We’re introducing two new features to Waymaker’s performance intelligence platform.
- Waypoints, and
- Scorecards
They are intrinsically connected so we are releasing them together.
These features are available in all licenses.
Listen to the podcast episode
Table of contents
- 3 Reasons why Waymaker Waypoints and Scorecards are better than BI tools
- 1 Simplify data
- 2 Create in just a few clicks
- 3 Connect data to people who can lead change
- What are Waypoints?
- How to create Waypoints on an outcome
- What’s the 1/12th rule?
- What are Scorecards?
- How to create a Scorecard
- Reading the Scorecard
- Scorecard integration in Waymaker Meetings
- Summary
- Additional resources
3 Reasons why Waymaker Waypoints and Scorecards are better than BI tools
Before we get into the why, what, and how of these wonderful new tools. Here are three reasons why Waymaker’s Waypoints and Scorecards are better at effecting change in your organization rather than creating lots of dashboards in our billion-dollar friends of MS Power BI, Tableau, or similar.
1 Simplify data
Waymaker Waypoints and Scorecards simplify data to show only the insights that matter. Traditional BI Dashboards constantly have too much data.
That’s right. The very thing that’s meant to simplify ends up having lots of data stuff. Waymaker only scorecards metrics that you want to shift the needle in.
If you’re not working on, or interested in, specific data, then get it out of the way.
2 Create in just a few clicks
Waymaker Waypoints and Scorecards can be created by anyone, in just a few clicks, without writing a single line of code. Be instantly brilliant on the data you care about.
3 Connect data to people who can lead change
Waymaker Scorecards show the path to change by connecting the data you care about to person who leads the change.
Waymaker is a leadership platform.
We’re interested in helping leaders and teams connect the dots to effect change.
When you look at a metric being tracked on a Scorecard, you can see who controls it, click back into the goal it is a part of, be able see the goals upstream or downstream in the strategy cloud of connected goals and see who you need to speak to get things done.
We’ve built Waypoints and Scorecards for leaders to know how and through whom to effect change.
Business Intelligence platforms are for SQL nerds and analytical geniuses who want to go down rabbit holes in data. We love them (SQL nerds) and we love what they do (cool data deep dives). It’s just not what Waymaker does for you.
Waymaker cuts through the data jungle and tells you if you’re going to get to where you want to go. And, if not, who you need to help (or cajole) and where to course correct within the organization.
Waymaker is not interested in going deeper in more data, Waymaker is interested in cutting through and giving you clarity.
Waymaker Scorecards connect the metrics you care about with the people who control them. Now you can lead real change, real quick.
Let’s talk about the what and how of Waymaker Waypoints and Scorecards.
To create a Scorecard, first there needs to be Waypoints on a Goal’s Outcome.
What are Waypoints?
Waypoints help a goal owner forecast target points on the journey to reaching an outcome. You might think of them as milestones within a goal.
Waypoints are created against an outcome. They are not mandatory on an outcome. You can keep goals as simple, or as detailed as needed.
Waypoints are designed to help you forecast out points on the way to success to see if actual results are in alignment with predicted outcomes.
A Waypoint is a date with a corresponding value which can be set as number, percentage, or currency.
For example, you might have a 12-month goal with the outcome; Achieve $1m in total revenue.
The outcome owner might create 12 Waypoints which represent the target revenue per month. Then, when the outcome owner updates progress at any time it will show as an actual against the forecast.
Waymaker will read the actual result on the date of the forecast waypoint and mark that result on the Waypoint chart in a Scorecard to show progress against forecast.
The actual vs forecast gives outcome owners and their stakeholders a really simple way of creating dashboards on critical data.
In addition, the data feeds our performance intelligence algorithm and Waymaker helps surface outcomes which are falling behind to their owners and leaders.
Waypoints are best viewed on a scorecard. However, they can also be viewed on the goal detail page.
How to create Waypoints on an outcome
In a few clicks you can create your Waypoints on an outcome within a goal.
- On the goal detail page for your goal, click on an outcome title to edit.
- On the outcome edit screen, underneath the Waypoint title, choose the kind of Waypoint you want to track. It can be a percentage, number, or currency.
- Enter the starting value.
- Enter the target value.
- Set the first target date and value, then press “+” to add that Waypoint.
- Add as many Waypoints as you would like to track. We recommend apply the 1/12th rule if you’re keen to track regular Waypoints. However, there can be any number of Waypoints.
What’s the 1/12th rule?
Waymaker’s 1/12th rule says a goal should be updated within 1/12th of its overall time frame.
If you’re building Waypoints on to an outcome, it can be helpful to follow this principle.
Here are some examples of the 1/12th rule.
- A quarterly goal is ~12 weeks; therefore, a quarterly goal should always be looked at and updated every week (or 7 days).
- An annual goal is 365 days; therefore, an annual goal should always be looked at and updated every ~30 days (or monthly),
- A three-year goal is 36 months; therefore it should be looked at and updated every 3 months or on a quarterly basis.
To learn more about how to create Waypoints read this on our knowledge base, Waypoints and Scorecards.
What are Scorecards?
Scorecards allow a user to create a collection of outcomes from one or many goals, and from one or many goal owners, and chart them on a dashboard.
Scorecards are a new type of dashboard to complement the existing ‘Explore’ dashboard within the Waymaker Dashboards module.
Scorecards are a collection of outcome metrics presented on a single dashboard.
A Scorecard can have a time range or be perpetual with new outcomes added as needed each quarter or year. A user can create as many scorecards as they like and invite collaborators into the scorecard.
A Scorecard would be used to create a set of metrics that you want to track overtime and then see how your goals and outcomes are shifting the needle on the metric.
For example, a leadership team might collect 6 or 7 outcomes from across multiple goals in the leadership team to create a scorecard and view progress.
You might think of a goal as a way of viewing data for an individual and a Scorecard as a way of viewing data as a team.
A similar example might be a sales team’s scorecard. The Sales Leader would create a Sales Team Scorecard and add a set of outcomes to it from across their team’s goals. This Scorecard then becomes a way of view a Team’s progress on critical outcomes.
Typical use cases for a Scorecard would be the following.
- Creating ‘Balanced Scorecards’ if you like to use the Balanced Scorecard method for reporting strategic results.
- Creating a team scorecard for monthly tracking of key metrics in a leadership team.
- Creating a sales scorecard for a sales team.
- Creating a product scorecard for tracking ‘a north star metric’ and associated product metrics.
How to create a Scorecard
Scorecards are created by doing the following.
- Go to Dashboards > Scorecards and press ‘+’.
- Give the scorecard a title.
- Add members to the scorecard. You can search by team, or by individuals. Just start typing a teammate’s name and click it once it appears. To add a whole team, click Search team, then type a team name and select it.
- Hit save.
- Open the new Scorecard from the Scorecard menu.
- Click ‘Choose outcomes to monitor’, then select the outcomes you want to add to the scorecard and hit ‘Add outcomes’. You can choose outcomes from only those who are members of the Scorecard.
- On click of ‘Add Outcomes’, Waymaker will build the Scorecard automatically for you based on the data in the outcomes. The Scorecard will update every time a user updates their outcome in their goal, or whenever a Waypoint (date) is passed.
Reading the Scorecard
Beneath the outcome title, the outcome’s progress is represented as a percentage value in a radial chart.
Next to the chart you can see the outcomes current value, target value, and in the line chart, how the outcome is tracking, as a percent, against the waypoints that were set.
The blue line indicates progress, and grey is the waypoints. Mouseover over to see the specific data.
That’s it. Really, really easy to create the dashboards that matter for your business.
Beautiful, simple, scorecards built as dashboards with no lines of code, complicated or expensive dashboard software.
Best of all, as users update their goals, the scorecards update in real time.
The power of Waymaker Scorecards is when you’re looking at the data you always know how to find who is responsible and can click back through to the goal the outcome is related to.
This gives leaders the powerful intelligence to effect changes quickly and easily on the metrics that matter most.
Scorecard integration in Waymaker Meetings
In Waymaker Meetings, users can now see a Scorecard, if they’ve added a Scorecard to a meeting.
This means users can now see Tasks, Goals, and/or a Scorecard as a standard tool within their meeting for tracking execution progress.
When creating your meeting (the parent record of the meeting), choose to link an existing scorecard to the meeting. This will then show the live scorecard in that meeting for progress updates and roadblock identification and removal.
A typical use case would be a key metric scorecard in a leadership meeting, balanced scorecard in a board meeting, a sales scorecard in a sales meeting, or a marketing scorecard in a marketing meeting.
The opportunities are endless.
Just remember, you need to have created the scorecard before creating the meeting. Or, if the meeting already exists and you want to now create a scorecard and link it, just hit edit on the meeting and create the connection.
Summary
Waypoints and Scorecards give a powerful way to see forecast expected performance against actual performance. They help surface insights for coaching and mentoring of individuals from their leaders on the way to success.
Use Waypoints to create a forecast set points to journey towards. And, then use Scorecards to collaborate with team members on the tracking to outcomes that matter within the organization.
Waymaker exists to help leaders and teams build a better a better business with clarity, alignment, and focus on the actions that matter most.
