The Glue

Performance Management Forum for State/Local Governments

For anyone in State/Local Government interested in Performance Management, there is a free breakfast forum taking place this Friday, August 8th in Philadelphia. This is also open to any non-profit organization wishing to learn about these topics.

The focus of the forum is "Sustaining Performance During the Good Times and the Bad" and will include an impressive line-up of panelists whom you'll be able to query about best practices and ideas for overcoming challenges, even as budgets are getting squeezed.

The panelists are:

• Jeff Friedman, Deputy Director of Performance Management, City of Philadelphia, PA
• Steve Marchand, Mayor, Portsmouth, NH
• Mark Freeman, Performance Management Coordinator, City of Columbus, OH
• Chris Heflin, formerly with the City of Coral Springs (2007 Baldrige Winner) and now heading up ActiveStrategy's Public Sector Consulting Practice

The event is taking place at the Sofitel Hotel in downtown Philly. It's just a few blocks from the 30th Street Train station. Breakfast is at 8:00 am and the forum will wrap up by 11:30.

See more about the event and the topics on the agenda at the Performance Institute website.

If you're within a short drive (or train ride) from Philadelphia and would like to attend, email ward@performanceweb.org to rsvp. Though the event is no charge for Government employees, you do need to rsvp.

A Performance Management Conference Yields Gems & Duds - Part 2

In my previous post, I shared an overview of what I thought was the biggest gem to come out of a recent Performance Management conference for local government. Now on to a presentation that left me scratching my head...

"The Dud" was a puzzling presentation that came from a major city mayor’s office official.  It asked a very intriguing question: Is there a real relationship between citizen satisfaction scores and the outputs and activities governments pursue?  In other words, do people become happier with their government when the right things are done?

His initial example looked at the relationship between citizen satisfaction of the police department with the reduction in the crime rate.  The chart and data showed that the crime rate seemed to have little impact on satisfaction.  So, his question of, “do satisfaction scores matter?” really popped with this slide. 

However, it made me wonder why there is a presumed connection in this example?  Most people never interact with the police.  Personally, I don’t connect my satisfaction with police to the crime rate (if I was a robbery victim, for example, and was visited by a courteous, responsive officer who followed up on my report, I would be very "satisfied" with the police, despite the rate of criminal activity).   

A Performance Management Conference Yields Gems & Duds

Last week, I attended a Performance Management conference designed specifically for state, county, and local governments.  There were a few gems and a few duds, both of which contributed to my take-aways. Today, I'll recap what I felt was the biggest gem.

The Gem of the event came from the City of Miami Beach. 

The folks in the budget office of Miami Beach have been at it for some time.  So from a strategy execution methodology, they have the model down quite well.  This isn’t really news. 

What really struck me was their story from this past year.  As some may know, the state of Florida recently went through a politically-driven change to its property tax system –- resulting in significantly reduced tax revenues for county and city governments.  Miami Beach was no exception to the revenue drop, and for its size, it took a major hit.

So, Miami Beach had the unique opportunity to utilize its wonderfully developed strategy execution system to manage a strategy of downsizing.  How can downsizing be done in a strategic way to minimize the negative impact on citizen outcomes and services?  This was their challenge.

Executing Strategy When You're Stuck in the Middle

I recently had a meeting with the CIO of a major IT organization.  Her situation and challenges were very illuminating to me in that she wants to execute her own departmental strategy, yet she is completely dependent upon the strategies of others.  Adding to this challenge, she answers to two separate 'bosses' -- one on a dotted line and one on a hard line basis.

Here's a visual that depicts the basic organizational structure:

The following outlines her challenge and how we proposed to solve it to make headway:

Boss #1: The CIO reports to the head of the functional division that she supports -- on a dotted line basis.

This "Boss #1" is directly responsible for providing services to the organization's external customers. Naturally, the CIO views these as her customers as well and sees her main role, therefore, as serving the needs of this functional division (this division is her internal customer).

BUT (there's always a 'but'), none of the divisional units have clearly outlined objectives or measures.  They typically have long lists of initiatives or action item lists, which might be OK if it weren't for the fact that these lists constantly change and shift in priority levels.

In addition, the top-level division executive does not possess a clear strategic plan with objectives and measures. 

So, at the current juncture, our CIO is left:

    a) guessing at the real needs of her internal customers and

    b) constantly chasing the ever-changing priorities that are communicated from these internal customers. 

Overcoming the Question that Kills Balanced Scorecards

If you're leading the development or deployment of a Balanced Scorecard framework, you must be prepared to answer this question when it inevitably comes up: "Does this mean extra work?"

I consider this to be the toughest question that you'll face because, if not answered properly every time it's asked, this question can destroy your Balanced Scorecard framework.

Are you prepared to answer it?

There are five parts of the answer and all five are necessary:

The Relative State of Management Maturity in Local Governments

This past week, I co-delivered a presentation to a packed auditorium of mostly city and county managers at the annual ICMA Conference.  The topic was a real-life look at how Miami-Dade County has implemented and is using their Balanced Scorecard management system.

Although the audience was incredibly intrigued (no doubt by the exemplary presenters!), I was struck by the gap that I find between leading local governments and other industries in the area of management practices. 

As many reading this know, there is a massive movement in government to adopt a ‘results-oriented' model.  In a nutshell this is a methodology based on the ‘logic model.’  It enables organizations to identify their customer-desired outcomes and then work backwards to understand which of their service outputs align to these outcomes.  If there are misalignments or under-performance issues, this model spurs the creation of initiatives (often mislabeled as strategies).  Also, it should be said that it’s relatively easy for people to understand, hence the high rate of adoption.

The problem is that the ‘results oriented' model does not do a great job of helping an organization deploy strategy down into the organization where it can be executed.  The model, as commonly implemented, leaves 'strategy' at the top of the organization and only deploys actions down to the departments. 

Do Strategy Maps Work in Government - Part III

This is the third in a series about strategy maps in Government. Also see Part I and Part II.

How Understanding Competition Leads to a "Circular" Strategy Map

After going through the development of a strategy map with a government or mission-based organization, an interesting mental phenomenon often occurs. It is the realization that competition does exist, and it comes in the form of budgets and financial survival.

Many government leaders believe they do not have true competitors and many believe that the financial health is not the ultimate outcome. However, going through the strategy mapping process will alter this thinking. Here is why.

When developing a strategy map, understanding and role-playing one’s competition is a useful exercise that helps an organization understand what competitive activities must occur to remain unique and compelling. This concept may only seem relevant to the private sector and not to government.

Individual government departments do not typically consider themselves to have competition or to be affected by the forces caused by competition. A library department may not believe it competes with Barnes and Noble. A park department may not believe it competes with shopping malls or private museums.

 

However, they all compete for their own existence. This competition exists between departments and other state and local agencies. They compete for public and political recognition, for prioritization, and ultimately for budgets. The process of developing a strategy map helps make this reality more clear.

Do Strategy Maps Work in Government? - Part II

Continuing from my previous post on Strategy Maps in Government:

At the Top of the Organization
Taking another look at larger governments, how do you create a true strategic plan across the top of this type of organization, yet still find a way to execute on time, to quality, and within limited budgets? Let’s start with just the top-level planning.

Most of the strategic plans I have seen are organized by major categories of outcomes – not stakeholder perspectives. These outcomes might be public safety, outdoor community spaces, and building and construction. Within the strategic plans, specific goal or objective statements are articulated that state exactly the essence of the desired outcome. Attached to these goal or objective statements are typically measures of some representation of achievement of the outcome.

As mentioned in Part I, the elected bodies often bring diverse and numerous individual agendas to the planning table to address the needs of their constituents. In large and culturally diverse areas, this can create a very broad set of goals and objectives. Is it possible to achieve consensus and reduction to the critical few within such a governing body? Possibly, but it is not likely.

Do Strategy Maps Work in Government? - Part I

Over the past several years, I have been working with numerous large and small City, County, and State governments and related entities.  Most of the work has entailed consultative support to mature their methodologies from "Results Oriented" models to more Balanced Scorecard-based models, to support better strategy deployment, ensure appropriate outcome measurement and bottom-line effectiveness of the management system, as well as the automation of existing business plans into ActiveStrategy Enterprise software.

Without a doubt, there is tremendous ‘cultural’ focus on outcomes.  Everyone talks about them, most are trying to measure them, and the political bodies publicize them.  It is obvious to me that the era of defining the role of government in terms of the outcomes it produces is here.  Citizens expect it, government employees strive for it.