How are you keeping the score?

January 18, 2010 · Filed Under Business Ideas & TIps · 1 Comment 

Brisbane International

In Brisbane we have enjoyed the Brisbane International Tennis Tournament. It is part of the world tennis circuit and is one of the lead up tournaments to the Australian Open held in Melbourne this week.

We went to the tennis arena to watch some of the matches which was most enjoyable. The thing that is quite obvious though (in watching any sporting match, but lets just for the minute focus on the tennis) is the use of a scoreboard. The tennis scoring system dates back to when the date when the game was founded and has some little quirks, but anybody new to the game after a short explanation will understand how each game is scored; from 15, to 30, to 40, potentially ‘deuce’, to ‘game’. Then the first to 6 games (subject to tiebreak situation) wins a set. The matches are best of 3 or 5 sets. (Obviously there are many nuances in the scoring of tennis which I wont go into.

My point is that the scoreboard clearly shows the progress of the match. It is very clear to all, the players, the spectators what the score is and what has happened.

Is this the case in your business?

Do you have a scorecard that is simple to understand? A scoreboard that after a short explanation everybody can understand? Can everybody understand how the business makes money?

There would not be many variables that the scoreboard would measure. It must be easily understood and relevant.  There may be separate scoreboards for separate divisions or areas of the business.

FedEx use a system whereby they have what they call a ‘Hierarchy of Horrors’.  These are all the things that could go wrong in dealing with their customers.  All parcels are tracked to determine how their service ranked against this hierarchy of horrors and an index which they call a ‘Service Quality Index’ is kept. Every morning this service quality index is emailed out to every office. Everybody knows from this index how FedEx is going.

Yes, they have quite a sophisticated IT solution and for any small business, they could not hope to emulate the same sort of scoreboard, but the point is that they have considered what actually matters to the customer and developed a scoreboard around that. It is something that everybody in the business has input into and I believe that a system of a scoreboard that everybody understands is important to manage the business.

There are other things to lead the business, but from the management view point, we need to (like the tennis) have a scoreboard that is simple and relevant for all.

Picture – Richard Fisher


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