This paper discusses a tool known as "the balanced scorecard", which is a method of providing management performance information that links day-to-day operations and the organization's strategy. The four different dimensions or perspectives for measuring performance are: financial measures; customer measures; internal business process measures; and, innovation/learning and growth measures. Unlike traditional preformance measurement systems that are primarily concerned with short term and retrospective outcomes, the balanced scorecard approach focuses attention on measures that assess today's performance as well as measures that are concerned with the organization making the necessary investments to ensure tomorrow's performance. This is accomplished through the four perspectives, whose characteristics are described in this paper.