Here we are in late August. Our favorite TV shows are in reruns or have been replaced by a Steve Harvey game show. It is too hot to ride motorcycles or do almost anything else during daylight hours. It is the time of year when credit union leaders may start scrambling to figure out what must be done to achieve current year goals. AND, it is already time to regroup and begin thinking about next year.

I apologize, about now you are probably seeing an article or blog about planning with every turn of the page… oops, please excuse me, I’m old… with every click of the mouse, but I am going to add a personal insight to the babble.

The end of August means that 2017 is 2/3 over – just four more months until the annual year-end reconciliation. If you are good / lucky (choose either or both), your credit union is 2/3 or more on the way to completing 2017 initiatives and goals. If you are not on track you may be wondering why.

For several years now I have been privileged to assist credit unions with strategic planning and plan execution using a form of the Balanced Scorecard[1]. In case you are not familiar with the “BSC,” it is a methodology to map strategy and manage deployment of initiatives. For organizations with multiple priorities, the “Scorecard” provides structure to assign responsibilities, measures and goals, and track performance, thereby creating a formal structure to monitor plan deployment. In my opinion, the Balanced Scorecard is a good tool. But, even a tool as good as the Balanced Scorecard cannot add hours to the day.

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