North
Carolina DOT Balanced
Scorecard
Balanced
Scorecards are extensively used in DOT in many countries. Let’s see
North Carolina DOT Balanced Scorecard in some details. They show how
two operating departments--transportation and police--translate the
high-level corporate scorecard for the city into departmental
balanced scorecards. The North Carolina DOT Balanced Scorecard
follows a highly structured approach designed to link initiatives
taken at the departmental and local level to the accomplishment of
high-level strategic objectives. The police department uses the
scorecard to enact a complete change in culture, focusing the police
department on crime prevention and community building, and away from
its previous emphasis on dealing with crimes after they occur. Shows
two quite different approaches for drilling the scorecard down to
local operating departments.
Teaching Purpose: Illustrates
how a high-level corporate balanced scorecard (like North Carolina DOT Balanced Scorecard) --done at the city level--can be linked to
scorecards at individual operating department levels. The process
aligns the initiatives and goals of all departments to global
strategy and objectives.
Some of the main subjects covered by North
Carolina DOT Balanced Scorecard: Accounting & control, balanced
scorecard, Business government relations, Cities, Competitive
strategy, corporate strategy, Finance & accounting, General
management, Local government, Management controls, Performance
measurement, Public sector, Strategy implementation.
The city manager's office in Charlotte, North Carolina is attempting to
align and focus the city's programs and operating departments. City
managers, working collaboratively with the elected mayor and city
council, have identified five strategic themes to make Charlotte the
number one city in which to live and work. These themes are:
community safety, transportation, strong neighborhoods, economic
development, and cost-effective government.
But the city managers find it difficult to
get the individual city operating departments to orient their
efforts to these five strategic themes. They use the four
perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard to develop objectives for the
five strategic themes. Once developed, each operating department has
then been asked to develop departmental balanced scorecards to
communicate and focus their local objectives toward accomplishing
the city's strategic priorities. The case describes the development
and use of the balanced scorecard as a strategic management system.
Teaching Purpose: Describes the motivation for developing a balanced
scorecard in a government context. Enables students to explore the
modifications required to use this performance management approach
in a nonprofit sector, and to debate its effectiveness in focusing
the efforts of diverse municipal departments, such as police,
transportation, utilities, and neighborhood
development.
FY98 benchmarking activities among four
civilian agencies (i.e., Departments of Commerce (DOC), Energy
(DOE), Transportation (DOT), and Health and Human Services (HHS))
indicated an average Customer Satisfaction rating of 80%. The four
participating agencies used the survey method to determine their
customer satisfaction percentage. While survey questions were
tailored to meet the unique needs of each agency, all four agencies
addressed timeliness; quality; and responsiveness, cooperation, and
communication skills of the acquisition
office.
