Another advantage with the BSC is the possibility of making a continuous monitoring of the educative project and the annual plan of activities (D). The actors understood that evaluating the activities and objectives only at the end of the process may be too late. The possibility of obtaining information at intermediate points in time allows making adjustments to accommodate changes, as stressed by Interviewee 1: “This management tool enables the direct and constant monitoring of the educative project and a key asset has to do with the redefinition of strategies for achieving the objectives and define new activities so that these objectives are met. As it was evaluated in previous educative projects, this was not possible”. This result is in agreement with the advantage mentioned by Kaplan and Norton (2001) that the BSC allows to make strategy a continuous process. This is, schools with the BSC can not only plan and execute, but also assess the activities executed and adjust the course of action as necessary.
It was also found that with the BSC the educational community could better understand the need to define indicators and targets for each of the strategic objectives listed in the educative project (E). For example, Interviewee 12 explained that “in the previous educative project, the objectives were already quantified. Now, thanks to the knowledge acquired by the BSC approach, the indicators and targets are defined in greater rigor”. Interviewee 13 added that “while in previous educative projects we confused targets with the objectives to be achieved since there were no indicators, now this is more concrete, more objective. […] The indicators are more accurate and allow a clearer view of what has been achieved”. McDevitt et al. (2008) stated that the definition of indicators in the education sector can be an enormous challenge. In contrast, the study of the AEX School District found no evidence supporting that this is a challenge; on the contrary, the results suggest that the BSC facilitated the definition of indicators and more precise targets, enabling to understand more clearly what needs to be achieved.
4.2.2 Obstacles