Scorecards vs Dashboards

Often when working in PMO, you will hear the term – Scorecards & Dashboards. Often wondered on their similarities and differences, and here’s the post outlining the key takeaways.

Does Organizations need both of them?

When to use them in an ideal scenario?

What kind of details they represent?

What are their benefits?

Using scorecards and dashboards at the right pace will provide an organization, a much detailed picture of its progress towards reaching operational and strategic goals.

Scorecards are usually defined as “Performance Management Tool” whereas Dashboards are called as “Performance Monitoring Tool”.

Scorecards	Dashboards
Often compares the strategic goals with the actual results. They aids in measuring the periodic progress.	Unlike scorecards, Dashboards measure the on-going performance.
Used to monitor the KPI’s – focuses on the target vs actual. They aligns the KPI’s with objectives and helps in taking decisions. If activities get off track, you have the opportunity to get them back on track before the quarter ends, rather than doubling up in the next quarter	Most often, they do not track the metrics comparing to their target values.
Mostly Scorecards used to measure and track the performance of individual projects or efficiency of the specific teams.	Used often to represent the organization’s overall performance against various metrics.
Scorecards display strategic metrics at periodic intervals, say weekly or monthly. This gives the frequent snapshots of the performance.	Dashboards are often real-time data / live data. They aid in generating many detailed reports. Often displays financial, operational related metrics.
Typically in the form of table with presenting the data as raw as possible. Easily can be interpreted.	Typically includes lots of visualization in terms of graphs & charts which helps in Identification of historical data, comparisons and even negative trends
Scorecards usually provide the static level of data.	Dashboards provide real-time updates, aids automation and helps in drill-down analysis using filters and Slicers.

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The key difference between the Scorecard and Dashboard is that, Scorecards will show the actual measures against the targets in a forward-looking with weekly, monthly, quarterly timelines which leads to desired outcomes.

Needless to say, Scorecards and Dashboards may not be different all times. Depending on the requirements of the organization, the dashboards can include the KPI’s and provide the periodic data whereas Scorecards can provide insights about the performance.

In the end, all it matters is having the efficient and effective system of monitoring the performance against the goals.

As they say, there is no one way to present the data. Deciding which one to use and what to accommodate in each depends totally on the organization and it is not exclusive.