Performance Management – Scorecards

1. Overview

A Scorecard is commonly used to gather Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) together for monitoring and reporting purposes. It can combine multiple KPIs and sub-scorecards all the different units, then give a combined overall performance result. Scorecards can be linked to different hierarchy levels.

2. Creating a Scorecard

To create a scorecard, follow the steps below.

  • STEP 1: Go to Planning > Performance Management.

  • STEP 2: Click new icon and enter a name for the scorecard.

Figure 2.1
  • STEP 3: Then specify the description, target score, and variance.

  • STEP 4: Click Save before proceeding further. You will not be able to link any KPIs to this scorecard unless you save it first.

  • STEP 5: To link existing KPIs to the scorecard, left click your mouse on the item you want to link and hold the mouse button down while you drag it to the center. (Initially, you will see an area which reads 'Link items by dragging them here'. After the first linking is made, you can drag and drop the KPIs to the header area on the linking items table to create the link).
    A dotted line will appear when you have positioned the item in the correct location at which point, you should release the mouse button and the link will be created.

A KPI can only be linked to a scorecard once in order to ensure results aren’t ‘double counted’. If you try to link it again, you will receive a warning message.  Be mindful of this if you are creating a KPI with sub scorecards where the KPI may be linked to both.

  • STEP 6: To link existing scorecards to the current scorecard, drag and drop the scorecard from the left into the scorecard area.
    You can also create a new sub scorecard from within a scorecard by clicking the link titled ‘Add a new scorecard that is linked to this scorecard’.

Figure 2.2
  • STEP 7: Enter a weighting for all KPIs and sub-scorecards in your new scorecard in order to determine their significance in working out the overall score for the new scorecard. The weighting must add up to 100%.

    • A form of display can also be selected. If the scorecard is included as part of a Dashboard the ‘DISPLAY AS’ selection will determine how the item is displayed.

    • You can use the arrows displayed in the Sequence column to move the linking up and down and that determines the order/sequence of the linked items.

    • Remove the links by clicking Remove.

    • Before removing a link, you need to ensure that the weightings of the remaining items add up to 100%. That is, the weighting of the item to be removed should be set to zero.

3. Linking Scorecards

  • STEP 1: To link a scorecard to your planning or organisational hierarchy, click on the Go to Scorecard Link button within the scorecard build area.

  • You will see a list of all the scorecards on the right-hand side and the hierarchy on the left.

  • STEP 2: Select the hierarchy level to which the scorecard needs to be linked. Once you click on the hierarchy level, all the linkages to that particular hierarchy node will be displayed in the center of the page.

  • STEP 3: Left click your mouse on the item you want to link and hold the mouse button down while you drag it to the center. A dotted line will appear when you have positioned the item in the correct location at which point, you should release the mouse button and the link will be created.

Scorecards can be linked to any level of your planning and organisational hierarchy so that when in EIS you can view all scorecards for a particular hierarchy.

Note: Within the scorecard linking area you cannot view your scorecards (when you click on the scorecard title hyperlink it won’t do anything). Therefore, in order to view your scorecard, you will need to go back to the 'Scorecard' creation area. This is the known behavior of the scorecard linking area - only specifically used for linking your scorecards to the Hierarchy.

4. Comments

It is possible to enter Scorecard comments per period that may explain performance – particularly if performance was well above or below expectations. The latest comment can appear on executive reports.

To do this, click on the Comments tab and enter your comments.

4.1 View

You can now view the scorecard by moving to the ‘View’ tab.

  • STEP 1: Select the View period from the dropdown list.

    • Selecting YTD will show performance from the beginning of a financial year to the date you view scorecards.

    • Date range option will allow you to view performance information for a specific time frame using the date controls.

    • Other time frame options are available in the dropdown menu.

  • STEP 2: Select the Display format - the dropdown lists the variety of display formats available.
    The normal view will display Unit, Target, Actual and indicator. Selecting the complete view will include comments as well. The symbolic view will only display the indicator and Text view will only the show unit, target and actual.

  • STEP 3: Click on the Print button to view a PDF version of the report.

Linked items are displayed on the Scorecard in bold text. Any items linked to these items are displayed in plain text underneath these linked items.  For each of these lower level items, their unit, Target, Actual and Traffic Light can be displayed, depending on the ‘DISPLAY AS’ option selected.

  • A green light indicates that the Actual score is better than the Target (or within the Target range for Goalpost KPIs).

  • An amber light indicates that the Actual score is worse than the Target but still within the Variance.

  • A red light indicates that the Actual score did not meet the target and is outside the variance (or outside the Target range for Goalpost).

The Overall Performance Traffic Light indicator is generated by comparing the Overall Performance Target against the Overall Performance Actual. See section Scorecard Calculation Example below.

4.2 Scorecard Calculation Example

Actual for a Scorecard (as shown in the below example 104.9) is the sum of the weighted performance of each KPI that belongs to this scorecard). Individual KPI Actuals (as shown in the example below 50.5, 41, 0, 6090, 43) cannot simply be added or averaged to produce the overall performance actual listed in the Scorecard.

  • STEP 1: First the KPI Performance is calculated using its Target and Actual values – the formula depends on the Calculation Method which is selected when creating the KPI (see section KPI Performance Calculations below).

  • STEP 2: This performance value is multiplied by the weightage given to the KPI from within the Scorecard ‘Build’ area.

Steps 1 and 2 are repeated for each KPI listed in the Scorecard and the resulting values (a scorecard with 5 KPIs will generate 5 values) are summed. This is what displays as the Overall Scorecard Performance Actual.

The Target entered within the Scorecard > Build tab is a Target for this Scorecard only. It is not related to the individual KPI Targets. This Target is what is displayed as the Overall Scorecard) Performance Target (as shown in the above example, 90).

Thus the Overall Performance Traffic Light indicator is generated by comparing the Overall Performance Target against the Overall Performance Actual.

5. KPI Performance Calculations

Calculation Method

Description

Formula

Calculation Method

Description

Formula

Less is Better

  • Where it is desirable to get the lowest possible value for the KPI Actual.

  • Where a result lower in value to the target will result in a green light.

  • Example: Interest ratio (interest on borrowings/total expenditure)
    Target 10% | Actual 8%

If (Target = 0)
          If (Actual <= 0) then 100
         Else 0
If ( Target > 0
          1 – (Actual/Target) + 1
Else
          Actual/Target

More is Better

  • Where it is desirable to get the highest value possible for the KPI Actual.

  • Where a result higher in value to the target will result in a green light.

  • Example:  Customer Satisfaction
    Target 85% | Actual 95%.

If (Target = 0)
          If (Actual >= 0) then 100
         Else 0
Else
         Actual/Target

Goal Post

  • Where it is desirable to get the KPI Actual around the Target value within the Variance.

  • Where achievement of the target results in a green light.

  • Example: Achievement of Budget
    Target $3,000,000 ± 5% | Actual $2,950,000.

If Actual < LB then: (Actual/LB)
If Actual > UP then: LB-((Actual – UB)/LB)
 
UB (Upper Boundary) = Target +(Target*Variance/100)
LB (Lower Boundary) = Target - (Target*Variance/100)

The below table explains how the calculations are reflected in traffic lights, which uses different colours to denote the performance.

Calculation Methods

Green

Amber

Red

Calculation Methods

Green

Amber

Red

Less is Better

Performance >= 100

(100 - Variance) >= Performance < 100

Performance < (100 - Variance)

More is Better

Performance >= 100

(100 - Variance) >= Performance < 100

Performance < (100 - Variance)

Goal Post

Performance = 100

 N/A

Performance <> 100