Integrated IT Architecture

I believe I found the answer for last trimester Professor Maria José Trigueiros' question "What's an integrated IT architecture?" It's not like I've discovered gunpowder or anything, it's actually quite simple.

And the answer is... The Balanced Scorecard!

If well designed and implemented, a Balanced Scorecard system can be the key integrating element for the whole organization, articulating strategy, people, systems and procedures, not just a new management fad.

From a top-bottom approach, on the top, we have mission, vision and strategy, wich can generally described as classic decision problem acording to Herbert Simon's description:

• Mission: Who are we and where are we today? What do we beleive in, and keep on believing, no matter what? What's our overall purpose?

• Vision: Who do we want to be tomorrow, and where do we want to go?


• Strategy: How do we get there?

Here is where the real wisdom of the organization resides. No IT system can answer these questions. The answers have to be provided and communicated by the (hopefully...) wise top leaders in the organization.

Right below, we have the Balanced Scorecard, wich monitors and integrates strategy execution across all significant dimensions (perspectives) of the organization, through a carefully selected set of key indicators from all perspectives.

The Balanced Scorecard indicators can be fed by the corporate Data Warehouse and departmental Data Marts, which, in turn, are fed by the operational systems.

The Balanced Scorecard is the element that integrates all these different systems, and can be an effective way to communicate the organizational strategy across the different levels of the organization, and to ensure that everyone in the organization is aligned with that strategy and understands his/her contribution to the overall strategy.

One key issue: transparency and communication. It's very important that the systems on the upper levels communicate their conclusions to the lower levels. For instance, it would be very appealing for a retail store to have, in the point of sale system, the information on the probability of a certain costumer buying a certain product.

balancedscorecard.blogspot.com

Performance Measurement in the Public Sector

As a new year decision, I decided to write my future posts in English, starting today, and change the blog title accordingly. I've received a few visits from non-Portuguese speaking countries, which exceeded my expectations, so I decided to go global! Happy new year to all.

Anyway, I want to dedicate my first post this year to the subject of performance measurement, with a quote I think Portuguese authorities should have in mind (but are apparently forgetting) when implementing the ongoing public administration reforms, especially in the education sector, to which I'm particularly sensitive:

"(...) the focus should not be on the measurement, it should not be an end in itself. It's necessary to use the outputs from the measurement process and give them a specific orientation, to be able to motivate, inspire and align people with the organization's mission, vision and strategic priorities, inducing them to improve performance."

"If this is not the purpose of the performance measurement , people could negatively interpret ate the system, as a mechanism to punish lower performance. (...) If the focus is excessively on the evaluation mechanisms, instead of on the results, on the improvements to achieve, on motivation, on recognition and compensations for high performance, on identifying the reasons for low performance, without a punishing purpose, and on the reassessment of the goals to achieve, there may be conditions for the failure of any performance measurement system to be implemented."

Francisco Pinto, "Balanced Scorecard - Alinhar Mudança, Estratégia e Performance nos Serviços Públicos", Edições Sílabo

I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I'm not optimistic towards the secondary teachers performance evaluation mechanisms that are being implemented in Portugal. Francisco Pinto said it well, and I'm afraid that is also true in other sectors of the Portuguese public administration.