I had a client come to me today and ask this question: “If the boss already has an operational dashboard, do we have a balanced scorecard of sorts?” My answer was: “No, but you could work in that direction.”

If your boss is tracking operational measures, you can decipher what is truly important to him/her.

1. Look for logical groupings between different measures (an affinity diagram is especially helpful here). The larger, summary groups could turn out to be strategic focus areas that require improvement in order to achieve leadership’s vision.

2. Work towards formalizing the vision, and then exploring potential objectives across the four perspectives of the scorecard (financial, customers, internal processes, and learning and growth) to ensure a true “balance”.

3. Review the measures currently tracked, and discern leading versus lagging. If they are all lagging, establish the most appropriate leading measures to enable decision making “in process”.

This series of activities can continue until you have a formalized, documented, and enabling strategy. If you decide on a Balanced Scorecard (my personal favorite), great! If you decide on another format, that’s good too. The key is to reach into the quagmire of intent and to shape an approach and a direction that can be clearly communicated and executed. Improvement should follow.