Gunnison County Manager Awarded the “Colorado County Administrator of the Year Award”

February 23, 2012 By
It does not happen very often in today’s economic climate, but it is happening in Gunnison County, Colorado. For the first time in at least the last 30 years, the County is lowering taxes, providing a cost of living increase to its employees and maintaining the delivery of key services to the community. See Article in The Crested Butte News
 
In late 2011, the Association of Colorado County Administrators recognized the work of Gunnison County by giving Matthew Birnie the “Colorado County Administrator of the Year Award” at the winter gathering of the Colorado counties. Matthew became the County Manager in Gunnison County in early 2007. With a focus on transparency, accountability and making the connection between service delivery and the cost of those services, he began implementation of Managing for Results.
 
In addition to its outcome-based approach to strategic planning and budgeting, Gunnison County is currently in the process of implementing an employee performance management system that aligns individual contribution with organization success.
 
For more information on Gunnison County, click here to visit the County website.
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A Billion Here, A Billion There: Most States Spending on Transportation Without Essential Tools

May 11, 2011 By

Is your State able to understand and communicate to citizens the return on investment from the billions spent on transportation?   States spent an estimated $131 billion in 2010 – can they tell you what they got for it?

Most can’t.  In fact, a new study – “Measuring Transportation Investments:  The Road to Results” – from the Pew Center on the States and the Rockefeller Foundation says that only 13 states employ goals, performance measures and data that decision makers can use to choose cost-effective policy options and ensure the likelihood of a strong return for taxpayers.

Check out this new study, and an online interactive map, by clicking here.

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Communicating For Results: Pinal County, AZ Juvenile Court

October 7, 2010 By

Looking for an example of effective communication about performance? Check out this report from the Intervention Services Division of the Juvenile Court in Pinal County, AZ.

This was prepared to be included in their newsletter, and it’s definitely worth a read — a great example of an organization that is not only willing and able to be transparent about its performance, but also to be clear about the context for that performance and how it is actively managing for results.
You can download it by clicking here. Got other examples like this one? Send them our way — we’d love to share them!
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Performance Points: Friday Edition

September 17, 2010 By
  • We’re always proud of the fact that our customers not only find our tools and methods powerful, but that they’re also sustainable. This week the City of Austin, TX, approved their $2.8 billion FY2011 operating budget. As the budget document makes clear, “budgeting for results” is still the way business is done in Austin, more than a decade after Weidner partnered with the City to implement Managing For Results. Check out their budget document; it’s a great presentation.
  • And while we’re talking about Austin, TX – congratulations to Ernesto Rodriguez, Director and Chief of Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services (EMS), who has been named the National EMS Executive of the Year!

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  • Check out what our CEO, Marv Weidner, has to say about Executive Coaching - why it’s never been more important for the public sector, and the keys to Coaching that delivers results.

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  • And last but not least, an oldie but a goodie: one of the most impressive displays of performance information we’ve seen – and we’re not kidding, the video is called “the best stats you’ve ever seen.” From a talk given in 2006 by Hans Rosling as part of that year’s TED conference, watch how data about global health and poverty trends comes to life in an utterly compelling way. If you think performance data isn’t interesting to your customers, take a fresh look at how you’re presenting it.
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Cool Tools: Profile of Four States Using Performance Budgeting

September 7, 2010 By

We recently found a terrific resource that we wanted to share.

In February 2009 the Government Performance Project and the Pew Center on the States released “Trade-Off Time: How Four States Continue to Deliver.” This report – which you can download by clicking here - profiles how the states of Virginia, Utah, Maryland and Indiana are aggressively using performance management techniques, including performance budgeting, to address the extraordinary challenges they face in funding and service delivery.

From the report:

“The Pew Center on the States has followed state government performance for more than a decade, studying good and bad practices and analyzing what works. Our research has shown that results-based budgeting systems can aid states during economic downturns by cutting wasteful spending on programs that are not showing results, and directing resources to programs that evidence has shown to be more effective. Such an approach also can provide lasting benefits, laying the foundation for a leaner, more effective government during the next economic upturn.”

We’ve repeatedly seen the benefits that come from sharing tools and information – it’s a big part of the reason we have this blog. We hope you’ll be able to take this report and put it to good use in your own organization – and let us know what you learn!

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Survey: Public Overwhelmingly Wants Government Performance Measured, Managed

August 13, 2010 By

A new survey has found that while Americans’ confidence in government is at an all time low, there’s strong support across the political spectrum for performance measurement and management in the public sector.

The national survey was conducted for the Center for American Progress and its “Doing What Works” project. Key findings — which won’t surprise folks already involved in performance management and Managing For Results — include:

  • Strong majority support for government performance management, including “eliminating inefficient programs and redirecting support to the most cost-effective programs, with 71 percent saying very or fairly effective; evaluating government program performance and making it transparent (70 percent very or fairly effective); and improving the management methods and information technologies of the government (60 percent very or fairly effective).”
  • More than 8 in 10 respondents — 83% — said that “requir(ing) every federal agency to set clear goals that are measured by real world results” would be an effective approach. This was the single most strongly supported approach.
  • Candidates that make more effective government a key element of their campaigns are likely to attract strong and broad support as a result.

The results of the survey are presented in a 100-page PDF file, which you can download by clicking here. There’s also a five-page executive summary you can download by clicking here.

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Feds Increase Focus on Performance

August 5, 2010 By

A friend recently shared a document we found very interesting, and wanted to pass along: a June memo from the federal Office of Management and Budget outlining how federal departments should approach performance management for FY 2012. You can see the memo by clicking here.

The approach outlined in the memo should sound familiar — it is built on many of the fundamental principles of Managing For Results, including (and click on the links below to see related blog posts):

It’s a brief memo and well worth a read. It is clear that the momentum continues at all levels of government to demonstrate accountability and transparency around performance. We hope this tool is helpful for you to share within your own organization as reinforcement for your efforts to Manage For Results!

We’ve got a free self-assessment tool to help you assess your own organization’s accountability and transparency around performance. You can download it by clicking here.

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Accountability Follows the Money: The Power of Performance Contracting

August 4, 2010 By

Thoughts about accountability, money, and results from Marv, our founder and CEO -

Early in the life of our company, while I was working in a County that shall remain nameless, the head of the Design Unit within a Facilities Department was talking about accountability. He said that he wasn’t accountable for the design of buildings – that is, for the architectural plans – because his employees didn’t do the work. Those services were contracted out.

I thought his director was going to reach across the table and….

Fortunately for him, I intervened with a question. “So if a building designed by your contract architects collapses, who gets sued first?”

After a moment of recovery (and glancing up at his Director’s glare), he conceded the point. The County would be responsible even though – and maybe even particularly because – the services were contracted out.

This conversation was a very important learning moment. “Accountability follows the money” came out of that moment. If funds are appropriated by or conveyed to a government organization, that organization is responsible for how it is spent and what is accomplished.

There really are only two ways to deliver services: do it yourself through your own staff, or contract it out. (There is a third one, but it’s rare and doesn’t really count – get someone else to do it with their own money.)

So whether the services are provided by your staff or by your contractor, you are responsible for service delivery and results. This essential truth leads the way into performance-based contracting.

Here’s the choice: you can contract for results, or for something less. In Managing for Results, the clarity around the results you need to deliver makes it much easier to integrate performance measures from department Strategic Business Plans directly into performance-based contracts.

Unfortunately, though, most contracts are general in terms of performance expectations. At best, contracts typically will only detail what services will be provide and to whom. They may even have performance expectations around the number of people served or outputs. But if they aren’t built around results, you have no way to enforce that needed accountability.

You can Manage for Results – or you can manage for something less. You will most likely get what you contract for. If your contracts don’t include results….

This is the difference between Hoping for Results and Managing for Results.

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Our Essential Principles: Aligning Key Systems and Culture

July 13, 2010 By

From Marv, our CEO and Founder –

I’ve been sharing recently the Key Principles that drive our work as a company.

They’re simple and clear to state – and extremely powerful put into action.

The First Principle, though not popular in some quarters these days, is absolutely true: If government relentlessly focuses on results, it can and will make a difference in the lives of its customers.

The Second Principle came into focus for me when we took on reforming welfare in the State of Iowa: If government focuses on the right result, the right results will happen for the customers of government services.

The Third Principle came to me while I served Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as his Director of Policy and Strategic Planning in 1993-1998. Gretchen Tegeler, my boss and the Director of the Office of Management, gave me the task of building an integrated management system that better focused Iowa State Government on results. Gretchen was on the Welfare Reform Council, so she experienced first hand what can happen when Government focuses on results.

The Third Principle is:

Customers experience better results and government is much more ‘on purpose’ when government focuses on results in everything you do – planning, budgeting, performance measurement, reporting, employee performance and collaboration.

Over those years in Iowa, we fundamentally changed and integrated our strategic planning, budgeting and performance measurement efforts to focus more on results.

We ended up in some good places, but we didn’t start out that way.

For my first review of the 20+ strategic plans for State Departments, I spread them all out on the floor of my office. I got down on the floor with a legal pad and started counting which goals were focused on the customer — and which ones were instead focused on, or stated in terms of, what the government itself would experience.

The score was 9-1 – State Government has it. Customers lose! Government wins!

No kidding – only 1 out of 10 goals was stated in terms of what the customer would experience. That pretty much defined the cultural problem we were facing.

Managing for Results was born from the failure of government to focus on its customers. What we discovered is that it is possible to integrate your essential management systems – planning, budgeting, performance measurement, employee performance, and to align operational performance with strategic goals. Budgeting for Results was born in Iowa in the early 1990s as we integrated Results Performance measures into the State Budget. Department Strategic plans began focusing on measurable results for their customers.

We created the Governor’s Leadership Agenda (which was Gretchen’s idea) which included 20 Strategic Results around which interdepartmental collaboration was directed. Each quarter, the department directors who were responsible for achieving the Governor’s Strategic Results met with the Governor to report on the measurable progress made to date and the interdepartmental plans they had for making continuous progress going forward.

Likewise, to reinforce the culture, Governor Branstad began asking about Results and Cost in his budget and policy meetings with Department Directors. Nothing sends a message about what is really important more than the questions asked by the Boss.

All this to get State Government focused on its core results, or purpose, for customers.

In our work with our customers over the past 12 years, we’ve seen repeated examples of the remarkable power that comes from aligning your systems around results for customers. Instead of having to battle your management systems, when those systems align around results for customers, the multiplier effect is very real and the impact is substantial.

We know, and our customers show every day, the power of putting these three Key Principles to work. In these times of restricted resources, continuing erosion in faith in government, and economic uncertainty, we know these Principles are more important than ever to making government work:

If government relentlessly focuses on results, it can and will make a difference in the lives of its customers.

If government focuses on the right result, the right results will happen for the customers of government services.

Customers experience better results and government is much more ‘on purpose’ when government focuses on results in everything you do – planning, budgeting, performance measurement, reporting, employee performance and collaboration.

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MFR Live: Better Reporting & Lower Cost

July 7, 2010 By

We’re very pleased to announce that our powerful “drag & drop” reporting engine for our MFR Live performance analysis and reporting software is now available!

With this new tool any user can quickly and easily create a customized report including any of your performance data. And that custom report format can be saved and reused again and again, giving you unprecedented flexibility to share performance information anywhere and everywhere you need to.

This system effectively balances power and flexibility with ease of use. Want to see it in action? Jeremy Stephens, our Lead Software Representative, put together a brief demonstration video to show you how it works.

To watch the “drop & drag” report demonstration video, please click here.

Want to learn more about MFR Live? You can see an introductory video here.

We know from talking with you and your colleagues across the nation that it has never been more important to measure and manage performance – even as budget cuts make it more challenging to do so. To help meet this need, we’re pleased to announce that for the month of July we’re offering a 20% discount off of the initial license fee for MFR Live.

Want to find out more about MFR Live and this discount offer? Contact Jeremy Stephens, our Lead Software Representative, at jstephens@weidnerinc.com.

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