Balanced Scorecard:

Core Business Processes:
Processes are repeatable activities completed at a high/regular frequency (i.e. monthly or more frequently).

Core Values:
An organization’s core values form the foundation of all of its activities including its business plan. Core values represent the basic, shared beliefs that govern individual and group behavior in an organization. They both define and represent the way things get done. Core values are so critical to organizational success that the difference between successful and unsuccessful organizations is that the successful ones actually live up to their values all the time in everything they do. Core values remain stable over time.

Dynamic Strategy Management:
Most organizations treat strategy making and management as a one-time, annual event. In contrast, successful organizations make strategy creation, execution, management, and re-formulation a continuous process that works in an endless cycle. This is known as the dynamic strategy management process and it allows organizations to stay sensitive and agile to changes in the business environment that demand a strategic response.

Enterprise Transformation:
Enterprise transformation occurs when an organization implements specific, proven business fundamentals that get everyone in the organization aligned and moving together in the same direction so that their company actually does what it says it’s going to do and achieves the business performance results they want. Organizations that undergo this transformation deliver exceptional business results – consistently over the long term, regardless of the business conditions.

Mission:
An organization’s mission aligns with its core values. It defines why the organization exists, describes its contribution, and states the value it adds to either society or the corporation it operates within. In short, a mission statement communicates the purpose of an organization. Mission statements endure over time and do not change unless a change in organizational direction results in a change in the nature of your organization’s purpose.

Strategy:
To achieve its mission and vision, an organization defines the unique strategy it will implement to do so. A good strategy clearly identifies which related priorities or strategic objectives the organization will focus on as critical success factors. Stakeholder feedback plays a critical role in helping an organization select the strategic priorities that will translate into success. Strategies can and should change in response to changes in the operating environment and as learning about the effectiveness of the strategy in achieving results takes place.

Strategy Formulation:
Strategy formulation is the process of creating and/or refining an organization’s business strategy. Business strategy should be reviewed, and modified (or reformulated), if required, on, at minimum, a quarterly basis. An organization’s strategy should also be reviewed when a significant change occurs in the external operating environment.

Strategy Execution:
Strategy execution involves the implementation and management of an organization’s business strategy. Depending on which statistics you believe, between 60 to 90 percent of organizational strategies won’t be successfully executed this year – making strategy execution the biggest business challenge today. Successful strategy execution begins with a great business strategy, with clearly defined direction and priorities, that has been translated into terms that help all employees see what the strategy looks like in action. Other critical success factors for strategy execution excellence include: ensuring that all organizational leaders are actively engaged with strategy execution every day; embracing the facts of every situation and result in your business - no matter what; building a culture of accountability; ensuring organizational alignment and cross-company integration; building your people’s capabilities; and making strategy execution personal for your employees.

Strategy Map:
The strategy map is a one page document that describes how an organization “creates value” and works in an integrated, action-oriented way to implement the overall strategy and achieve the mission and vision. It uses the same framework as the balanced scorecard and provides a “picture” of an organization’s strategy. The strategy map provides an organization with a uniform and consistent way of describing its strategy, helping all stakeholders have a single-view of the long-term strategy and providing them with a new, common language to use when discussing strategy. In addition, the arrows often seen on a strategy map provide a visual representation of the cause and effect relationships between the components, or strategic objectives, of the strategy (also known as your “theory” of the business - how everything and everyone works together to achieve results). In summary, the strategy map is a powerful, visual tool that uses a combination of graphics and words to satisfy varying audience communication preferences and to broadcast an organization’s long-term strategy.

Strategy Map Weighting:
Strategy map weighting provides organizations with a method of communicating their relative business priorities to stakeholders and a means to guiding operational decision making over the short to medium term. Organizations will prioritize their strategy map/strategic objectives and make decisions about which components of their value creation strategy they will focus on over a defined period of time. The focus of strategy map weighting is to establish the relative priority of each strategic objective over, customarily, the upcoming twelve to eighteen months. A weighted strategy map, when clearly communicated to managers and employees, provides a valuable and highly visual tool that helps them achieve focus in their work efforts and maintain strategic priorities in the face of changing, and often challenging, operational demands.

Strategy Scorecard:
Also known as the balanced scorecard, a strategy scorecard includes both the strategic objectives in the organization’s business strategy and between 16 to 32 indicators (maximum) that allow organizations to measure and manage the execution of their business strategy in “real time”. The real value of using a strategy scorecard is realized by organizations when they use performance results to learn about the effectiveness of their business, operations, and strategy. Taking this approach will give a more meaningful purpose to measurement and business performance results will increase their value in the eyes of employees. By focusing on the real purpose of measurement – learning - you will engage and energize your organization in a new, exciting way.

Strategic Indicators:
Strategic indicators directly reflect or represent the strategy and strategic objectives. Their prime purpose is to measure that the desired change required by the strategic objectives, actually takes place. However, it is important to realize that indicators are not diagnostic in nature. That is, indicators will alert you to a potential business problem that requires further root cause investigation before corrective action can be taken. In short, strategic indicators allow you to measure and manage strategy execution and assess progress with strategy achievement.

Strategic Initiative (or strategic project):
A strategic initiative (or project) is an activity designed to create something new or improve the organization. A strategic initiative has a defined scope, beginning, and end, will not be repeated, and has resources assigned to it.

Strategic Objective Owner:
While the entire organization has accountability for the achievement of all of the strategic objectives on the strategy map, you need one person to oversee progress in the achievement of each objective. Strategic Objective Owners are usually senior, are in a position to break down functional silos, and influence people across the organization to move the strategic objective forward. Assigning strategic objective ownership is the first step in building an accountability framework for the successful implementation of an organization’s strategic plan.

Vision:
An organization’s vision is built on its core values, mission, and vision, and paints a clear and measurable picture of what the organization wants to achieve by a defined point in the future. A vision stretches the organization’s capabilities and image of itself and it clarifies the direction of the organization. In addition, a clear vision helps all of the organization’s stakeholders understand why and how they can support the organization as it strives to achieve these specific goals and objectives. Vision statements change after the vision period has been completed.