The Balanced Scorecard is commonly used to help organizations track their performance and identify areas of weakness. It helps organizations to align their performance measures with their goals and strategic plans. The Balanced scorecard allows companies to move away from relying solely on financial measures, which effectively improves managerial decision making.The Balanced Scorecard framework consists of four perspectives:Financial: measures that address profitability growth and revenue, cost reduction, product mix, asset utilization, productivity, and investment strategies.Customer: measures that address customer satisfaction and requirements including customer satisfaction ratings, customer retention, responsiveness and reliability, new customer acquisition, customer profitability, and customer-valued attributes.Internal Business Process: focuses on the most important internal business processes of the company including new product development, quality, flexibility, time-based measures, and innovative elements of processes.Learning and Growth: focuses on the organization's systems, people, and external environment; this includes enhancing information technology, training and retaining employees, employee safety, and environmental and health sustainability issues.This week for your design strategy project, you will be defining your organization's strategy and completing a Balanced Scorecard.In a minimum of 3 pages, you will need to do the following:Describe how your organization should appear to your stakeholders in order to succeed financially.Describe how your organization should appear to customers in order to achieve your vision.Describe what business processes that your organization must excel at in order to satisfy both your shareholders and customers.Describe how your organization will sustain your ability to change and improve.How does ethics and ethical issues impact stakeholders and customers? What measures will you employ as CEO to ensure that your organization maintains good ethical practices?Now that you've outlined your strategy, click on the following link and use the Excel template to translate your strategy to a balanced scorecardMake sure to write your paper utilizing proper APA formatting guidelines, and to include an APA formatted title page.*Note: You will need to submit both your essay and Balanced Scorecard Excel spreadsheet to the drop box as separate attachments.

Getting StartedResourcesTextbook: Essentials of Human Communication, Chapter 3Video: "Just Listen"Video: TEDx Talk - The Power of ListeningBackground InformationLearning Strategy: This discussion is set up to provide you with a learning experience that uses a constructivist learning strategy. This is based on a theory that adults learn well when they can incorporate their own experiences and interpretations with sources of knowledge (textbook concepts and the experiences of others) into NEW knowledge. New meanings are constructed through social interactions! It is not a passive way to learn, but rather a very active, intentional approach to building new understandings.To get the most out of this discussion, it is important that you actively engage by doing the following:Part A (Week Three): DePart B (Week Four): Seek out others' perspectives on the meaning of concepts in the required resources. Consider the diversity in experiences and interpretations. This requires dialogue - asking and answering questions that bring out new ideas and applications.Part B (Week Four): Construct new knowledge. You will know you have succeeded in constructive learning if you end up with more or clearer knowledge and understanding after the discussion than what you had when you started.InstructionsReview the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.Read and review the resources on small group communication. As you read and review, consider creating an outline or concept map to assist you in comprehending what you read.Read Chapter 3 in the course textbook Essentials of Human Communication.Watch the video Just Listen. Watch the video The Power of Listening. In the 3.3 discussion section, make an initial post describing a key concept from the resources and how it is meaningful to you.Engage in a dialogue (using video or text) with your classmates in at least three discussion threads (one of which is your initial post). Use the strategy described in Background Information. Your instructor will also participate in the dialogue.As you interact, be sure to respond to questions asked by your classmates and instructor.Post a brief summary of your new knowledge in each of the three discussion threads you have participated in during this workshop. Each of these summaries should describe your new learning and explain the connections between concepts and resources.Please label each of your summary posts with the keyword "Summary." Be sure to address the following:Identify key concepts of Effective Listening.Discuss how Listening applies to business communication.Discuss the connection between communication (in particular, Effective Listening) and decision-making.Complete this discussion activity by the end of the workshop. You and your classmates must pace yourselves to complete this discussion fully within the time allotted. Part 2Social media is the most recent advancement of information technology that transforms the way we communicate. We are constantly connecting and interacting with one another via an ever-growing web of relationships. How to use social media to improve business communication and decision making is a question of great interest to both academicians and practitioners. ResourcesTextbook: Essentials of Human CommunicationVideo: Nick Bayer Discusses Social Media and BusinessBackground InformationLearning Strategy: This discussion is set up to provide you with a learning experience that uses a constructivist learning strategy. This is based on a theory that adults learn well when they can incorporate their own experiences and interpretations with sources of knowledge (textbook concepts and the experiences of others) into NEW knowledge. New meanings are constructed through social interactions! It is not a passive way to learn, but rather a very active, intentional approach to building new understandings.To get the most out of this discussion, it is important that you actively engage by doing the following:Part A (Week Three): Describe the concepts within the required resources that are meaningful to you. This is more than just retelling what is in the chapter; it is explaining why that information is important to you and what it means to you personally or professionally.Part B (Week Four): Seek out others' perspectives on the meaning of concepts in the required resources. Consider the diversity in experiences and interpretations. This requires dialogue - asking and answering questions that bring out new ideas and applications.Part B (Week Four): Construct new knowledge. You will know you have succeeded in constructive learning if you end up with more or clearer knowledge and understanding after the discussion than what you had when you started.InstructionsReview the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.Read and review the resources on social media as communication within a business setting. As you read and review, consider creating an outline or concept map to assist your comprehension.Watch the following video:In the 3.4 discussion section, make an initial post describing a key concept from the resources and how it is meaningful to you.Engage in a dialogue (using video or text) with your classmates in at least three discussion threads (one of which is your initial post). Use the strategy described in Background Information. Your instructor will also participate in the dialogue.As you interact, be sure to respond to questions asked by your classmates and instructor.Post a brief summary of your new knowledge in each of the three discussion threads you have participated in during this workshop. Each of these summaries should describe your new learning and explain the connections between concepts and resources.Please label each of your summary posts with the keyword "Summary." Be sure to address the following:Identify key concepts regarding the use of Social Media in Business.Discuss how Social Media is used in your client's business, or in your own business.Discuss the connection between Social Media and Business.Complete this discussion activity by the end of the workshop. You and your classmates must pace yourselves to complete this discussion fully within the time allotted.