Strategy Map in BSC Designer Online

A strategy map is a great visualization tool. In BSC Designer Online you can have several maps. The main one can be the classical Balanced Scorecard strategy map, and others can help in the visualization of important parts of your strategy.

View the strategy map

To view or edit a strategy map you need to open an existing Balanced Scorecard project or create a new one, and then go to the "Strategy Map" tab.

Add strategy map

On the toolbar there is a drop list with all of the strategy maps available in your project:

Next to the drop list there are some buttons that allow adding, renaming or deleting a strategy map.

Generate strategy map automatically

BSC Designer Online can generate a strategy map automatically using information about business goals, aligned KPIs, and cause-and-effect connections between them. To generate a map automatically, create a new map and click the "Strategy map placement" button:

BSC Designer will suggest for you to select a type of the map that you want to create, and will also allow you to customize map settings.

The interface of the map wizard is divided into several tabs.

Style

Select from several supported visualization styles

• Balanced Scorecard - a modern Balanced Scorecard strategy map with 4 perspectives, business goals, and cause-and-effect links between them
• Overview map - a rectangle-style map with top level KPIs/business goals only
• Map with KPIs - a geographical map where KPIs can be visualized

To use "Map with KPIs" map follow these steps:

1. Create a "Map with KPIs" using one of the predefined templates (* note, in BSC Designer PRO you can create more templates)
2. Go to the "KPIs" tab and select an indicator that you need to align with a region on the map
3. Select "Link item to the map" in the Tools
4. Go back to the "Strategy map" tab and update your "Map with KPIs"

Display themes

A business goal in BSC Designer can belong to various strategic themes. On "Display themes" tab one can choose the themes that need to be visualized on the current map.

Responsible persons

Choose if you want to show all goals, or goals for the selected person responsible only.

Map display properties

Various controls on this tab allow the user to customize the appearance of the business goals and aligned items on the strategy map.

Customize the way objects look

BSC Designer uses certain color styles for business goals and KPIs. It is possible to adjust some color settings. Select any object on the strategy map and click "Formatting" button on the toolbar:

Once you finish editing make sure to click "Lock" button on the toolbar to let the software know that this object should not be changed when map will be rebuilt:

Another mean to customize the way how the business goals are displayed on strategy map is by customizing color scheme of the strategic themes. To do this go to the "Business goals" tab, select any business goal, find "Strategic theme" drop list, and click "Edit" button next to the drop list:

Drawing on the strategy map

BSC Designer Online provides a wide range of objects that you can put on the map. Click on the "Custom objects" drop list to see what options you have:

Select an object from the list and click on the strategy map in a place where you want to place this new object.

• Double click onto the new object to enter some text.
• If you need to customize objects� settings such as color, gradient, etc. you need to select an object and click "Object properties button."

Text on the strategy map

With the "Text" element you can put a text note anywhere on the strategy map.

To customize text properties such as font size and color, select an element and click the "Text Properties" button on the toolbar.

Links

You can link two objects using different link types. Select a link type that you need:

move a cursor over a source object, click and don't release a mouse button, move the cursor to the other object, select destination point and release the mouse button.

Send to back, bring to front

Two buttons will help you to organize objects on the strategy map. Use them when you need to move some object to the front or bring it to the back.

Adding business objects

You can add business objectives and KPIs to the strategy map.

• Use "Add KPI element" button to add a KPI to the strategy map. The software will ask to choose between creating a new KPI and adding a KPI that already exists.
• With "Add business element" button you can add an existent business objective to the map. Click the button and select an appropriate element. There might be only one copy of the element placed on the strategy map. To create a new business goal or objective, go to the objectives tab.

You can double-click on the KPI item or business objective, BSC Designer will find this object on KPIs or Business Goals tab so that you can manage it.

If you want to learn how to use the strategy map for the Balanced Scorecard process, check out this section of the manual.