Robert S. Kaplan, David McMillan

At their core, strategy maps and scorecards describe causal chains up and down an organization, charting the stages through which final outcomes are achieved. The cause-and-effect linkages start with how the organization’s intangible assets of people, information, and culture, described within the learning and growth perspective, drive improvement in the critical processes that create the value proposition for the organization’s customers. Customer success, in turn, translates into the ultimate outcome metrics of financial performance. Strategic objectives and associated performance metrics get defined within each of these perspectives.