Building An IT Scorecard

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Now that we are perhaps beginning to see some relief from our current economic woes, it might be a good time for CIOs to focus on how they would like to be measured during and after the recovery. Performance measurement is a complex issue because it both drives and constrains behavior. As the old performance-system design aphorism goes, “You’ll get what you measure, so measure what you want to get,” and examples of the unanticipated consequences that can arise from poorly aligned though technically correct measurement systems abound. Nevertheless, a well-designed measurement platform can motivate both customers, whether internal or external, and staff to perform better and build more effective relationships. CIOs who want a say in the future investments their companies make in business automation will almost certainly be required to show that these investments will generate effective returns.

Balanced scorecard models are a good way to think about the tricky issues of performance measurement, because they explicitly call out the different but related areas where measurements are important and help to decide what measures are relevant in each area. But what should a “recovery scorecard for IT” look like? The following whiteboard has been put together by Capgemini’s John Parkinson as an approach to an IT-focused measurement framework. It has been “tested” at least conceptually at a number of Capgemini’s largest clients and found to be a good basis for CIOs who want to adopt a performance measurement platform and build an effective performance measurement system for their organizations.

John Parkinson is the chief technologist for the Americas region at Capgemini, a columnist for CIO Insight and a member of the CIO Insight Editorial Advisory Board.

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