The performance wheel and the small business pyramid: The next generation of performance scorecards

A common shortcoming with respect to performance scorecards within today's businessenvironment is the misconception that one size fits all. This paper considers the historicaldevelopment, as well as the increasing variety and poorly integrated status of one of business management's most important tools - the performance scorecard.This paper traces the development of performance management systems from itshistorical inception to the present examining ways that some approaches do not addressthe specific decision making needs of many enterprises. Performance scorecards aregenerally developed with a specific type of enterprise in mind, but few have integratedthe different emphases of the different approaches.With the focus on how performance management systems support control, thisarticle provides two `next-generation' performance scorecards - the Performance Wheel,suitable for most organizations and the Small Business Pyramid, which acknowledges theunique requirements of small business. These new models overcome the 'top-down' or 'bottom-up' shortcomings of popular systems, incorporate the insights of enterprisecontrol and integrate the importance of mission, strategy, critical success factors and keyperformance indicators as they apply to any form of organization, small to large, service to manufacturing.