Google Spreadsheets As A Management Scorecard

Managing the performance of your team or partners can be challenging if the debates are around qualitative information. Yet, we often base our judgments on subjective criteria such as likability or appearance. This leads to ambiguity around success.

It can be difficult to get true metrics from a sophisticated database on sales performance, support responsiveness or customer satisfaction. One of the ways to keep control and transparency in a business relationship is to create a scorecard. This can be done between individuals or organizations as a way to measure success towards a mutual goal.

Google Spreadsheets is a great way to keep a management scorecard to measure and track metrics. We all know about the flexibility and power of creating spreadsheets based on the computations and data relationships custom for a situation. Thus, in Google Spreadsheets, your ability to create rows and columns of data makes for a way to record what counts in your business relationships. Here is what you can do to create better agreements and accountability:

• Agree on what success means.  Whether it is a revenue number by a certain date, customer conversions or a response time, be sure that there is agreement between you and your customer, employee or partner. If they are not bought in, then there will not be a relationship between the desired actions and what you are tracking.
• Create the template.  Lay out your Google Spreadsheet with columns and rows for where the data will go. Create areas for equations that summarize the information. Be sure to test the tool to ensure that everything works.
• Use charts and graphs. Now integrate a chart or graph with the data to show progress and visual indicators of the data. This is powerful for communicating what is happening in a snapshot. Be sure that any goals are also reflected to show the gap between today and the goal.

After your spreadsheet is set up, share it out. It is secure in Google Apps and is now a place for private communications and accountability between you and any others that need to be on the same page.

Have regular meetings around the scorecard and data to review how to get to the goal. You may have multiple spreadsheets to manage your vital business relationships. It removes the ambiguity and focuses everyone on the facts.

What kind of scorecards would be valuable for your work?