I grew up playing a lot of basketball and wanting to coach basketball someday. One of the keys to being a good basketball coach is the ability to make adjustments in a game. A weekly scorecard helps you do just that. If the opposing team switches from man-to-man defense to a zone, you have to change your offensive strategy. If you don't, none of your offensive plays will work very well. The longer it takes you as a coach to adjust, the more you are hurting your team by not adapting.
Running a business is a competition. In the early 20th century, the United States government ruled against monopolies, so chance are you are not the only business who does what you do. You also have these things in your business called employees/people/team members. They are not infallible machines, and unfortunately, they are allowed to take vacation. You also have these things in your business called customers. They are great - they pay your bills; but they may occasionally decide to pay your bill late, or not pay your bill, or move to another provider. The moral of the story is that businesses need to adapt to the changing surroundings just like a basketball coach does.
Every business has financial statements; they are necessary to run your business. However, if you have a problem at the beginning of April, and you want to read about it on your April financials that come out mid-May, you may be six weeks behind from adapting to a change your business needed to make. Financials are important to provide thorough analysis of where you've been, but they aren't best suited for rapid decision making.
A Weekly Scorecard Helps You Adapt to Change
A weekly scorecard is your answer to how to adapt to the changing business climate. A weekly scorecard, with the most important information that you need to see and would react to, will help you turn on a dime faster than waiting to recognize the problem when your monthly financials come out. A great scorecard addresses the following needs:
- It is produced each week recapping the previous week's activities
- It must contain no more than 1 page worth of data
- It must contain only those indicators that would cause you to react one way or another
- It must take less than 2 hours to produce each week
When you have that scorecard in place, you have to make sure you have a routine for how to review it each week. For us, our scorecard comes out each Wednesday and we review it on Thursday morning at our leadership meeting. I must admit that as soon as I see it Wednesday, I read it and react to it even before we get a chance to discuss it on Thursday. If there's something that needs attention, I want to jump on it right away.
Once you have this routine down, you'll be able to adjust to the changing business climate quickly. Just like a basketball coach who is now facing a zone defense, you'll be able to change your offensive scheme immediately so you don't lose out on your chance to win.
Build a Weekly Scorecard Webinar
I recently had a chance to present on this topic to business leaders in Fargo, ND as part of the Chamber of Commerce Business Training series. I'll be presenting more information in a free online webinar at 11 a.m. (CDT), Wednesday, June 22. If you're interested, check out the session and reserve your spot here: https://stoneridgesoftware.com/build-business-scorecard.
I'm passionate about how much a scorecard can help you improve your business, and I'd love to answer questions you have about how it all comes together.
About the author
Eric Newell 
is the President and Founder of Stoneridge Software, a Microsoft Partner organization. In the three-and-a-half years since founding the company, he has led Stoneridge Software through explosive growth in team members, customers, services and product offerings. As a Microsoft ERP Gold partner based in Minnesota and specializing in Dynamics AX, Dynamics NAV and Dynamics CRM, the company has accomplished many challenging and successful software implementations during this time.
With a combined passion for technology and business excellence, Eric has taken on many internal initiatives to grow in operational excellence as a professional services consulting firm. This pursuit has benefited in being able to pass on best practices to clients and has resulted in many awards, such as ChamberChoice Entrepreneur of the Year, Accounting Today’s Top 100 VARs, Bob Scott’s Insights Top 100 VARs and VAR Stars, SPI Research’s Best-of-the-Best Professional Consulting Firms and numerous Best Place to Work Awards.
Prior to founding Stoneridge Software, Eric spent 13 years at Microsoft and Great Plains Software where highlights include earning his Microsoft Certified System Engineer, architecting a global Dynamics CRM implementation and leading the Premier Field Engineering practice for Dynamics AX across North America.
Eric is a frequent speaker on business technology. One of his favorite things to talk about is the company’s scorecard and how the use of a scorecard can make a difference in operations at any business.
by Stoneridge Software