Balanced Scorecard Collaborative Honors Fulton County (Georgia) Schools, University of California, San Diego, and United States Army with Prestigious Hall of Fame Award

Exemplary Results of These Strategy-Focused Organizations Lauded at Government Summit

WASHINGTON, and LINCOLN, Mass., Sept. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc. today announced it has named Fulton County Schools, University of California, San Diego, and the United States Army to the Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame for achieving significant performance results as Strategy-Focused Organizations. The awards were presented today to officers of each organization at the Balanced Scorecard Government Summit being held this week in Washington, D.C.

Balanced Scorecard Collaborative President Dr. David P. Norton said, "We created the Hall of Fame to publicly acknowledge the hard work and remarkable results of implementing the Balanced Scorecard to create the Strategy-Focused Organization. The Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame pays tribute to the success that each organization has attained."

Selection Criteria

Hall of Fame winners celebrated today met the award criteria with breakthrough performance largely as a result of applying the five principles of a Strategy-Focused Organization. The five principles are: Mobilize change through executive leadership; translate the strategy to operational terms; align the organization to the strategy; motivate to make strategy everyone's job; and govern to make strategy a continual process.

Other selection criteria are: Implementing the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) as defined by the Kaplan/Norton methodology; presenting the case at a public conference; achieving media recognition for the scorecard implementation; producing significant financial or market share gains or accomplishing mission objectives; and a CxO testimonial linking the organization's results with its Balanced Scorecard. Today's honorees were personally selected by Balanced Scorecard creators Drs. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton.

Hall of Fame Honorees

BSC Hall of Fame winners each achieved success meaningful for the organization's particular sector or industry, relative to specific, individual business, or performance objectives.

Fulton County Schools

Fulton County Schools is a large, diverse public education system covering grades K-12 located in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia. The district serves 73,000 students in 83 schools and employs 9,500 employees. Fulton County Schools uses the Balanced Scorecard to apply business practices to its management. With student achievement at the top of its scorecard, Fulton County students have increased their SAT scores to exceed the national average by 23 points, with 89% of all graduates taking the test compared to only 48% nationally. Their elementary and middle schools have increased 5 points annually on the state's criterion-referenced test. Eighty-two percent of Fulton County parents surveyed show a high level of satisfaction with their schools compared to the national average of 68 percent. Other results include reduced teacher attrition, new school construction that is consistently on time and under budget, and reduced administrative expenses.

According to Katie Reeves, board president, "One of a Board's most important tasks is the adoption of an annual budget. The Balanced Scorecard greatly assists in this area. Using the scorecard, school and system administrators make improvement recommendations and submit proposed budgets that align to the recommendations. The Board uses this input to identify items with the greatest potential for significant and immediate impact on student achievement and areas with significant room for improvement. These "strategic imperatives" direct the Board's decision-making during the budgeting process, providing the focus we need to develop a budget that meets the needs of our organization. By annually reviewing our targets, the Board and community receive an objective evaluation of school system successes. We can easily see which objectives were met, and which fell short. This is valuable as we seek to not only plan for the future, but also measure the past."

University of California, San Diego

UCSD, the first university in the country to implement a comprehensive Balanced Scorecard approach, has been managing with the scorecard for over a decade. A true exemplar of the Strategy-Focused Organization, UCSD has garnered results for itself and its customers. For example, the University's housing department, inspired by the BSC to think creatively, now saves $300K annually by buying carpeting directly from the mill, reducing the cost of UCSD's student housing - a significant benefit for students and their parents. The BSC has also created synergies between departments. In one case the result is a web-based storehouse-buying site with features rivaling the best commercial web buying services available. Increasingly satisfied customers and employees and significant cost-savings throughout its many departments are also hallmarks of UCSD's Balanced Scorecard program.

"The Balanced Scorecard process provides UCSD with a roadmap on where it should focus its energies, priorities, and resources in addressing administrative services for UCSD," said Steven W. Relyea, UCSD's vice chancellor for business affairs. "The BSC also establishes an objective framework for continually assessing the effectiveness of campus administrative services using real data from customers, peer institutions, and the people providing the services. Colleges and universities, large and small, as well as public and private, are coming under increasing scrutiny by constituents interested in the cost and effectiveness of campus operations. During difficult budgetary times, the BSC approach is indispensable. While some have viewed an approach such as the Balanced Scorecard as optional in the past, many will find it a key to survival in this era of shrinking funds."

U.S. Army

The U.S. Army consists of over 1.2 million men and women and is engaged throughout the world fighting the global war on terrorism and providing peace and stability in many international regions. While the Army continues to meet its mission objectives on numerous fronts, it is also orchestrating a profound and comprehensive effort to transform itself into a technically advanced, nimble force able to respond rapidly and decisively across a full spectrum of operations. Using the Balanced Scorecard, Army has achieved cross-functional coordination and accelerated decision-making. With a clear articulation of its mission and improved focus on stakeholders, the Army has been able to map out its key internal processes in order to reconcile its long-term vision of becoming the force of the future with its current need to maintain readiness. The Army's Strategic Readiness System, the name it gives to its Balanced Scorecard, has been key to achieving this transformation.

According to General John M. Keane, vice chief of staff, United States Army, "The Army's Strategic Readiness System was implemented in October 2002 as a comprehensive strategic management and readiness assessment tool. It provides Army leadership with accurate, objective, predictive, and actionable readiness information to dramatically enhance strategic resource management. For the first time we have an Army enterprise management system that integrates readiness information from both the Active and Reserve Components - enabling the Army to improve support to Combatant Commanders, invest in Soldiers and their families, identify and adopt sound business practices, and Transform the Army to the Objective Force. This reporting system markedly improves how we measure readiness by gathering timely information with precision and expands the scope of the data considered. We are further developing this system to leverage leading indicators and predict trends -- avoiding issues that affect readiness before they become problems."

The Award

A stunning Steuben crystal rising star, designed by Robert Cassetti, was presented to officers from each organization at the Balanced Scorecard Government Summit: "Using the Balanced Scorecard to Drive Performance." Today's winners join other Hall of Fame organizations including: City of Charlotte, Hilton Hotels, National Reconnaissance Organization, UPS, Wells Fargo, and Wendy's International.

About the Balanced Scorecard

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) concept -- created by Drs. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton in 1992 -- has been implemented in thousands of corporations, organizations, and government agencies worldwide. Based on the simple premise that "measurement motivates," the BSC puts strategy at the center of the management process, allowing organizations to implement strategies rapidly and reliably.

About Balanced Scorecard Collaborative

Led by Balanced Scorecard creators Drs. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc. (BSCol) is a new kind of professional services firm dedicated to the worldwide awareness, use, enhancement, and integrity of the Balanced Scorecard as a value-added management process. To learn more about the BSC or BSCol, join the growing worldwide Balanced Scorecard community at http://www.bscol.com

SOURCE Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc.

Web Site: http://www.bscol.com