Both scorecards and dashboards belong to the most common tools supporting performance management. Each of them has its followers and adversaries, but the point isn't to determine which one is better. None is better. Although they're being used for quite similar purposes, they're totally different. And although they couldn't be used at the same time, their functionalities differ.

Scorecards

Scorecard is a tool predestined for controlling the progress toward strategy proceeding, but not exclusively. As a quite a universal tool, scorecards are being commonly used for all purposes connected somehow with strategy - from inventing it, to measuring the progress. Thereupon, this tool is rather for managers concentrated on tight range of company's operating.

• Scorecards measure the progress towards the strategy. They do not help with monitoring company's general performance
• Scorecards are being used by all employees connected with realizing the strategy, regardless of management-level they're placed on. Thank to that, every single employee - including managers, executives, and usual staff - becomes personally-involved in company's life. That influences on general performance, as well.
• As scorecards allow to control executing the strategy - what doesn't change significantly in a minute or two - no one expects them to provide real-time information. There are periodic snapshots provided instead, which allow managers to focus on what's truly important instead of incessantly-changing numbers.
• Scorecards present summaries - total values of crucial metrics, not the particular data which these metrics are being summed of.
• The method of displaying data depends on each user's needs. In case of scorecards, one can choose from visual graphs and text notes.

Dashboards

In comparison to scorecards, dashboards enable looking from another point of view. Being thought to consider the whole company's performance, dashboards allow managers to focus on what's actually important for them as well as they can immediately dives into more detailed data, if needed. The main differences between scorecards and dashboards are as follows:

• What's already been pointed, dashboards are being used for measuring general performance and its concrete aspects. They do not constrain managers to focus exclusively on strategy.
• Dashboards - in general - are being used by executives, at most. Often, specialists have also an access to them, while they're not being provided for employees from lower levels of company management.
• The matter of data timeliness, in case of dashboards, is complex. In fact, data isn't updated in real-time, but in right-time, what means that it answers exactly on user's needs.
• Dashboards present data concerning each event, rarely the summaries.
• Finally, with dashboards data may be visualized or, if a user wants, presented raw.

Summary

Scorecards, the same as dashboards, provide their users with multiple functionalities, and it is not possible to determine which ones are generally better. It depends on their users, users' requirements, company's type, and plenty of other factors.
All in all, better is the one that suits user better. Due to that, the choice of tool supporting performance management isn't crucial. After all, it's not about which tool we use, but how efficiently we do that.