Adding Themes to a Strategy Map

How to:

Themes indicate high-level attributes of your strategy. Many organizations initially build their strategies by stating their major themes (for example, consistently high market share or world-class customer service) and then creating objectives representative of their themes.

If you are using themes, they are displayed as color keys on the PMF Strategy Map. While you are editing a strategy in the Strategy Map, you can assign themes to objectives using paint-like actions. Themes are located as the bottom element in the scorecard tree.

Procedure: How to Add Themes to a Strategy Map

  1. On the Author page, click the Themes panel button to expand the list of themes.
  2. Click a theme (for example, Best Practices) to see the Edit Theme panel, as shown in the following image.
    Edit Theme panel

    You can also click New to create a new theme.

    If you are creating a new theme, select the desired scorecard from the Scorecard drop-down menu. For existing themes, the Scorecard name cannot be edited.

  3. In the Theme Name field, type a name for the theme.
  4. In the Description field, type a description.
  5. Under the Color field, select a color. The Color field displays the numbers representing the RGB (red, green, and blue) for the color you choose.
  6. In the Owner field, select an owner from the drop-down menu.
  7. Click the Save button.
  8. Click the Strategy subtab to go to the Strategy Map.
  9. Click the Refresh Contents icon Refresh icon at the upper-right corner of the Strategy Map.

    The Strategy Map refreshes updating colors, trends, and active status indicators. You may notice some or all of the following:

    • The background color for an objective is the same as the indicator color for that objective.
    • Up and down arrows represent the trends.
    • A Project icon Project icon indicates that projects are aligned with the objective below it. If you click the indicator, you can drill down to more project data including schedule and budget status, project impact data, and project-related reports.
    • A red metric icon red metric icon indicates that a measure below the objective is lower than the desired threshold, which is a sign of poor performance. If you click the icon, you can quickly drill to a view of the underachieving measure.
    • A feedback icon feedback icon indicates that feedback has been recorded for an objective or measure below it. If you hover the mouse over the icon, the most recent feedback is displayed. If you click the icon, you can drill down to a view where you can read and edit the feedback.
  10. To see the themes and colors you selected, click the Themes panel button in the Strategy Map subtab and expand the Themes tree.
  11. Click a theme (for example, Best Practices). It appears in the upper-left corner of the Strategy Map.

    Click an objective representative of the theme, such as Customer returns down. A halo of the applicable color appears around the objective, as shown in the following image.

    Strategy map theme
  12. Click Save to save the Strategy Map.

You can go back into the Strategy Map at any time and change the strategy. When you change your Strategy Map, the views change to reflect your changes. Your Strategy Map controls how everything in PMF is linked together.

WebFOCUS