Manage Initiatives - Action Plans for the KPIs and Goals

Learn how to enhance KPIs and goals with specific initiatives (action plans) that include project management elements such as budgets, timelines, and statuses.

  • Extend KPIs/goals with project management properties.
  • Allocate resources (budgets, timelines, and schedules).
  • Define dependencies on other initiatives, KPIs, or risks.
  • Upload relevant documents and discuss initiatives.

Initiatives in BSC Designer

Access Initiatives

To access or create the Initiatives dialog, select any goal or KPI and click the clipboard icon next to the name of the selected item. Alternatively, you can configure the KPI table view to display the Initiatives column.

Learn more about the role of the initiatives in strategic planning.

General Properties

Initiatives have the following properties:

  • Name of the initiative.
  • Description of the initiative.
  • Document list with the links to the detailed action plans.
  • Owner of the initiative.
  • Type of the item, such as initiative, success factor, expected outcome, rationale, hypothesis, risk mitigation plan.

Process-Related Properties

  • Status of the initiative (statuses can be configured on the Workflow tab in the account Settings).
  • Aligned KPI that indicates the progress of the initiative.
  • Timeline for the initiative (is used on dashboard charts).
  • Duration of the initiative.

Dependencies

  • Depends on and Contributes to define the dependency between initiatives (used on the Gantt charts).
  • Context defines the contextual relationships of the initiative. Use the Add button to link the initiative by context with another initiative, goal, or indicator.

Documents and Discussion

  • Documents section allows uploading strategy-related documents and linking to external resources.
  • Comments section allows users to discuss the initiative.

Budget Properties

  • Budget assigned to the initiative.
  • Currency of the budget (currencies can be configured on the Organization > Currencies tab in the account Settings).
  • Actual expense.
  • Variance (the difference) between the budget and the actual.
If an initiative has budget and progress information, the software will show:
  • Earned Value = Total Budget * Progress, %
  • Cost Variance = Earned Value - Budget Actual

Budgets assigned to initiatives across the scorecard are visualized on the KPIs tab and in the Cost of Strategy report.