Chapter 3 REVIEW How Can You Measure the Impact of your Strategic Map Over Time?

Objects Understand how can measure the impact of the strategic map over time. Define the results you want to achieve Define the results you want to achieve How you will measure progress How you will measure strategic map progress Analyze the results and make improvements

if results indicate that they are not moving in the right direction then they re-examine every aspect of what they are doing and make adjustments where necessary. How Can you measure the impact of your strategic map over time?

1. How will we know we are getting there? analyzing the implications of the results you get and taking action to continuously improve. A basic framework for managing continuous improvement;

2. Define the results you want to achieve Goals, which define excellence in concrete terms and have been developed based on your vision and mission. The management team at this hotel know precisely what it is that they are aiming for. You will have different goals, but the principles remain the same; you will simply want to know whether your goals are becoming a reality. As a reminder, here are the goals which they were seeking to achieve:

2. Take action to achieve the results you want Once you are clear on what, you must then take action to make them happen through your annual plan as described. Make sure that the defined actions are addressed within the agreed timeframes.

3. Consider how you will measure progress Measuring progress in relation to your strategic map has two dimensions: implementation and impact Measuring implementation is relatively straightforward and essentially means that you ensure that the actions agreed in your annual plan. Measuring impact is somewhat more complicated but more valuable in terms of what it can tell you about your progress towards excellence.

3. Consider how you will measure progress It is such an important area that you should give it a lot of thought early on in the process, so that you will have the information you need, when you need it later. There may be measurement gaps to be bridged because clearly not all the goals in your strategic map will be financial in nature. So, what measures will you actually need? ⇒ Value for you Taking our hotel example: Refer to page 38.

Consider how you will measure progress Sample measures goals Sample measures To win the Customers’ Choice Award in the coming year Achievement of the Customers’ Choice Award To increase customer satisfaction levels to 90% within two years Overall customer satisfaction % To reduce employee turnover to 20% within three years Employee turnover % To increase RevPar by 5% annuallyRevPar

1) Do you Have the necessary system in place? they must provide you with the feedback on actual progress against projected in the relevant areas. Every business regardless of size needs regular information to support ongoing decision making. Without the right data, you cannot measure impact, make informed decisions, take corrective action or indeed continuously improve.

Having the system to give you the information you need, when you need it

you will obviously need to produce the measures you have identified so that you can track progress. For some measures, such as financial data, you will produce them frequently. Such measurements might be taken quarterly, bi-annually depending upon the scale of your operation. 4. Measure progress at defined intervals

If customer satisfaction is below par, you will need to communicate directly with your customers to determine why. If employee engagement levels do not meet expectations, this again will require you to communicate with them to find out why. If financial targets are not met, you will naturally explore in detail where things went wrong. 5. Analyse the results and make improvements

Benchmarking your results: To strengthen your understanding of how your hotel is performing against the defined goals, you should explore ways in which you can benchmark your results against industry norms. these benchmarking relationships can be informal in nature, agreed with what you consider to be comparable hotels, or they can be more structured systems. managing continuous improvement does not have to be a complex undertaking but it does need structure and is dependent upon having the right information to guide you, if you want to see positive results.