How to Build a Strategy Map

A Strategy Map is a visual representation of your organization's strategy.

A strategy map is a graphic display of your organization's vision, mission and strategy. A strategy map is divided into four main segments: Financial, Customer, and Internal Perspectives, as well as Growth & Development. These segments highlight strategic objectives necessary for accomplishing your objective. The graphics make it easy to visualize the relationships between various objectives and what it will take to accomplish them. A Strategy Map is an excellent tool to gain employee engagement, making it easy to show them how their role fits into the overall strategy and contributes to mission accomplishment.

Instructions

1. Draw perpendicular lines on a whiteboard, dividing it into four sections. Start in the top left corner with the financial section of your map. The Financial Perspective of the Strategy Map requires you to think about what your organization will need to do to sustain and exceed its financial objectives. This should address cost structures, as well as growth plans. For example, you might write in this section on the board: "In order for us to meet our goal of increasing revenue by five percent in the next six months, we will need to increase our customer base by 10 percent over the same time frame or modify our cost structure accordingly."

2. Draw the customer perspective on the top right quadrant of your map. The Customer Perspective of the Strategy Map requires you to see your brand objectively from the eye of the consumer. It may help to think about how your organization branded itself through its marketing, products, organizational philosophy and activity in the community. It should help you to define how the customer sees your organization and what steps you can take to meet your objectives. For example, you might write: "Implement new employee selection and training plan that better reflects our core brand philosophy in order to present our brand consistently to the consumer."

3. Label the lower left quadrant of the map as the internal perspective. The Internal Perspective of the Strategy Map requires you to think about how your organization can improve its products and provide the best quality and value to your customers. This should address anything that your organization can do internally to assist in meeting the Customer and Financial Perspectives of the Strategy Map. For example you might write: "Implement a new quality control process that requires two levels of inspection before final product approval, ensuring greater customer satisfaction with a return rate of less than five percent over the next six months."

4. Mark off the lower right quadrant of your map as the growth and development section. The Growth and Development portion of the Strategy Map requires you to think about what investments your organization make in its employees or the organization to ensure you're able to accomplish the goals of the Internal Perspective. This is acknowledging that it will take a commitment of resources internally to accomplish the mission. "In order to implement a two-tiered quality control process, we will have to hire and train 10 new inspectors within the next month to meet our goal."

References

• Value Based Management: Strategy Maps: Kaplan Norton
• "Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes"; Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton; 2004

Resources

• Building the Balanced Scorecard: Best Practice Strategy Maps