A scorecard is an evaluative decision-making or prioritizing shortcut, often done in a spreadsheet.
A scorecard is an evaluative decision-making or prioritizing shortcut, often done in a spreadsheet. It is a structured way to identify one top choice among a number of options, to help focus our use of resources such as time and money. It helps achieve a goal one small step at a time. This technique can be useful if there is no clear intuitive priority.
As a quick and dirty tool, to choose one thing to focus on, scorecards are difficult to beat. It forces you to choose criteria that are important, then to weight each criterion, and finally to multiply or weight each value to generate a number that can then be used to rank all options being considered.
This general framework can be applied in many different areas of running a startup or innovation program:
The primary goal here is to prevent "analysis paralysis" while still providing one clear priority to make it easier to identify an immediate next step.
15-30 minutes, depending on the number of options to evaluate.
Ask what are three examples of the best and three of the worst of this thing (skill, venue, performance, etc.)? What were the consistent mindsets leading to the three best examples?
This technique is highly dependent on subjective factors. While it seems "scientific," in fact a lot depends on the weights you assign to each option. Its primary goal is to give you one option to pursue, so that you can execute it without dwelling on which decision you ought to make. If you take action quickly, you can always change your mind later. If you don't take action at all, you won't generate a result.
A scorecard may generate a result that is counterintuitive. If that is the case, then most likely the result that you wanted is the "correct" option to pursue. Going through the exercise can help bring to the surface what you already know, but can't articulate consciously.
As this technique does not gather data, it is purely a subjective ranking tool to help you take action. Even though it looks very considered and rational, it should not be confused with data-backed decision tools. The numbers used are subjective estimates.