filled)

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Examples of Indicators, Contd

• Learning and innovation
• Professional development impacts
• New programs
• Resources
• Enrollment
• Donations
• Budget balance

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Jackson Community College - Balanced Scorecard
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Development Process

• Steps in Building Your Balanced Scorecard

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Development Process

• Identify project partners
• Project champion
• Content provider
• Technology support

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Development Process

• Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• 15 20 maximum

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Development Process

• Work with process stakeholders
• Refine definitions of data
• Develop methods of display and update
• Ensure their understanding

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Development Process

• Set benchmarks, targets or signal values
• Comparisons with other institutions
• Comparisons with past performance
• Comparisons with goals

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Development Process

• Signal Values
• Three levels
• Best
• Middle
• Worst

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Signal Values Example 1
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Signal Values Example 2
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Establishing Signal Values

• Base them on
• Institutional past performance
• Institutional goals
• Comparisons with other organizations

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Development Process

• Design the display and delivery mechanism
• One screen or one page
• Avoid clutter
• Provide detail by using hyperlinks
• Decide who will have access

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Development Process

• Hyperlinks example
• KPI overall student satisfaction
• Detail student satisfaction with
• academics
• services

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Hyperlinks in Excel
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Development Process

• Usage and updates
• Project champion should monitor frequently
• Other key decision makers should monitor also
• Inform others of how often the data change
• Who should access
• Wide-spread ?? few users
• Help with fear factor

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Benefits of a Scorecard

• Useful in guiding strategic plan development
• One college used its scorecard data to identify
  areas where it was consistently below targets.
• The Board identified five strategic goals for the
  new strategic plan.

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Benefits of a Scorecard, contd

• Increased internal alignment
• Visible targets and performance informs
  operational unit and individual plans

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Increased Alignment
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Benefits of a Scorecard, contd

• Establishes a culture of evidence at the college

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Next Steps

• Evaluate and improve some of the measures, such
  as those that
• Are not a valid measure of what is being done
• Not possible to measure often enough or difficult
  to measure
• Benchmarks with better measures are available

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Next Steps

• Evaluate and improve some of the measures
• Develop leading indicators
• Measures that indicate progress against a
  process or behavior. These measures are helpful
  in predicting the future outcome of an
  objective.
• Balanced Scorecard Collaborative

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Next Steps

• Review the signal values
• Develop more robust targets
• Achieving the Dream database
• National CC Benchmark Project
• IPEDS Peer Analysis System
• State data
• Other professional sources

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Next Steps

• Increase alignment of departmental or unit data
  with overall performance indicators
• Develop cascading scorecards

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Lessons Learned

• Monitor regularly
• Presidential commitment is crucial
• Be sure measures are balanced
• Align the measures with the plan
• Keep the scorecard display straightforward (Keep
  It Simple Straightforward KISS)

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Lessons Learned

• What is measured gets noticed
• What is noticed gets acted on
• What is acted on gets improved
• Dee W. Hook presentation
• Phenomenon of Measurement

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Want to know more?

• Contact me
• Jan W. Lyddon, Ph.D.
• Jan.lyddon_at_sjcd.edu
• Read
• Few, Stephen. 2006. Information Dashboard Design
  The Effective Visual Communication of Data.
  Sabastopol, CA OReilly Media, Inc.
• Kaplan, Robert S. David P. Norton. 1996. The
  Balanced Scorecard Translating Strategy Into
  Action. Boston Harvard Business School Press.
• Niven, Paul R. 2003. Balanced Scorecard
  Step-by-Step for Government and Nonprofit
  Agencies. Hoboken, NJ John Wiley Sons, Inc.