Glossary
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Balanced scorecard: A management methodology, developed in the early 1990's by Dr. Robert Kaplan ( Harvard Business School) and Dr. David Norton, which enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into a measurable operational plan. The “balanced” label comes from the scorecard’s expansion of business focus and measurement beyond traditional financial analysis to include “leading indicators,” which are measurements of progress on initiatives viewed from three additional perspectives: customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth.
Baseline data: Initial measurement of a process or performance by an individual, division, department, organization, etc., to establish a basis for future comparison.
Benchmark: A standard or point of reference used in measuring and/or judging quality, value, or change. Benchmarks can be used to compare across individuals or organizations, or to compare the same individual or organization at different times. Benchmarks can be derived from baseline measurement or by measuring or surveying performance at “best-practice” or successful organizations.
Bias (rater bias, measurement bias): A measurement error which obscures the true value of the factor being measured. In performance evaluations, bias is typically defined as a rater characteristic. Common performance evaluation biases include:
- leniency bias (a manager who evaluates employees higher than their performance warrants);
- the "halo effect" and the "horn effect" (one strong ratee characteristic colors all ratings, including those that should be unrelated);
- central tendency (raters tend to rate everyone in the middle of the scale).
Good data analysis can sometimes identify and correct for bias.
Business Performance Management (BPM): Also known as Corporate Performance Management (CPM) or Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), BPM is a set of processes and business measures that helps organizations track, measure, report, plan, forecast and optimize business performance. BPM helps businesses discover efficient uses of their financial, human, and material resources. Processes also include consolidation, management reporting, operational analytics, and scorecard. (Note: "BPM" is also an acronym for "business process management," a different methodology.)
Calibration: A higher-level review of performance evaluations and subsequent adjustments to compensate for rater biases that may distort managers’ evaluations of their direct reports, and to make sure that performance ratings represent application of uniform standards and more accurately compare across different managers.
Cascading goals: The process of passing high-level organizational or business unit goals to subordinate business units and/or individual employees, for incorporation into planning activities and setting goals. “Cascading” is often used to denote the pass-down of identically-worded (or very similarly worded) goals, as distinct from the alignment of goals, which allows individual goals to support or link to higher-level objectives while being more personally relevant or specific.
Certification: The process of formally testing and verifying the conformance of materials in accordance with or adherence to a standard or guideline. (Also see: Compliance, Conformance)
Coaching: A service to provide feedback, training and/or skill development, intended to improve the effectiveness of individual contributors or teams within an organization. Coaching can be delivered by professionals from outside the organization or internally by a peer, supervisor or mentor.
Competency: We prefer to think of competencies as the currency of human capital – like financial currency, competencies represent a person’s existing potential to produce tangible results. In performance evaluations, “competency” usually refers to directly observable behaviors, skills, abilities, talents, attitudes, and other personal characteristics that are essential to job performance.
Performance management practitioners often distinguish two types of competencies: “core competencies” in reference to skills and abilities that are essential in every position in a company, and “job-specific competencies,” which vary from one position to another. Also relevant is the concept of competency proficiency, referring to a range of expertise appropriate to different positions for which a competency may be relevant.
Compliance: The degree to which members of an organization practice prescribed policies or regulations. The most common current association is compliance with the provisions of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, but compliance can also refer to the extent to which employees participate in a performance management activity or other required business practice.
Configurability vs. Customization: Configurability for a software application refers to its flexibility for choosing setup options for different parameters of the software. It is distinguished from “customizability” primarily by ease of change; customization typically requires an expert to either modify code or write a special applet or script. In a nutshell, customization may produce a better match to a software client’s preferences and requirements, since configuration cannot anticipate every possible request.
Conformance: Materials that are formally verified to be in accordance with a standard or guideline. (Also see: Compliance)
Content Package: A standardized way to exchange collections of digital resources between different learning management systems (LMSs), authoring tools, and content repositories.
Content Repository : A software package designed to manage content in the form of text files, images, etc. throughout its lifecycle, including authoring, versioning control, and distribution of the content. A content repository typically includes the ability to attach metadata to its assets or content and to search for assets or content based on their metadata. The Content Repository functions manage the content and permit locating stored content, authoring new content, attaching metadata to content, managing versions of content, etc.
Content Structure Diagram: A tree diagram created by the instructional designer for the programmer to show the hierarchy onto which the sequencing rules for the learning objects are applied. This diagram should be followed by a list of the behaviors the instructional designer intends for the learner.
Core Competencies: Capabilities that an organization values as critical to its success, and appropriate for all positions within the company.
Core process: The fundamental activities or group of activities, that constitute the essence of an organization - processes so critical that failure to perform them will cause the business to fail.
