Rating: 
Summary: redundant -- go back to the article
Review: The book rehashes the article for an extra couple hundred pages. I've got this book on the shelf, but when I want to talk about the Balanced Score Card concept, I go back to the article.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Book... just a bit time consuming
Review: The book was introduced to me through a seminar at the American Management Association (AMA). Having had the occurrence to use the methods in both the public and private sector, it was extremely helpful in keeping my applications "basic", yet have the measures affect down and upline management decisions. Once introduced to the system, it's quite revealing what the scorecard reveals. The only drawback, and it seems I am not alone in this, is the time commitment needed to read the book, and actually have the cognitive level to allow it to penetrate my flooded mind. You must read the book in segments; too much at once and you will lose half of what was read. Taking the time to read it will allow the strategic elements to reach you, and hopefully stay with you. It's a must for business managers and those charged with critical decisions that affect the system as a whole.
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Summary: The Balanced Scorecard: Performance Measurement Paydirt.
Review: The Kaplan and Norton tome is paydirt for the performance and quality improvement buffs panning the endless stream of big-promise, small (or no) delivery literature flooding the business section of your favorite caffeine and hardcover (or caffeine and keyboard--Amazon.com) hangout. K & N's pay-off is a conceptual bridge between the MBA's ONLY strategic management quagmire and the mensch in the trench "but how does this stuff fit my quality tools" advocates. So: you don't get Chambers, Porter, and the rest made easy in a baker's dozen (approximately) chapters; nor do you get a Pareto chart prioritized family of measurements easy as a Fannie Farmer biscuit. The K & N gold nugget you do get, however, is the fundamental framework for leading your organization to strategy informed and aligned sets of measurements that peg your financial and intangible resource performance in sustaining your best of the best efforts. K & N's research-based rationale persuasively, if not convincingly, homes in on the central theme that worry about money is important, but if you don't pay attention to the who (Learning and Growth among staff/employees), how (Internal Business Processes), and why (Customer Desires) of your business, even the most promising financials are only the short term glitter of fool's gold
Rating:
Summary: Continuous improvement with a feed-forward approach
Review: The measurement of the enterprise performances is today more and more important for business units and their management. To provide a real balanced growth of your enterprise I suggest to every kind of manager to read carefully this book. I'm sure you'll find a new way to design your business or to clarify where are you going to. Don't miss it.
Rating: 
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: This book does not deliver on the expectations built by the initial Balanced Scorecard articles. It does very little to clarify and structure the concept and approach to building a Balanced Scorecard. There are a few interesting ideas but they get lost in a repetitive and hard to read text.
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Summary: Book that spawned a core business approach
Review: This book is a seminal work that has significantly affected the way businesses frame and execute strategy. In a nutshell, the authors show you how to view your business strategy, drivers and key indicators in four dimensions - financial, external (customer satisfaction), internal (processes) and learning/growth. They then show you how to link these to your strategies and develop and execute plan for transforming them into action and results. The good and the bad. First, the good - before Kaplan and Norton published this book there was no standardized method for framing and measuring what's important. This book rectifies that. Also, the ideas first introduced have been embraced and extended to the point that a book search of similar titles returns over 2600 hits, and a google search using 'balanced scorecard' as a keyword returns ten time that many. This is a clear indication of how influential this book is and remains eight years after publication. But those are simple statistics. What's important about this book is many of the other resources that have sprang from it assume that you are familiar with the concepts and approach in this book. The bad - the writing style, as noted by others is ponderous. That does not diminish the concepts and approach. It is also showing its age, but only because of the body of work that this book has inspired, which has greatly extended and refined the basic ideas. You will still need to read this book to get the most out of the body of work that is based upon it. Also note that even Kaplan and Norton, the authors, have extended this work into strategy maps and a 'strategy-focused organization' paradigm. Overall this book has - and will continue to - influence thinking. The ideas set forth are still evolving and have been embraced by some of the largest (and smallest) companies on the planet. If you are new to this material I recommend visiting Balanced Scorecard Institute (ASIN B00006CKQ2) for introductory information, and Balanced Scorecard Online (ASIN B00006DBZ5) for more detailed material.
Rating:
Summary: A classic book
Review: This book presents a remedy for the common "affection" that occurs in all companies that want to establish a quality system: too many indicators. The idea is so simple , split this indiators in 4 major areas, in order to not lost focus on management. Prof. Kaplan show in this the best way to do this. It is a classic !
Rating:
Summary: If you want to have a chance of selling your strategic plan
Review: This book will certainly help you have a chance to sell any strategic plan to financial officers or other Wall Street minded guys and at the same time maintain happy the quality advocates in your company. The method certainly looks a lot like Hoshin Kanri but has a twist that makes it more business oriented and threfore better suited to be applied in an occodental business environment. It will certainly help you align any breakthrough qualitative ideas that you might have with shareholder interests like growth, market share, profits, cash flow generation and so.
Rating:
Summary: Read it--Implemented it--Reaped the Rewards!
Review: This is one of those books, you can read and get "aha's" from start to finish. It's not the touchy-feely stuff non-quality believers think when they hear quality and measurements. The authors provide a step by step roadmap that is very well described and visually enhanced with some of the most outstanding charts I've seen. Between the well organized thought and flow of the book--the connections between strategy, tactics, CEO level, worker level, financial, customer, internal business processes, and organizational learning aspects are crystal clear. If you want to change your organization--or just improve what's important in your organization--this one is a must. And, it is not just a balanced measurement program--it leads to a balance management program--with everyone connected.
Rating:
Summary: Read it--Implemented it--Reaped the Rewards!
Review: This is one of those books, you can read and get "aha's" from start to finish. It's not the touchy-feely stuff non-quality believers think when they hear quality and measurements. The authors provide a step by step roadmap that is very well described and visually enhanced with some of the most outstanding charts I've seen. Between the well organized thought and flow of the book--the connections between strategy, tactics, CEO level, worker level, financial, customer, internal business processes, and organizational learning aspects are crystal clear. If you want to change your organization--or just improve what's important in your organization--this one is a must. And, it is not just a balanced measurement program--it leads to a balance management program--with everyone connected.
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