Benchmarking: is a continuous, systematic process for evaluating and comparing an organization’s activities, products, services, and work processes with those of organizations that are recognized as representing best practices for the purposes of performance improvement. A secondary purpose is to reveal useful practices or ideas that may be adopted or adapted with advantage.
Dashboard: A visualization of important information, often tailored to a specific role or point of view, consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance. For most deployments, this information contains actual results represented as metrics.
Data mart: is a focused collection of operational Data that is usually confined to a specific aspect of a business. A number of stand-alone data marts are often referred to as Islands of data.
Data mining: is the systematic computer Analysis, through the use of statistical techniques (often employing Neural networks), of large volumes of collected Data with the aim of revealing previously unidentified patterns, trends, and relationships about customers, products, services, and other activities that can lead to new and profitable business Opportunities. As with any Database, the critical aspects are to do with accurate, up-to-date content, and with the means used for locating and matching that content to user needs; that is, with the level of intellectual input. For these reasons the procedure is complex and protracted, calling for specialized expertise and imagination. Also known as Database tomography, Discovery informatics, or Knowledge discovery. Examples of data mining applications include: identifying new customers, predicting customer buying habits, confirming suitable loan applicants, revealing fraud, indicating potentially rewarding investments, managing equity portfolios, diagnosing medical problems, inventory management, and conducting certain aspects of Marketing.
Data warehouse: is a repository of operational Data from one or more sources within an organization, together with data derived from a variety of external sources, that have been arranged into meaningful Information, and rendered easily accessible so as to allow for effective Analysis or decision-making.
Key performance indicator (KPI): Distinguished from other metrics, key performance indicators (KPIs) are those metrics most critical to gauging progress toward objectives. KPIs are metrics that are: tied to an objective; have at least one defined time-sensitive target value; and have explicit thresholds which grade the gap between the actual value and the target.
KPI Scorecard: A specific application of a scorecard, a KPI scorecard is used to measure progress toward a given set of KPIs.
Metric (also called measure): Term used in commercial organizations to describe a standard used to communicate progress on a particular aspect of the business. Measures typically are quantitative in nature, conveyed in numbers, dollars, percentages, etc. (e.g., $ of revenue, headcount number, % increase, survey rating average, etc.) though they may be describing either quantitative (e.g., sales made) or qualitative (e.g., employee motivation) information.
Objective or outcome scorecard: A specific application of a scorecard, objective scorecards monitor progress toward a given set of objectives or outcomes using a threshold-based rating scale. Typically, objective status is determined by normalizing one or many key performance indicators and comparing it to a given rating scale.
Perspective (also called point of view): Representing the various stakeholders, both internal and external, critical to achieving an organization’s mission. Together, the perspectives provide a holistic, or balanced, framework for telling the “”story of the strategy” in cause-and-effect terms. While the traditional Balanced Scorecard includes the four perspectives of Financial, Customer, Internal Process, and Employee Learning and Growth, an organization may choose to modify and/or add to these to adequately translate and describe their unique strategy.
- Customer perspective: Measures are developed based on an organization’s value proposition in serving their target customers. In many organizations, especially public sector and non-profit, the Customer perspective is often elevated above or placed alongside the Financial perspective.
- Employee learning and Growth perspective: May also be termed “”Skills and Capability.” Measures in this perspective are often considered enablers of measures appearing in other perspectives; therefore, this perspective is often placed at the bottom – or foundation – of a strategy plan. Employee skills and training, availability of information, and organizational culture are often measured in this perspective.
- Financial perspective: The perspective that looks at bottom line results. In public sector and non-profit organizations, the Financial perspective is often viewed within the context of the constraints under which the organization must operate.
- Internal Process perspective: The perspective used to monitor the effectiveness of key processes at which the organization must excel in order to achieve its objectives and mission.
Qualitative: Subjective, as opposed to quantitative (measured). A common source of qualitative metrics are surveys of customers, stakeholders or employees.
Quantitative: Measured, as opposed to qualitative (subjective). Quantitative measures often come from transactional systems.
Scorecard: A scorecard is a visual display of the most important information needed to achieve one or more objectives, consolidated and arranged on a single screen so the information can be monitored at a glance. Unlike dashboards that display actual values of metrics, scorecards typically display the gap between actual and target values for a smaller number of key performance indicators.
Balanced Scorecard: The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system used to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organizational performance against strategic goals, the Balanced Scorecard framework has three main tenets:
- emphasis on outcomes and objectives to be achieved, rather than measures;
- separation of objectives into disparate, supporting points of view such as Customer, Financial, Process, and Employee; and
- Consideration of non-financial assets such as processes and intellectual property so that leading and qualitative measures are also included.
