Strategy Maps in Balanced Scorecard Designer

Introduction - Functions Overview - Purchase Program

What are strategy maps?

• Strategy maps are available only in the PRO version

With Balanced Scorecard Designer, it is possible to automatically create nice-looking maps which will visually represent indicators from your scorecard.

• Use a Strategy Map to visualize indicators from the balanced scorecard;

• Add your own objects to the map to make it more reader-friendly;

• Export the strategy map using the Export command in BSC Designer or the command line interface.

Adding custom objects

Use the Strategy Map panel to manage objects:

There are three type of objects in the strategy map:

• Linked objects are linked to indicators from the scorecard and represent the information from the indicator. You can still change the color and other settings of the linked objects, but the object is hard-linked to the indicator. If the indicator is deleted from the KPI set, then it will be deleted from the map as well.

An example of a linked object indicator:

• Free objects are user-creatable objects for nice-looking strategy maps.

Example of free objects:

Object styles

Both free and linked objects can be modified to have a better visual style. Objects have the properties DrawShadow and UseGradient:

Objects can change shape and can be rotated:

• Links. There are three types of links available in the program. Links between linked objects are created automatically, but you also can create more links on your own.

There are additional types of links available in BSC Designer. Use the DashStyle property to change the type of the link.

• Note: if you need a link with a text, use a separate text object.

Position of the objects

There are two ways to position objects in the strategy map:

• Using the Placement Wizard. The wizard will suggest several different ways to arrange objects and links in the map, but it will not take into account the position of the objects that you might have changed before by hand, changing the position of all objects. Use the Placement Wizard option in the Strategy Map menu to access the wizard.

• Manually. After using the placement wizard, you might need to re-arrange objects slightly. You can move objects just like in any other program, and change object size and color