ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to close the strategy loop by linking top-level metrics both down through the organization and back up to strategies through improvement actions. The systematic linkage of goal to strategy, strategy to action, and action to deployment, with metrics as the feedback mechanism was never implemented. The problem is that individual employees down in the trenches often have trouble relating to a top-level organizational goal. The lab may have saved money in staffing costs, but at the same time may have cost the organization much more in longer times to market or decreased efficiencies in other departments that have to wait for the results. When strategy maps and metrics are cascaded down through the organization, senior management has the ability to look at the cascades and identify potential horizontal conflicts before they adversely impact performance. Cascading strategy maps is a more robust approach than cascading metrics.
