Over time, we’ve become slightly less naïve about the way the world works — and understand that politics can trump information in many cases. But we still believe that skillfully assembled performance management systems have a huge amount of value, even if they’re not a panacea.
During the last three (plus) decades, we’ve seen a number of flaws crop up in the performance management functions of cities, counties and states. Some of these are obvious — like the problems caused by low-quality data — while others are not. Following are 10 tips that we believe can be useful for entities that covet success in this discipline:
• Before using performance measurements to provide incentives to individuals and agencies, it’s doubly important to carefully vet the data. That’s because there can be a natural tendency to fudge conclusions in order to get the reward.
• Disaggregate, disaggregate, disaggregate. When entities lump their performance measures about a program's success together, the results can be misleading and uninformative. The way that performance measures can be most effective is when they’re broken apart in terms of geographic or demographic information or split up to gauge the differential functioning of governmental units or offices.
• When a state or local government sets up a performance management system it’s important to take the next step — providing enough resources to provide the needed staff and research.
• As time has gone on, there have been challenges to the independence of performance management offices. But without nonpartisan, independent efforts, politics can prevail over fair, honest reporting. Make sure that the people who are evaluating performance aren’t under the thumb of someone for whom success is defined by a successful effort to be elected.
• The words “performance-informed management” are preferable to “performance-based management.” The latter implies that there can be a formulaic approach to using data. The goal of performance management is to gather information that will be helpful in spurring thought and driving informed analysis that leads to better decisions. It’s not to dictate decisions.
• There’s a tendency in some cities and states to cherry-pick data that shows only the bright side of government performance, but people who actually live in those places can compare the government’s reports to the world in which they live, and when there’s a significant difference between the two they’ll believe their eyes and not the information the government is issuing.
• There’s an important distinction between having a performance management system that exists only on paper and actually having it utilized by public-sector leaders and managers to make decisions. This can be particularly difficult when a new administration comes in and the support of leadership declines.
• Many efforts — notably those that have been dubbed “stat” programs — can run the risk of being perceived as ‘gotcha” exercises. When government employees fear accountability overdrive, they’re disinclined to buy in and that stands in the way of progress and improvement.
• The data behind performance measures need to be as timely as possible. So it’s critical to keep data flowing into dashboards that track performance information on a regular basis in order to keep public and internal reporting useful.
• It’s important to bridge the gap in the world of performance management that can exist between important research done by academics and the day-to-day decisions that need to be made by practitioners.
This commentary originally appeared on the authors’ website. Read the original here.
Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.
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