Question

Jace is an executive at a large but decentralized corporation that uses the balanced scorecard. It would be reasonable for her to suggest using scorecard cascading to help her large company more effectively ensure that individuals throughout the company support its overriding strategy.

True

False

Answer 1

Answer.
The above statement is true.

Cascading a balanced scorecard means to translate the corporate-wide scorecard (referred to as Tier 1) down to first business units, support units or departments (Tier 2) and then teams or individuals (Tier 3). The end result should be focus across all levels of the organization that is consistent. The organization alignment should be clearly visible through strategy, using the strategy map, performance measures and targets, and initiatives. Scorecards should be used to improve accountability through objective and performance measure ownership, and desired employee behaviors should be incentivized with recognition and rewards.

Cascading strategy focuses the entire organization on strategy and creating line-of-sight between the work people do and high level desired results. As the management system is cascaded down through the organization, objectives become more operational and tactical, as do the performance measures. Accountability follows the objectives and measures, as ownership is defined at each level. An emphasis on results and the strategies needed to produce results is communicated throughout the organization. This alignment step is critical to becoming a strategy-focused organization.

Hence, in the above case the company being a decentralized one, Jace is absolutely right to adopt the Cascading Balance Scorecard technique.