Always on the look out for good ideas on structured strategy development, I have just finished "Strategy Maps" by Kaplan & Norton.
It is OK.
It is not great.
Although the book is full of examples and case-studies that feel genuine and are certainly informative, ultimately the core of the book seemed like a rehashing of well-known ground around the balanced scorecard:
Use the four facets of the balanced scorecard to build up an understanding of what is required from an organisation to deliver a strategy.
As far as it goes this is fine and certainly a useful tool. The book contains dozens of specific examples of one page strategy maps that do describe the complex interaction of the four facets and how the organisation should be measured to develop the capabilities required of a strategy. But in the end, they remained descriptive.
Do not get me wrong - I am a big fan of the balanced scorecard, but I was hoping that the book might do more to guide through the different flavours of strategies available and how to understand and evaluate the tradeoffs implicit to them (to ensure the balance in the card, so to speak).
I recommend the book if you are not already familiar with the balanced scorecard. Otherwise just google the summary!
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