White Paper
Driving Positive Community Outcomes
with the Balanced Scorecard:
Collaborative Strategy Management in a Community Network
James Creelman, Director of Research & IP,
Palladium; Bill Barberg, President & Founder,
Insightformation, Inc.; Dr. Mark E. Wallace,
CEO/CMO, North Colorado Health Alliance
The Balanced Scorecard strategy management system addresses the many obstacles
of aligning a disparate network around a
common strategy by creating a platform
through which each partner can understand
their individual and combined contributions
toward shared goals. This article examines
the successful implementation of the Balanced Scorecard across a large network of
partners seeking to drive positive outcomes in
their community.
Copyright © 2016 Palladium
For more than 20 years, the Balanced Scorecard has helped
deliver breakthrough performance improvements to organisations from many sectors, both commercial and public. Networked organisations represent an emerging and powerful
application of the Balanced Scorecard. These networks bring
together distinct organisations and groups of people to deliver
collective outcomes while also achieving the goals of each
individual network member. Such networked – and oftentimes
virtual – collaborative structures are becoming more commonplace as organisations struggle with the complex challenges of
the 21st century.
Networked organisations vary widely depending upon their
collective goals. They might consist of public sector organisations, private sector organisations, or a combination of both.
They might be short term in nature (delivering a specific innovation project, for example) or longer term (dealing with deeply
ingrained socio-economic challenges).
The structure of these collaborations can exaggerate the same
issues that organisations face individually. Networked organisations struggle to assign accountabilities, to maintain transparency, and to measure progress. Further, the looseness of the
affiliation between network members creates a culture in which
it is easy to assign blame elsewhere.
The Balanced Scorecard strategy management system addresses these obstacles by aligning the disparate network
members around a common strategy to which they all contribute and by creating a platform through which each partner can
understand their progress toward a common goal. This article
examines the successful implementation of the Balanced Scorecard across a large network of partners seeking to drive positive
outcomes in their community.
2 | Driving Positive Community Outcomes with the Balanced Scorecard
Copyright © 2016 Palladium
Thriving Weld
Thriving Weld is a collaborative effort by the North Colorado
Health Alliance (NCHA) to facilitate data sharing and collaboration in Weld County, Colorado, a community of 275,000 people
in the western United States. This network of over 60 partners
capitalised on the Balanced Scorecard to share specific information about their plans and progress and collectively improve
the community’s wellbeing. Since its launch in 2013, Thriving
Weld has built more than 40 scorecards across seven focus
areas:
• Healthy Eating;
• Active Living;
• Healthy Mind and Spirit;
• Access to Care;
• Livelihood;
• Education; and
• Health Equity.
At the outset, the scorecard system appealed to the Weld
County Department of Public Health and Environment because
it recognised that no single organisation could successfully
address all the priority health issues and social determinants of
health in their community. Previously, each organisation developed its strategy, measurements, reporting, and communication structures independent of one another. As a result, Weld
County’s many efforts to improve the health and wellbeing of
their community faced problems of fragmentation, wasteful
redundancy, and inefficiency.
NCHA partnered with Insightformation to create a communitybased collaborative scorecard approach that would suit their
networked environment and shift thinking from organisationcentred strategies to community collaboration. Thriving Weld
tailored the classic Kaplan-Norton Balanced Scorecard model to
their needs, using a three-perspective structure for their strategy
maps and scorecards instead of the usual four:
•
Outcomes are what the multi-agency partnership wishes to
achieve collectively. For example, the ultimate outcome in
the Healthy Eating focus area is ‘Increased People Living at
a Healthy Body Weight’.
•
•
Assets and Capacity Development capture the prerequisites for
achieving the strategies, much as the Learning and Growth
perspective supports the Process perspective in conventional scorecards. Here we find objectives such as ‘Gather
and Share Data to Improve Prioritisation and Monitoring’.
Strategies (such as ‘Increase Healthy Food Options in Res-
Outcomes
taurants and Retailers’) deliver the outcomes, essentially
combining the conventional Customer and Process perspectives.
Increased People Living at a Health Body Weight
Decreased Consumption of
Sugary Drinks
Strategies
Sustain & Promote Farmers’
Markets & Community Gardens
Increased Consumption of
Healthy Foods
Educate & Promote Healthy
Food & Beverage Choices
Improve Availability of Affordable
Healthy Food & Beverages to
Lower Income Residents
Increase Healthy Food Options
in Restaurants & Retailers
Improve Nutrition in
Schools
Support Local/Regional
Farm to Table Efforts
Enable Use of SNAP/EBT
for Healthy Food
Asset &
Capacity
Development
As with a conventional strategy map or scorecard, cause and
effect build from the bottom to the top.
Build a Strong Coalition of
Diverse Partners to Support
HEAL
Align Local Org Nutrition
Standards/Policies with Latest Dietary
Guidelines
Gather & Share Data
to Improve Prioritisation &
Monitoring
Collaborate to
Secure Funding for
HEAL
Improve Local Food System
Leverage Best Practices
and Tools for Collective
Impact
Figure 1: The strategy map for the Healthy Eating focus area
Driving Positive Community Outcomes with the Balanced Scorecard | 3
Copyright © 2015 Palladium
‘Zoomable’ Strategy Maps Tame
the Complexity of the Common
Agenda
High-level focus area strategy maps are composed of objectives
that are too big for any one organisation to be solely accountable for them. Thriving Weld addressed this issue using technology-enabled strategy maps that can zoom in or out to show
various levels of detail, like a digital map on a GPS. StakeholdOutcomes
Increase People Living at a Health Body Weight
Objective from Healthy
Eating Strategy Map
Strategies
Contributes to
Zoomed Objective
Decrease Consumption of
Sugary Drinks
Expand In-School Training on
Nutrition & Cooking
Zoomed Objective
Establish Healthy Food
Vending Programme in Schools
Build a Strong Coalition of
Diverse Partners to Support
HEAL
Increase Consumption of
Healthy Foods
Improve Nutrition in Schools
Provide Garden-to-Cafeteria
Programme for Schools
Implement Food Safety
Training at All Levels
Align Local Org Nutrition
Standards/Policies with Latest Dietary
Guidelines
Asset &
Capacity
Development
ers can view a high-level strategy map to understand the big
picture, then zoom in and view the details of a given objective,
narrowing in on those that are most relevant to them. The zoom
feature helps all partners work towards the focus area outcomes
through their own spheres of work and while benefiting from the
insights and data provided by the group as a whole.
Increase Partnerships
with Real Food Colorado
Gather & Share Data
to Improve Prioritisation &
Monitoring
Modify Parties &
Rewards to Encourage
Good Health
Establish Healthier School
Menus with Labeling
Expand Farm-to-School
Programs & Participants
Strengthen the Weld
Farm-to-School Purchasing
Coalition
Collaborate to
Secure Funding for
HEAL
Improve Local Food System
Leverage Best Practices
and Tools for Collective
Impact
Figure 2: Zooming in on the details of the ‘Improve Nutrition in Schools’ objective
4 | Driving Positive Community Outcomes with the Balanced Scorecard
Copyright © 2016 Palladium
A Robust Shared Measurement
System
Prioritised Actions to Improve
Strategy Execution
The focus area strategy maps provide the structure for a shared
measurement system. Each Outcome objective has one or two
measures to monitor the community’s progress.
As with a conventional scorecard system, thoughtfully selected
initiatives propel progress on objectives – but Weld County uses
the term action instead. Community-oriented organisations are
accustomed to creating and implementing action plans, so the
familiar term action resonates better than the more nebulous
initiative. Language is important for buy-in.
Because changes at a community level take years to achieve,
outcome measures move very slowly. Instead, progress in
the short term is evident in the Strategies perspective, which
supports the Outcome perspective. The Balanced Scorecard
methodology emphasises the importance of leading indicators,
which in this case is accomplished with driver measures and
associated targets that monitor the progress of objectives in the
Strategies perspective.
Before launching Thriving Weld, individual organisations would
select their own measures for their programmes, frustrating collaborative efforts even when organisations were working toward
common goals. Today the process is inverted: organisations
make programme and funding decisions according to their expected impact on the driver measures, which are shared across
the network – providing a powerful incentive for teamwork.
Enhancing Continuous
Communication with Dynamic
Online Scorecards
Transparency and visibility, also central to buy-in, are the keys
to success. The strategy maps and scorecards for dozens
of community partners are available for the public to view on
Thriving Weld’s website. These pages automatically update with
the latest data from the centralised measure collection system.
Driving Positive Community Outcomes with the Balanced Scorecard | 5
Copyright © 2015 Palladium
The Million Dollar Question
Is this approach creating the desired impact?
•
Improved Alignment of Funders and Other
Stakeholders
Grant makers have a huge impact on how non-profit
organisations work in a community. As a result of their
participation in Thriving Weld’s Balanced Scorecard
programme, the United Way of Weld County decided to
align their funding to the objectives on the strategy maps
and have grantees report their performance using the
shared measurement system. In turn, this decision led to
greater interest among community organisations in how
strategy maps can support improvements in strategic
measures. As other funders take a similar approach,
alignment will only grow stronger and fewer resources will
be spent on fragmented, redundant data gathering and
report creation.
•
Improved Engagement and New Actions
Having a clear set of shared priority objectives has inspired
many community organisations to launch creative actions to
address their community’s needs. This list of new efforts is
long and varied. For example, in 2015 community partners
launched a new initiative to improve active recreation for
minority youth by offering ‘Family Fun Passes’ to a nearby
funplex. Nearly 1400 families registered and over 3500
passes were used. In 2014, 35 organisations incorporated
plans or messaging about active living and reducing the
consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages into their
communication and modelling to youth. While many of
these initiatives are small, their collective impact reveals the
strength of the community’s engagement in achieving big
goals together.
When dealing with deeply entrenched community issues like
obesity and chronic disease, the time lag between embracing a
new approach and seeing the outcome in the community can
be considerable. The Balanced Scorecard system is no different
– it takes considerable time and work to see an appreciable
change in the outcome measures. It takes time to change the
systems, the environment, and people’s behaviours. It takes
time for those changes to impact health outcomes. It takes time
to collect and validate data.
It is early still to see the kinds of results Thriving Weld eventually
intends to produce. There are, however, many encouraging
signs of progress that show that this approach is creating
alignment, action, and positive movement to implement the
strategy:
•
Improved Communication
A year into Thriving Weld’s Balanced Scorecard
implementation, Dr. Mark Wallace, Weld County Health
Department’s Executive Director, gave a presentation at
a public health conference. He told the audience, ‘We’ve
had a lot of energy and activity around becoming a healthy
county for quite a few years. But in the past, it was like
all the organisations were…people talking in a crowded
restaurant. All the different conversations ended up creating
a lot of noise. Now, with a shared strategy that is clearly
communicated using the strategy maps, it is like being in a
theatre with surround sound.’
6 | Driving Positive Community Outcomes with the Balanced Scorecard
Copyright © 2016 Palladium
Conclusion
The Thriving Weld experience and other similar ventures show
how collaborative scorecards can address complex social
challenges, from improving quality of life in economically
disadvantaged communities to addressing crisis areas like drug
abuse. The potential is far-reaching – by adapting a system
developed for the private sector to address the ever-evolving
needs of the public sector, organisations spur innovative
solutions to truly pressing problems. These approaches are
powerful examples of delivering positive collective impact
through a collaborative, networked structure.
About the Authors
James Creelman is head of Research and Intellectual Property at Palladium. Based in Dubai, James is an experienced
consultant, trainer and author in the field of strategy execution
(primarily the Balanced Scorecard) and related fields, including
enterprise risk management and enterprise performance management. He has provided expert advice to organisations in the
Middle East, Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.
An experienced management author, James is the co-author of
the book Doing More with Less: Measuring, analysing and improving performance in the government and not-for-profit sectors (2014).
He has also authored or co-authored a further 23 books and
reports, including Risk-Based Performance Management: Integrating strategy and risk management (2013) and Creating a Balanced
Scorecard for a Financial Services Organisation (2011).
Bill Barberg is a globally recognised expert in strategy management, collective impact, and the Balanced Scorecard methodology for both individual organisations and for communities
or broad coalitions that strive to address issues no one organisation can address alone. He has presented many conference
workshops and web conferences on collective impact and
strategy management.
Bill is president and founder of Insightformation, which has
gained a strong reputation for expertise in deploying analysis,
dashboard, Balanced Scorecard and change management
solutions under his leadership. He was also the lead designer of
InsightVision, a performance management software solution.
Dr. Mark E. Wallace serves as CEO/CMO of the North Colorado Health Alliance. The Alliance mission is to expand access,
improve quality, eliminate disparities, control costs, manage
care, enhance the care experience and generate health.
He serves as Executive Director and Health Officer of the Weld
County Department of Health & Environment. Dr. Wallace has
worked for three different hospital systems in various leadership
roles and is Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sunrise Community Health. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the
Colorado Health Foundation, the Center for Improving Value in
Health Care, and the Northern Colorado Medical Society.
In 2006, Dr. Wallace was appointed one of the 24 commissioners to the bipartisan Colorado Blue Ribbon Commission on
Healthcare Reform and served as Vice-chair of the Commission
that presented its recommendations to the Colorado legislature
and governor in 2008.
Driving Positive Community Outcomes with the Balanced Scorecard | 7
Copyright © 2015 Palladium
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