Managing

The MFR Blog Has Moved!

2011-03-24T10:30:00.004-05:00

Hey Folks-

We are excited to announce we have launched a fresh and exciting new website designed with our customers in mind! We will continue to share opportunities, stories, commentary and videos, but going forward, the MFR Blog will live within our new site at www.weidnerinc.com/blog.

Click here to check it out and be sure to subscribe to keep those posts going straight to your Inbox!

Join us in D.C. this June!

2011-03-16T12:14:00.006-05:00

Hey folks - there's a great conference opportunity coming up that we're part of and we wanted to invite you to be part of it. Our friends at the Advanced Learning Institute are convening a gathering on "Meeting the New Government Performance and Results Act" in Washington, D.C., on June 20-23.

Workshops will cover a wide range of critical elements for creating and strengthening your organizational approach to performance management. Marv Weidner, our founder and CEO, and Kate Blunt, a member of our consulting team, will be co-presenting an interactive workshop on "How To Plan, Manage, Measure, And Communicate Your Results: Building A Performance Management System To Achieve Success" on Thursday, June 23.

You can get more information about, and register for, the conference by clicking here. Hope to see you in D.C. in June!

Results Conversations: Clyde Namuo, Office of Hawaiian Affairs

2011-03-15T09:14:00.004-05:00

In 2009, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) developed a new Strategic Plan, built on the input of more than 3,000 individuals, and very much focused on measurable results for Native Hawaiians. To take a look at OHA’s a remarkable Strategic Plan, click here. Now, throughout 2010 and 2011, OHA is implementing Managing For Results at all levels in their operations - including Budgeting, Business Plans, Work Plans, Performance Measures, Individual Performance Plans and Performance Based Contracting - and they are using our software tools, MFR Live and MFR People, to support the effort.

While on a recent on-site visit, our CEO and founder Marv Weidner sat down with OHA CEO, Clyde Namuo, to reflect on their considerable accomplishments and what it all means to OHA and to the Native Hawaiian community. Listen in while Clyde shares the OHA story.

Did You Get Our Latest E-newsletter?

2011-03-03T10:19:00.004-06:00

We sent out our latest e-newsletter earlier this week, and if we may say so ourselves, it's a particularly good one -- offers for free webinars, links to dynamite resources for performance contracting -- even a chance to sign up for a new weekly Manager's Letter!

Our e-newsletter doesn't cost a thing and it consistently features great resources for you to put to use right away in your organization. Why not sign up today? Click here to do so.

If you didn't get our latest e-newsletter and would like to receive it, send en e-mail to waaron@weidnerinc.com -- we'll get one to you right away.

"It's my job to ensure results"

2011-03-03T08:47:00.009-06:00

If you didn't see this op-ed piece in the March 2 New York Times - "Why Your Boss Is Wrong About You" - it's worth a look:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/opinion/02culbert.html?emc=eta1

Regardless of your perspective on the questions raised by recent events in Wisconsin, the column makes some excellent points about the power of ensuring employees are focused on results in a clear, fair and systematic manner.

The author makes a point that's very familiar to us: without clear expectations established around results for customers and agreed upon measures for performance, employee performance reviews can stifle, not support, a focus on results and on innovation.

Under such a system, in which one’s livelihood can be destroyed by a self-serving boss trying to meet a budget or please the higher-ups, what employee would ever speak his mind? What employee would ever say that the boss is wrong, and offer an idea on how something might get done better?
Only an employee looking for trouble.

We call this the "whack-a-mole" culture. What happens when an employee sticks up their head to point out an issue or to make a suggestion? If they get "whacked" for it, how many times are

they going to do that? Or are they going to (correctly) conclude that, if they want to work in an organization where they can contribute, they need to go elsewhere?

Managers and leaders at all levels have the power to create a work culture that helps employees succeed and that clearly defines success in terms of results delivered for the customer. As the column notes, in such a system:

Instead of the bosses merely handing out A’s and C’s, they work to make sure everyone can earn an A. And the word goes out: “No more after-the-fact disappointments. Tell me your problems as they happen; we’re in it together and it’s my job to ensure results.”

Sounds about right to us.

We've been sharing rich resources recently to help governments create Employee Performance Management systems that accelerate performance. Check out our previous posts on aligning employees to the organization's priorities and why managing employee performance matters to your customers. Look for links to our EPM webinar series here as well -- coming very soon!

Words From Weidner: Focus on Results

2011-02-24T09:49:00.010-06:00

We're excited that our Founder and CEO, Marv Weidner, has started sharing some of his thoughts and expertise in short videos. We'll be posting these here and at marvweidner.com as we do them, and we hope you find them useful.

Marv's a pretty sharp guy, and in 20 years of working in state government in Iowa, he learned all of three things. Here, he talks about the first thing he learned:

Results Conversations: Terrell Blodgett, Performance Pioneer

2011-02-23T09:38:00.013-06:00

If you don't know, or know of, Terrell Blodgett, then it's time to fix that. Terrell stands as one of the giants in the movement to help governments measure, manage, and be more accountable around their performance. His "Managing For Results" conferences through the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in the late 1990s brought together hundreds of government leaders to drive a greater focus on government's results for customers.

Indeed, there's a clear line of sight from the work Terrell has led to the powerful guidance that organizations such as the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, the Association of Government Accountants, and the Government Finance Officers Association have provided in recent years around government performance management.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Terrell recently over lunch and talk about his latest project, a book on the history of government performance management, and about the increasing importance of governmental focus on results for customers in this time of reduced resources. It's great stuff; take a look --

New Webinar - "Walking the Walk: An Employee Performance Management Process that Works"

2011-02-22T06:56:00.009-06:00

Please join us for our next webinar in our continuing series on Employee Performance Management!

Thursday, March 3

1 p.m. CST

Need your employee performance management system to deliver better results? Frustrated at why your approach isn’t driving performance? Join us to learn about the best practice process steps in planning, managing and evaluating employee performance.

This webinar will spotlight the key elements in successful EPM processes. Come and learn the steps than can help you accelerate your organization's performance!

Join us for a Performance Contracting Webinar!

2011-02-11T09:50:00.005-06:00

You won't want to miss this!

Performance Contracting: Delivering Results That Matter

Wednesday, Feb. 16

2:00-3:30 p.m. CST

Improve Results
Drive Down Costs
Increase Accountability

Your contracts with your vendors can be powerful tools to help you improve performance and deliver the best results for your customers. Join us for a free 90-minute webinar on the key elements of successful performance contracting with ideas you can put to work right away in your own organization.

We’ll be joined by Susan Lewis Kaylor, the Vice President of Performance and Management for the Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County, Ohio, who will showcase her organization's outstanding performance contracting system and talk about the impact it has had both for the organization and the people they serve.

You can register for the webinar by clicking here. Hope you can join us!

Employee Performance Management and Alignment: Dim Bulb, or Bright Laser?

2010-12-16T23:36:00.009-06:00

This is second in a series of blog posts about the power of effective Employee Performance Management to deliver superior results for customers. This series, in addition to supporting a vital tool for effective management, accompanies our release of our new web-based automated Employee Performance Management software, MFR People. Check out the first post in the series, "Employee Performance Management: Why Bother?"

Any effective Employee Performance Management (EPM) system exists, first and foremost, to help the organization achieve its results.

The first essential element to an EPM system that supports and accelerates organizational performance is alignment.

Alignment is conceptually pretty simple - it's the idea that a group of people functions as a whole. As organizational guru Peter Senge outlines it, an aligned organization in one in which energy is not wasted, but where there is:

Commonality of purpose
Shared vision
Understanding of how to complement one another’s efforts
Shared vision becomes an extension of their personal visions

As Senge has noted, the difference between organizational power that is not aligned vs. aligned is the difference between a light bulb - where light is broadly scattered - and a laser - which is light with the focused power to cut steel.

How do you create alignment? How do you harness scattered light into a tight focus of effort?

First, be clear what you're aligning to. Even a robust approach to EPM will fall short of its potential to drive results if it's not clear what the desired results are. If the organization is scattered in its thinking, an EPM system in itself won't drive focus. The creation of clearly stated, customer-focused Goals and Performance Measures provide a powerful framework for alignment.

Second, integrate individual employee performance with organizational performance. Once an organization creates clarity around its desired results, those results have to be integrated into the performance plans and expectations of employees. Integration gives employees a clear line of sight to how they contribute to what matters most to their organization.

Third, ensure integration is consistent. This is a conceptually straightforward idea, but harder to get right when implementing it - and doing it incorrectly can generate a significant backlash. This is not an impressionistic exercise. In our experience working with integration for thousands of employees in many different functions of government, we have seen the importance of using a consistent, systematic approach to integration - and are pleased that our approach has proven effective and sustainable.

The power of aligning employee performance can be extraordinary. We've seen it save millions of dollars, save lives, reduce wait times, improve satisfaction - you name it. Get your folks aligned, and get ready for them to cut through steel.

Awards: Beware of Committees Bearing Gifts

2010-12-14T13:55:00.005-06:00

Marv, our Founder and CEO, recently shared the following thoughts on the pleasures and pitfalls of awards over on marvweidner.com. We're pleased to include it here as well. What do you think about awards?

Ok, let’s admit it: we all like recognition. Awards and honors are nice. They’re especially rewarding when they come from outside the organization. Even more so when they come from a professional organization or sanctioning body.

Awards are a nice way to tell your story of hard work and accomplishment. They tell everyone within earshot that you are doing a good job. They sum up affirmation of what you thought – that you are doing a good job. It’s a nice addition to the discussion of your performance.

It is also a contributing factor to the evaluation of team efforts, such as putting the budget together or building an energy efficient building. Everybody wins when a meaningful award is won.

Mike Reagan, who was the Commissioner of Human Services in Iowa when I worked there, was the best I ever saw at leveraging awards and telling that story of our ‘award-winning services’. It played very well in the legislature – especially if we didn’t have any performance information! The impact of that story was emotional and impressionistic. Of course, the most persuasive arguments are those that both appeal to emotions and values -- and are informed with performance information.

But there’s a serious caution about awards - use them sparingly and thoughtfully once received. As much as awards can affirm good or even high performance, awards can also be used to justify and sustain the status quo.

Let’s think about the message being sent when awards are referenced in testimony or presentations. Is the message that “our efforts were recognized and here is what we are going to surpass that next time”? Or is the message that “our efforts were recognized, we are very good at what we do, we don’t need to change, now leave us alone”?

The first message presents a leadership style that is continuously improving performance. The second is a leadership style focused on defending our record and status quo. The trajectory of the first is that, well, the sky is the limit. The trajectory of the second is little or no progress past where we are today.

This is somewhat a personal style question for leaders. Do you wish to manage to the status quo or manage to the next leap forward in the performance of the organization?

Our observation is that, too often, the more often awards are referenced the more likely they are being used to defend the status quo.

A few questions to help you evaluate awards:

Does the award do anything for our customers?
Did the effort to achieve the award improve our performance?
How have we used the award, after receiving it, to improve performance?
What’s the long term benefit of receiving the award?

Good luck in winning lots of awards and putting them to limited use!

Video Podcast: Interview with Matthew Birnie, County Manager of Gunnison County, CO

2010-12-10T16:27:00.008-06:00

We had the privilege of being out in Gunnison County, CO, for a few days recently, and while we were there we borrowed Matthew Birnie, the County Manager for Gunnison County, for a brief conversation with our CEO Marv Weidner.

Matthew talked about his County and the way their Strategic Plan is driving results for the community that have been needed for decades. It's a great profile of Managing For Results in a small county -- about 200 employees, total -- and its success. It's a great use of seven minutes:

And check out this article from the Crested Butte News, one of the County's local newspapers, on the new Activity-Based Performance Budget we talked about recently-- you can read the article by clicking here.

Congratulations to Gunnison County for its leadership in results for customers!

Employee Performance Management: Why Bother?

2010-12-09T21:28:00.007-06:00

This is the first in a series of blog posts about the power of effective Employee Performance Management to deliver superior results for customers. This series, in addition to supporting a vital tool for effective management, accompanies our release of our new web-based automated Employee Performance Management software, MFR People. Watch for more info coming soon!

Employee Performance Management is like .... well, it's kind of like brussels sprouts.

We know it's supposed to be good for us, and we know we should eat/use it more ... but maybe in the past it left a not-so-great taste in our mouth, and we're just not sure how to approach it, or if we even want to. Um, can you just pass the french fries instead?

A lot of the "bad taste" that Employee Performance Management has associated with it is because leaders and managers believe that the cost of doing EPM -- the time, the effort, the challenge -- greatly outweighs the benefits of doing it. And so everyone gets the same score, or last year's assessment has the date changed and gets used again for this year, or otherwise performance is managed as little as possible.

Our experience from working with some of the nation's best managed governments is clear:

EPM can be an extremely effective management tool to maintain and improve performance;
to align effort around the priorities of an organization, accelerating success in achieving those priorities;
and in improving employee satisfaction, as everyone understands better how they contribute to the organization's success.

We like this definition of Employee Performance Management from Herman Aquinis:

“A continuous process of identifying, measuring and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization.”

We're clear that organizations should implement strong EPM systems for one reason only: to help the organization achieve its results. How it is done can (and should) help managers and employees at all levels - but the result has to be improved organizational performance.

So does it work? We've quoted Dick Grote, one of the nation's leading experts in EPM, here before, but it's worth citing him again: systems like EPM, when backed by top leadership and focused on the organization's priorities, can improve productivity by nearly 60 percent.

We'll take that ROI all day long - and we look forward to sharing more of our "lessons learned" in blog entries to come.

We're also doing a series of free webinars on Employee Performance Management - if you'd like to get notices for those, sign up for our e-newsletter by clicking here.

Gunnison County Produces First Performance Budget (and It's Our First Podcast!)

2010-12-02T22:13:00.015-06:00

Congratulations to Gunnison County, Colorado, for their production of their first Performance-Based Budget!

Gunnison, with approximately 200 total employees and a total of six employees in their Finance Department, has created a staff-recommended budget that presents financial and performance information at the Activity level for all of their departments and offices. The new process and

approach are receiving strong feedback already from department leaders, elected officials, and the public.

We took a few minutes recently to talk with Gunnison's Finance Director Linda Nienhueser and Assistant Finance Director Ben Cowan about their accomplishment - and about how they were able to accomplish what governments many times their size struggle to make happen.

You can listen to the discussion by clicking here. It's about 15 minutes long and provides a great overview of their success.

(When you click the link, the mp3 file should play in your browser. If you have any problems please contact William Aaron at waaron@weidnerinc.com.)

You can download a PDF copy of Gunnison's staff recommended budget by clicking here.

Free Webinar: The Seven Deadly Sins of Employee Performance Management

2010-12-02T22:06:00.005-06:00

Please join us on Friday, Dec. 10, at 1:00 p.m. for a free webinar on "The Seven Deadly Sins of Employee Performance Management"!

You've seen them ... heard about them ... maybe even been a victim of them ... some of the worst (and most basic) mistakes in employee performance management! Dust off your own tales of woe and get ready to share them with colleagues in local governments around the nation as William Aaron, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, leads a light-hearted look at some of the big "DON'TS" in planning and evaluating performance.

You can register for the webinar by clicking here. Hope you can join us!

Two Upcoming Free Online Events: Budgeting and Employee Performance Management

2010-10-22T15:56:00.010-05:00

Mark your calendar and reserve your spot in our two upcoming free online events – one an interactive workshop, the other a webinar – filled with information and tools you can use in your own organization:

Workshop: Cut Your Budget, Not Your Priorities

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2:30-4:00 p.m. CDT

In these tough economic times, extraordinary managers and leaders are finding ways to cut their budgets without compromising their priorities.

Join Weidner in this 90-minute workshop to learn about these valuable tools and methods and have the opportunity to discuss your budgetary challenges with other participating government leaders and senior Weidner consultants. Our team will share their lessons learned from decades of senior government budget leadership.

To register for this free online workshop, click here.

Webinar: You Can Foster Results: Employee Performance Management That Works!

Wednesday, Nov. 10, 3:00-4:00 p.m. CST

Across the nation, government leaders and managers are increasingly focusing on delivering better results through effective employee performance management. Join Weidner as we showcase best practices to plan, align, and assess employee performance.

Topics include:

A winning combination of objective and subjective measures of employee performance
Separating performance and discipline to achieve better results in both
Aligning employee performance goals with organizational and operational performance goals
Best practices in 3, 4 or 5 level rating systems

To register for this free webinar, click here.

Strategic Planning: Is the Future Part of Your Job?

2010-10-20T06:11:00.003-05:00

Our Founder and CEO, Marv Weidner, asks a question on his blog marvweidner.com: how much time does your organization spend looking ahead to, and seeking to influence, the future?

Everyone recognizes that Strategic Planning is one of the management initiatives that makes a real difference for an organization. Is it part of your job?

Communicating For Results: Pinal County, AZ Juvenile Court

2010-10-07T22:55:00.005-05:00

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!

Performance Points: Friday Edition

2010-09-17T13:59:00.012-05:00

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!

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.

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.

Cool Tools: Profile of Four States Using Performance Budgeting

2010-09-07T12:13:00.006-05:00

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!

Introducing Marv Weidner (.com)!

2010-08-27T00:19:00.017-05:00

We're very pleased to announce the launch of a new set of services for our friends -- both old friends as well as the ones we just haven't met yet -- through the launch of MarvWeidner.com.

Marv is the founder and CEO of Weidner, Inc., and in that role has worked with the top leadership of more than 50 governmental entities at all levels -- federal, state and local. Marv also has more than 20 years of senior executive experience with the State of Iowa.

From this vast and unique experience, Marv is able to offer unparalleled support to help senior leaders guide change management, to provide executive coaching, and to provide dynamic, expert speeches and presentations on a wide range of topics.

As Marv notes in the"welcome" section of the site, the challenges facing organizations today are extraordinary, and the response they require is not business as usual:

More than at any time in my 30+ years of working for government, appointed and elected officials are looking for answers, advice and perspective to navigate through these times, to make decisions that will have economic, political and organizational implications for years to come.

Check out the site, and let us know what challenge we can help you address!

Customer Focus, With a Side of Hash Browns

2010-08-16T21:29:00.003-05:00

When you go out to a restaurant and order breakfast, what do you, as a customer, expect to get?

Do you need, or even want:

The policies and procedures for the restaurant’s employees?

The inspection schedule for the dairy farm where your milk comes from?

The operations manual for the farm that raised the source of your bacon?

Of course not. And if you got all that dumped on you when you ordered breakfast, would you ever go back to that restaurant? (Didn’t think so.)

Those processes are all important. You trust they work effectively so that you don’t have to think about them. But what you expect – what you as the customer came in to get – is breakfast.

What do your customers expect from you? Do they care about your processes?

Failing to understand the difference between what you do, and what your customers expect to receive from you, is a clear sign of a poorly performing organization.

Your customers expect you to provide them with services, tangible and intangible. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: are you focused on giving them services they need, or are you inflicting your processes on them?

Survey: Public Overwhelmingly Wants Government Performance Measured, Managed

2010-08-13T11:15:00.016-05:00

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.

Managing For Results: Success in Pinal County, AZ

2010-08-05T09:11:00.005-05:00

Marv, our founder and CEO, sent this dispatch from Arizona –

At the annual meeting of the Arizona City/County Managers’ Association (ACMA) in Tucson in late July, I had the privilege of standing with Terry Doolittle, Pinal County Manager and Kent Taylor, Pinal's MFR Coordinator to present “Managing for Results” to the conference attendees. Terry and Kent made a great presentation on Pinal County's considerable progress in implementing Managing for Results. I shared an overview of MFR and how to implement MFR in tough times like these – and the value it can bring to help you master the challenges of government today.

Pinal County’s progress is really impressive. Take a look at the presentation (you can download it by clicking here), and I think you will agree! While much of the presentation focused on the changes and improvements in Pinal County’s core management systems, Terry and Kent shared many insights on change management and what has and has not worked to bring greater focus on results for customers.

Their presentation was very enlightening for conference attendees who have not yet begun their efforts to manage performance and very helpful to those who have. We are privileged to be Pinal’s MFR partner.

Weidner was a Platinum Sponsor of the Conference and looks forward to a long relationship with the ACMA. At our booth, Jeremy Stephens, Weidner’s Lead Software Representative, featured demonstrations of MFR Live and got a great response from city and county managers alike.

Also, check out Pinal County's success with an inclusive approach to strategic planning by clicking here.

Feds Increase Focus on Performance

2010-08-05T08:46:00.000-05:00

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):

Regular review and analysis of performance information to monitor and improve results

Goals that are focused on outcomes, not strategies

Budget submissions aligned to support the accomplishment of results

Reporting performance to the public -- with narrative to explain performance

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.

Accountability Follows the Money: The Power of Performance Contracting

2010-08-04T10:01:00.005-05:00

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.

Blast From the Past: "What Gets Measured Sometimes Gets Managed"

2010-07-29T08:22:00.005-05:00

A little light summer reading: as part of the preparatory work for a new Performance Management Advisory Commission, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, William Aaron, wrote a white paper on best practices in performance management in late 2008.

That paper turned into an article in Government Finance magazine, the membership publication for the Government Finance Officers Association. The piece contains numerous examples of our customers' successes using the tools of Managing For Results to deliver improved results and outlines some of the key ideas behind our approach.

We've consistently gotten good feedback when we've shared this piece, and so we thought we'd post it here. You can download the article by clicking here. Let us know what you think!

Measuring Performance, Changing Behavior, Improving Results

2010-07-27T12:27:00.006-05:00

Our long-time friend and consulting partner Carla Penny volunteers actively around animal welfare issues, and has some thoughts to share about how performance measurement can drive better results -

Defining an organizational mission and correctly identifying performance measures are all too often treated as complying with a bureaucratic requirement. This is unfortunate. Good measures have the potential to seriously impact the problems organizations are trying to solve for their customers. By engaging and focusing the agency’s and the community’s attention on the whole story, they are better able to do the right things that make a difference.

One case in point is Animal Services. There are few issues more likely to ignite passions and controversy in parts of a community than the euthanasia of companion animals at the local animal care and control shelter. Open-intake shelters are statutorily required to accept all comers and usually implement a range of services to reduce euthanasia through preventive programs (licensing, spay/neuter, education, feral trap-neuter-release, etc.) as well as placement/retention programs (foster, adoption, behavior training, etc.).

Strategies such as these address both the supply and the demand sides of pet overpopulation and, when successful, will ultimately lead to fewer animals euthanized in shelters. The shelter euthanasia rate, therefore, is a good, all-round reflection of shelter success at decreasing intake as well as achieving live outcomes through adoption, etc. However, when the euthanasia rate measure eclipses other important information, it not only distorts the picture but can lead to misplacement of resources and even perpetration of greater harm to animals.

So what are good measures for animal shelters? The answer is “it depends.” The particular selection of performance measures should be determined by how the agency defines its mission, what the community is concerned about, the agency’s ability to collect data, existing and potential strategies and their intent, the precise nature of local practices that encourage pet overpopulation, etc.

At a minimum, animal services organizations should consider additional performance measures that will help provide a more complete view into operations. These may include:

Intake rate per capita

% animals (individuals) adopted directly from the shelter, from placement partners, etc.

% strays evaluated as adoptable

% animals ill or injured at intake

% sheltered animals contracting illness while in the shelter

Average length of stay until adoption

Return to owner rate

% stray animals microchipped/registered

In addition to telling a richer story, each of the measures has the potential to affect staff behavior. What, for example, might be the impact on animal care staff if “% of animals contracting illness in the shelter” were a measure that was reported and discussed in monthly staff meetings? Would hygiene practices for cage cleaning be improved?

The bottom line is that shelters must choose the story that needs to be understood by staff, decision-makers and stakeholders and then create the measures that will reveal that story.

Our April 2010 webinar featured Long Beach Animal Services and their remarkable story of manaing for results to drive change in an agency in crisis. You can see the presentation materials from that webinar by clicking here.

Our Essential Principles: Aligning Key Systems and Culture

2010-07-13T12:28:00.007-05:00

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.

MFR Live: Better Reporting & Lower Cost

2010-07-07T23:06:00.005-05:00

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.

Gunnison County: "Computing Performance"

2010-06-28T10:14:00.009-05:00

Check out this recent article in Governing magazine that features Gunnison County's adoption of our new online performance dashboard system, MFR Live:

http://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/citizens-performance/Computing-Performance.html#comments

The article highlights governments that are increasingly using technology to help them manage for results and features comments from Matthew Birnie, the County Manager in Gunnison. It's a quick read and a very good one (if we may say so ourselves!).

The piece makes several good points about the key principles of systems like MFR Live. These systems can (and should) provide performance information in a timely manner to power decision-making at all levels. They should also do so in a way that doesn't depend on a specialist to "free" the data from the system (as our colleague Jeremy Stephens noted recently). These principles have guided our development of MFR Live -- as well as our continuing development of other new tools, which will be coming soon.

Congrats to Matthew Birnie and to Gunnison County, CO!

Reporting Performance: Is It For "Them" Or For "Us"?

2010-06-25T13:52:00.007-05:00

Thoughts from Jeremy Stephens, our Lead Software Representative and resident Rock Star -

Recently, I spent three years working in performance management for a private sector company. The company was growing rapidly and needed a powerful set of management tools to help it manage that growth. I had the opportunity to help lead that effort, based on my experience having worked in Managing For Results in Metro Nashville/Davidson County, TN.

The company used a powerful software system to handle the collection and reporting of their performance information. Unfortunately, although the software was powerful, it wasn’t very accessible – in fact, to get data out of the system, the company had to hire someone whose only job was to create queries and pull data from the system. If you wanted performance information, many times you had to go and ask for it.

So while the performance information was meaningful and used in high-level management discussions, for most employees it was something “they” -- the senior managers and leaders -- paid attention to.

Unfortunately, we all know that it is far too common in organizations of all types, private or public sector, that instead of performance data driving decision-making at all levels, the data is closely held, or feared, or ignored.

So how does performance data get a regular seat at the table for how we do business? How does it move from being something “they” use to something “we” need?

What we’ve seen over and over again is that you have to begin by recognizing that data collection and reporting cannot be done in a vacuum. You cannot expect one person, or a small team, to be the only ones involved in collecting, analyzing and reporting the performance data for an organization – and then have those results resonate at all levels of the organization.

How could they? In this situation, for nearly everyone in the organization, performance is something “they” worry about. Most of the team – most of “us” - played no part in the collection and analysis.

In many cases, it simply comes down to the systems and programs. If you manage your performance information using a powerful system with lots of bells and whistles – but which is not easy to use or accessible – the majority of your employees may never know how to utilize or have the desire to try to use the system.

So in the end, it doesn’t necessarily take a village to transform government, but it does take the government as a whole (managers and employees alike) defining, collecting, analyzing, reporting and having conversations about results. You don’t have to do it all at one time, but you do have to do it. Only then can you hope to truly drive meaningful change at all levels. That’s your transformation!

Our Essential Principles: Focus On the Right Results

2010-06-15T10:28:00.007-05:00

From Marv, our CEO and Founder –

I recently shared the First Principle that drives everything we do as a company: 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, as the Administrator of Economic Assistance – that is, of welfare programs – for the State of Iowa, we took on reforming and fixing that complex, controversial system:

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

When we started working on Welfare Reform in Iowa we initially thought that the “right” result we were after was helping people out of the welfare system. Following that as our goal, we developed policies and practices that would have achieved the goal in fairly short order.

But we knew something was wrong – we didn’t like the picture we were painting. All kinds of ideas were considered, some reasonable, some bordering on perverse – like sending welfare receiving families to other states. The conversation became about one result, and one result only – lowering costs of public assistance.

But just getting families off of welfare had little to do with the original reasons for public welfare in the first place: to keep families from spiraling into poverty.

I can remember the conversation like it was yesterday. The Welfare Reform Council we had put together was considering the direction this result was leading us and they didn’t like it much. Tom Glen, the Labor representative on the Council, said it first:

“We’re focused on the wrong result. Its not about getting people out of the welfare system – it’s about getting people out of poverty.”

The other members of the Council agreed, and the entire initiative shifted. From that point forward, the policies and practices we developed were focused – not on getting families off of welfare – but on “giving people a ladder out of poverty and a way to reconnect with their communities.”

And because we were focused on the right result, our strategies shifted to support that result. We developed asset development policies. We changed our economic development policies. We created a state-wide system of workforce development centers focused on making it easier for low income families to reconnect with the workforce. We developed social contracts between the State and recipient families that set out what each would do by when to become self-sufficient. We provided extended child care and medical coverage to provide a bridge from welfare to earned income. And the list went on from there.

Iowa’s Welfare Reform initiative was a major success, and this approach was copied by other states and the federal government. It continues today to help families avoid or leave poverty and be full participants in the mainstream of Iowa’s economy and society. And, because we got focused on the right result, welfare recipient heads of household continued to fuel the broader economic and workforce goals held by subsequent Governors.

And because we focused on the right results, our customers experienced the right results.

One of the great privileges of the work we do is to help dedicated public servants become extremely clear about the right results for their customers. With that clarity, time and talent can be focused on delivering the best results for their customers. Whether it was Maricopa County, AZ, saving more than $25 million in one year on indigent health care costs, or Animal Care Services in Long Beach, CA, moving from crisis to triumph, again and again we have seen this truth:

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

The Doctor Will See You in 9 Minutes: Promoting Performance

2010-06-10T13:25:00.006-05:00

From William, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation –

I was driving to the airport recently and saw a billboard that caught my eye in a big way – a local hospital is advertising, in real time, a terrific piece of performance information: the average wait in their emergency room to receive medical attention.

This is a powerful piece of performance data, and it shows:

the hospital is paying attention to the wait time,
is willing to be transparent about it in a very public way, and
is confident enough to use it as a competitive advantage.

(You can also get ER wait times via text and, as you might have guessed, there’s an app for that too.)

It’s a smart move. Turns out this group of hospitals has intentionally reworked their processes in the past couple of years and cut the average ER wait time by more than 40%. They’ve focused on their customers and on a result that matters a great deal to their customers – and by using it in their advertising, they’re seeing increased business.

These hospitals are not the only ones advertising ER wait times. Others around the country have done so, some for many months, and report it has increased their business.

To us as patients (and customers), delivering a shorter wait is welcome and makes sense. Health care hasn’t always thought so, though – the old saying about “being a patient means being patient” had a lot of truth to it (and still does in too many healthcare operations). But the idea that improving the customer experience as an essential part of the delivery of healthcare is increasingly common and a welcome change.

So if large, complex organizations like hospitals can get so focused on results for customers that they proudly use them for advertising …. what’s stopping government?

What result is important to your customers that you’re not paying (enough) attention to?

What result would you put on a billboard? Or an iPhone app?

Seats at the Table: Broad Participation in Strategic Planning

2010-06-08T14:15:00.006-05:00

From Marv, our Founder and CEO --

Last year we posted an entry to this blog about our friends in Pinal County, AZ. The County Manager, Terry Doolittle, and the three Pinal County Commissioners had involved all of the County’s elected officials in the development of the County Strategic Plan.

At that time, Terry was the only County Manager we had worked with who had successfully involved all of the elected officials in developing the Plan. What we’ve seen most frequently over the years is that the County Commissioners and County Manager would develop the Strategic Plan; this has been a successful strategy in so many places. However, Terry did not want the Strategic Planning process to perpetuate a divide between the Commissioners, the agencies who report to them, and the other elected officials. We were very impressed that Pinal had pulled it off – successfully.

Well, now we can add another success story. Jesse Smith, the County Manager in Montrose County, Colorado, has done it as well. He involved not only the three County Commissioners but also the Sheriff, other elected officials AND his department heads in the development of the Strategic Plan. Recently in Montrose, William Aaron, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, and I facilitated the largest group we’ve ever worked with – more than 25 participants – in developing the Montrose County Strategic Plan. The Plan is built on extensive public input gathered in every geographic area of this large western US County, as well as input from all the elected officials and department heads. The Plan includes Issues facing residents, Priorities and measurable Strategic Results.

Montrose is set to take the next steps to develop Department Strategic Business Plans aligned to the County Strategic Plan, a Performance-Based Budget, and align Employee Performance to operational and strategic plans.

Congratulations to both Montrose County, CO and Pinal County, AZ for successfully involving the public and all elected decision makers in developing their County-wide Strategic Plans. This just may make it on our list of criteria for best managed County governments!

Our Essential Principles: Focus on Results

2010-05-27T07:11:00.004-05:00

From Marv, our CEO and Founder –

I had lunch with an old friend recently where we discussed all of the large and significant forces dragging at the work of government at all levels these days. I was a little surprised when my friend looked at me and asked, “Given all of that, are you sure you still want governments as customers?”

My answer: Absolutely! In fact, we know that the work we do is now more important that ever. There are three key ideas at the heart of what we do in Managing For Results – three core beliefs that drive everything we do in our organization – that make what we do more relevant and essential than it has ever been. I’ll talk about all three of those principles in upcoming blog posts, but here’s the first:

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

It’s not an idea wedded to any particular political perspective. It’s not an idea popular with some who would believe government can’t make a difference. But we know it to be absolutely true – and to be what customers expect government to do for them.

During my 20 years in state government in Iowa, one of my jobs was as first the Manager, then the Director, of Iowa’s successful Refugee Resettlement efforts. This initiative, begun under Governor Robert Ray in 1979 and continued under Governor Terry Branstad, resettled more than 10,000 refugees, mostly from Southeast Asia, over 10 years.

Sometime around year six the U.S. State Department declared Iowa’s Refugee Program the most successful in the nation. Lofty praise does not come easily or often from Foggy Bottom, and in this case it came for one reason: more so than in any other state, Iowa was exceptionally successful in helping refugee families become economically self-sufficient. At one point, the program boasted that more than 90% of the refugee families resettled in Iowa had become economically self-sufficient in the first six months from their arrival on our shores.

This achievement didn’t just happen. We got those results through a relentless focus on the results we wanted to achieve—that the refugee families would develop Economic Self-Sufficiency, Social Self-Reliance, and Family Strength.

Every briefing of the Governor, every report, every staff meeting, every performance measure, every hire we made, every investment in technology, every new program implemented was focused on one or more of these key results.

And it worked.

Both Governors had a larger view – both humanitarian and economic. The humanitarian efforts were inspired and amazing by any standard. At one point we counted more than 15,000 identified volunteers involved in helping refugees achieve one of those three key results.

On a larger economic canvas, Iowa was also fighting for economic stability by diversifying our economy and expanding our workforce to grow the economy. Refugees helped spawn new industries and became the workforce for many others. Today, Iowans with roots in Southeast Asian countries, cultures and work ethics continue to contribute their brains and brawn to help drive the Iowa economy.

We’ve had the privilege time and again over the past 12 years to work with dedicated public servants across the country, and at every level of government, to help provide them with the tools and system they needed to influence results. We’ve seen their own relentless focus change things for the better – making their communities safer, healthier, and better places to live, and making their governments more efficient and effective in a variety of ways. So we know, with certainty:

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

Upcoming ASPA Webinar: "Managing For Results: Performance Management That Works"

2010-05-26T11:35:00.007-05:00

We're very pleased to partner with the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) as a contributor to their annual series of professional development webinars. Ours will be Wednesday, June 16 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time, with the topic "Managing For Results: Performance Management that Works."

This one-hour webinar will feature William Aaron, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, and Thomas Walkington, one of our Senior Consultants. ASPA does charge a registration fee for the webinar with a big discount for ASPA members.

This session will provide an excellent overview of Managing For Results and include some great examples of governments that have used the tools of MFR to drive better results for their customers. For more information, click here - the webinar is the fourth one down. Hope you can join us on June 16!

Cash for Clunkers and Performance Measurement: A Lemon, or a Porsche?

2010-05-12T07:54:00.009-05:00

Our good friends Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene have recently begun a blog focused on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in conjunction with the IBM Center for The Business of Government. They sent us a note about a piece they wrote around the “Cash for Clunkers” automobile incentive purchase program and performance measurement – or, more precisely, the lack of performance measurement. You can check out their posting by clicking here.

We’ve talked before about the Levels of Transparency in government, beginning with transparency around how money is planned to be spent (the budget, in other words) and increasing to transparency around the results for customers generated by those dollars. As Barrett & Greene point out in their piece, a primary focus of ARRA was accountability and transparency around how the dollars were spent and the jobs created, but there has been little effort to collect performance information beyond that.

The missed opportunity is extraordinary. With this lack of performance information, the primary narrative around ARRA has become about the dollars spent, with only a limited ability to speak to the results provided by those dollars. The question of whether or not ARRA programs like Cash for Clunkers “worked” is hard to answer, as the definitions for success were not established out of the gate.

Let’s be clear – the administrative challenge presented by getting ARRA dollars out quickly has been huge, and the effective financial management of those funds is essential. With not much additional effort, however, there could have been a rich, meaningful flow of performance information about the difference ARRA is making for Americans in ways that would have demonstrated remarkable accountability and transparency. We hope that the lessons learned from ARRA will help drive a great focus on performance information in the future.

But this also raises a question for leaders at all levels of government – are we being as accountable and transparent as we can, and should, be? We put together a self-assessment tool last year to help government organizations quickly assess how transparent and accountable they are – if you haven’t seen it, take a look at it and see how your entity/jurisdiction stacks up. You can download our free tool by clicking here.

Parting Thoughts From Our Intern - Thanks, Matthew!

2010-05-04T17:01:00.008-05:00

Our Spring intern, Matthew Blackwell, concludes his internship ths week. We asked him to share some thoughts with us on his experience working in Managing For Results. Good Luck in all your future endeavors, Matthew, and Thanks for all your great work!

I want to start out by thanking the absolutely incredible team at Weidner, Inc. and the whole MFR community for providing me with this incredible opportunity to be part of such a great company and program.

When I initially set out to find an internship back in early October of 2009, I was entirely unaware of an industry focused on governmental consulting with a focus on management practices.

I had been going through a list of companies posted within the Texas State University's Sociology Department where graduates were working. Most of the companies on the list are big-name corporations that I already knew about, but at the very bottom of the list sat the name, Weidner, Inc.

As I had never heard of this company, I quickly did an online search for the company website. No sooner had I read through the Company Overview and Company History pages, I was hooked. Here was a company specializing in helping organizations to function better and more efficiently. To top it all off, they worked exclusively with governmental organizations.

For most of my life, I've been a huge fan of finding more efficient ways to do things, be it school work, making/serving ice cream at my first job, starting and running a Boy Scout Troop (I am a proud Eagle Scout), and working in a high-end specialty retail store during college.

Towards the end of my High School career, I had begun an interest in government, not so much on the political side as most of my friends were, but in they way they operated. I've realized over the years that some significant changes that can benefit everyone involved, from the elected official down to the brand-new voter, are within the everyday operations behind these organizations, not just the political side.

As an intern at Weidner, Inc. I've had the opportunity to do a number of research projects aimed at helping Weidner, Inc. connect their products and services (like our new MFR Live software) with organizations that show a willingness to utilize the methods, but may not be aware that there are companies out there that can help them.

I have also had the opportunity to learn about the world of RFPs, RFQs, and RFIs. I have helped search for jurisdictions seeking Weidner, Inc. products and services as well as helping to draft, edit, and compile proposals to be sent out.

Whether you've noticed it or not, there has been a growing interest nationwide in smarter and efficient business practices in government organizations. This interest isn't just coming from one place, but from nearly every aspect of government.

Citizens are asking for transparency and accountability as they begin to become more and more involved in governmental practice after decades of declining voter turnout. The increase in social media has brought younger generations to the forefront of policy-making as their ever-increasing demand for information has brought about a dramatic change in the way politicians and other figures reach out to constituents.

All sides of the political spectrum have also been calling for more efficiency, transparency, and accountability as a way to show voters that they are either part of (or not part of) the changes that are currently occurring.

Lastly, the current economic situation and budget shortfalls is one of the largest contributor to this interest in creating efficiency and working smarter to serve the community. There are only so many workforce reductions an organization can lose before they aren't able to perform the functions that they have set forth. In order to continue to bring down costs for taxpayers and meet budget goals, these organizations are going to need to adopt new practices and methods (such as Weidner's own Managing For Results).

I have high hopes for both this company and the community at large as these practices continue to grow and help government perform to the best of its ability.

Managing For Results: Performance Management and Driving Change

2010-04-26T10:50:00.009-05:00

We were pleased to be able to use our April webinar to feature a compelling story of an organization that is using a focus on results for customers to accomplish an amazing turnaround. John Keisler is the Manager of Animal Care Services for the City of Long Beach, CA, and, with his Chief of Operations Michelle Quigley, they shared their success and the valuable lessons they have put to work to make it happen.

The principles they shared aren't unique to the field of Animal Services -- they can be used by any team or organization to help drive culture change and improve performance.

John has graciously offered to share his webinar presentation as well as some of the internal worksheets they use in the hopes that others can learn from them. We hope you find them useful in your own organization.

You can download the powerpoint presentation by clicking here.

You can also download samples of their internal reports - the "live release rate" report can be downloaded by clicking here and the "euthanization rate" report can be downloaded by clicking here.

Thanks again to John and Michelle for their openness and interest in sharing their success!

Say Hello to Our Intern, Matthew Blackwell

2010-04-15T17:02:00.007-05:00

Our home office in Austin, TX, has been very fortunate this Spring to have had access to the talents of Matthew Blackwell, our intern from Texas State University-San Marcos. Matthew has worked with our team on a nearly full-time basis this Spring and has been involved in everything from market research to proposal research and preparation to communications. Before Matthew wraps up his internship in May, we wanted to give everyone a chance to meet him.

Matthew is 23 years old and was born and raised just outside of Austin. He's an applied sociology major - that means "more research and less theory," according to Matthew.

Why did he want to work with Weidner?

"I'm a strong believer in government transparency and accountability," he said. "In fact, by studying sociology, I'm able to help more people by helping government work for the people."

"Almost everyone else in the internship program is working in direct care, such as a hospice environment, or in academic research - they're all very localized. I like this because of the broader perspective," he said.

Matthew was a biochemistry major before he changed to applied sociology. "With the applied sociology background, the tools and knowledge I've gained are applicable to a large array of jobs and interests," he said.

In his spare time Matthew enjoys motorcycles (as you might have guessed from the picture) and reading historical fiction and science fiction.

Matthew's contributions to Weidner this Spring have been fantastic. Thanks, Matthew, for all you've done!

Weidner Partners with CFI Group for Citizen Surveys

2010-04-14T14:16:00.012-05:00

We're pleased to announce that we've formed a strategic partnership with CFI Group, one of the nation's leading citizen/customer survey organizations.

CFI Group created the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the only standardized measure of customer satisfaction in the U.S. economy, which is used by more than 200 companies in 40 industries. The ACSI is also the federal government’s standard measure of customer satisfaction and is used by more than 70 federal agencies. CFI Group is widely recognized as a global leader in both measuring customer satisfaction and understanding how to improve it.

Using the cause-and-effect science of the ACSI, CFI Group helps government organizations better understand the needs of their constituents, citizens, and stakeholders. Their tools identify the key drivers of citizen satisfaction and dissatisfaction and pinpoint where agencies or local governments should invest first in order to deliver the most value to their customers. By applying the science of satisfaction, government agencies at all levels are able to better allocate scarce resources for maximum effectiveness and improve the quality of life for citizens.

We believe CFI Group offers a superior and affordable approach to gathering information from your citizens that will help set priorities for funds and provide key insights into performance. For more information about CFI Group and what they offer, contact our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, William Aaron, at waaron@weidnerinc.com. You can also check out their website at http://www.cfigroup.com/.

April 14 Webinar: Performance Management and Driving Change

2010-04-08T21:00:00.004-05:00

We love to highlight outstanding leaders who are effectively using the tools of Managing For Results to change their organizations and to deliver better results for customers - and no example is more compelling than Animal Care Services in the City of Long Beach, CA.

Faced with a crisis that had Animal Care Services as a hot topic on the local news, and with staff at a breaking point, new leadership took over and immediately began using performance management tools to turn the organization completely around. Improved results came quickly, and today performance is the best it has ever been (even in a time of funding reductions). Animal Care Services is now recognized as a model, with former critics having become some of the biggest fans and supporters.

This is a success story you won't want to miss, and the lessons from Long Beach can be used everywhere. We hope you can join us on Wednesday, April 14 at 3 p.m. central time. The webinar will feature John Kiesler, Director, and Michelle Quigley, Chief of Operations for Animal Care Services of the City of Long Beach, CA.

You can sign up for this free webinar by clicking here. Join us then!

Inspiration in Morocco

2010-04-05T17:08:00.006-05:00

From Marv, our CEO and Founder --

We all speak often of building capacity and clarity of purpose within our organizations. These are essential characteristics to achieving results for our customers.

On Sunday, April 4, in Morocco our dear friend and colleague, Gary Guller, began running the Marathon De Sables, a 6-day, 150 mile race across the Sahara Desert. Gary was the first one-armed person to summit Everest in 2003 and led the most diverse group of disabled trekkers to Everest Base Camp in history. Gary lost his arm as a result of a 1,500 ft fall in a climbing accident some 20 years ago where one of his two climbing partners died. As some of you know, I climbed and trekked with Gary for five weeks in Nepal in 2000.

Gary has been working on his conditioning for months, completely focused on his desired results:
1) finish the race
2) finish in the top half of the 1,000 competitors from around the world.

As you can imagine, Gary faces some unusual challenges in running while carrying his water and nourishment for the entire day. The distances for each day range from 13 to 51 miles per day, depending on the stage and terrain. Gary does as much as anyone to raise awareness of key issues. For this race, he is supporting the Christopher Reeve Foundation; you can find out more about the Foundation by clicking here.

Weidner has been a sponsor of several of Gary’s expeditions and we’re certainly among his biggest fans. Gary finished the first stage on Sunday, April 4. If you would like to follow Gary or send him a message, you can do so by clicking here. Gary is racer number 661.

A little more direct but more complicated is the website for tracking specific racers, which you can access by clicking here. You’ll be asked to download the Silverlight plug-in; once you do, you’ll be able to use the site. At the top of the page you’ll see "Live", "Stages", and "Runners". Click on "Runners". This site is a bit slow but effective. On the left hand side you'll see a list of competitors. Scroll down to #661 Gary Guller and click. His profile will come up on the right and you'll be able to see where he is on the course at different stations during each Stage. You will see our logo here as one of Gary’s sponsors.

We hope you can take a few minutes and follow Gary, and possibly contribute to the Christopher Reeve Foundation. We have long supported Gary in his quest to use his expeditions to make a difference in the world. Gary makes his living as an inspirational speaker, working with organizations to inspire them to improve performance, leadership and team work. You can access his web site by clicking here, and his very active blog by clicking here, where you can also follow him through the Marathon.

Improving Performance: Start Spreading the News

2010-04-01T23:18:00.004-05:00

William, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, has been thinking about the secrets we keep (and shouldn't) --

What are you doing with your performance data?

You’ve most likely got deadlines for reporting your performance information, so, as a conscientious manager, you’re collecting your data and putting it into the database or Excel sheet or whatever reporting mechanism you use. Sent. Done. Check.

But are you sharing it with the members of your team? Or are you treating it, intentionally or not, as top secret material?

If you want to improve performance, it’s essential that the team members who deliver services to your customers understand both how performance is measured and what the performance data says. Performance information provides the basis for powerful discussions with your team:

**Are we performing as we need to be – are we delivering the promised results to our customers?

** If our performance is meeting or exceeding expectations, what do we need to do to ensure that continues?

** If our performance is not where we need/want it to be, why not?

** What do we need to do to improve our performance?

Having these conversations keeps your team focused on performance and on results for customers. Reviewing performance regularly with your team helps everyone respond when improvement is needed – and allows everyone to celebrate when results are strong.

Massive Pension Shortfalls Drive Demand For Strong Financial Management

2010-03-28T19:29:00.011-05:00

From Marv, our founder and CEO --

If you haven’t seen it, we strongly recommend you take a look at a stunning new report, “The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded State Retirement Systems and the Road to Reform,” from the Pew Center on the States, a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. You can see the report by clicking here.

We recommend everyone in the public sector look at this report. It documents the challenges facing underfunded public sector pension systems as well as some pathways to closing the gap and backing away from the abyss of financial failure.

Richard Greene and Katherine Barrett, who are familiar to many of you for their work of long standing on improving government performance, were Senior Consultants on the project. If you don’t already subscribe to the B&G Report, their regular feature in Governing Magazine’s free Management e-newsletter, you should -- it’s a great resource. You can sign up for it by clicking here.

How did some pension systems get in such trouble? The answer rests in the decisions made by the retirement systems which are on the ropes. It’s useful to look at the choices they made, particularly in comparison to the choices made by those which are solvent and managing strategically.

National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” news program followed up on the Pew report with stories about individual states; you can listen to their stories by clicking here. A recent report focused on the Pennsylvania Teachers’ Association Retirement System, which has unfunded liabilities of $20 billion currently and expects to see that grow to $55 billion over the next few years. As has been true in many other cases, overly optimistic projections of investment performance are responsible for much of the problem. Benefit increases based on pre-recession assumptions haven’t helped, either.

A senior official with the Pennsylvania Teachers’ Association Retirement System said that “some of the worst things happen during the best of times.” We agree -- it is easy to be overly optimistic when times are good, and even easier to spend when the money is there.

Taking a more strategic view, though, can take the white caps off the tops of the fiscal waves and keep the troughs from being quite so deep. Those states whose retirement systems are not in trouble are living by rules that require them to take the long view – for example, some are required to fund any deficits in the year in which the deficit occurs. Local governments are responding as well – our home city of Austin, Texas, is taking steps right now to make sure that the retirement system for City employees hits the 80% funded rule.

We believe the long view is the best view - pay as you go.

Back in the day in Iowa in the 1990s, the Governor and Legislature agreed to fiscal notes of at least three years for all legislative proposals. This was very successful in forcing decision makers to take the longer view and never be surprised by the impact of current decisions on future budgets.

Requiring fiscal notes of at least three and preferably five years for any funding proposal – as well as any proposal to delay funding of deficits – is an important element of sound financial management.

Our economic recession surprised almost everyone – and particularly surprising was the depth and breadth of the impact in nearly every sector of the economy. Government revenues will be affected by it at least three years running. Many senior officials we speak with in local government see this as a permanent restructuring of their organizations and a fundamental change in the roles government will play going forward.

In making those tough decisions, time is of the essence. The longer government leaders wait to act, the deeper the cuts will need to be. In Hawaii, the Governor and Unions are still negotiating a deal to handle what was identified in July 2009 as a needed $700 million reduction in personnel costs. As a result, school children are still taking furlough Fridays from school and the problem is literally multiplying as the decision is delayed.

Expenditure reductions should be enacted as quickly as possible, as soon as it is known that a problem exists. This is critical to minimizing the impact of a loss of revenues.

Our dear friends in Maricopa County, AZ, have been dealing with truly extraordinary political battles between elected officials – but this has not distracted them from the focus and discipline that continue to make them one of the best managed governments in the nation. At a time when the State of Arizona is facing a budget deficit in excess of $3 billion, Maricopa County has balanced its budget and is paying cash for a new Court House/Criminal Justice Tower. They have set strong fiscal policies and they adhere to them even in difficult times.

More governments should follow Maricopa’s example: establish fiscal policies and principles that will serve the government and taxpayers in good times and bad.

It’s painful for everyone when revenues are short, services are being cut and employees are being laid off. It takes real courage and real leadership from both administrative and legislative officials to take the long view -- but that is exactly what’s needed, especially now.

Measurement: The Boredom of 100%

2010-02-19T14:06:00.011-06:00

William Aaron, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, shares the following -

If you have a performance measure that is always 100%, why are you still measuring it?

I worked with a team once that wanted to measure its success by how often it met a legally mandated deadline. Of course, the deadline was always met (it being a law and all), so the team would always be 100% perfectly successful ... right?

A measure that is always 100% cannot, by definition, measure anything that's too hard to do. Chances are pretty good that you're measuring a process over which you exert pretty complete control. It's probably about compliance. It's very unlikely to be about your customers.

And it's not going to give you any information about how you can make things better, more effective, more efficient.

If your measure always produces a perfect result, change it. Raise the bar. Focus on a more challenging - and important - result. Send a clear message to your organization, your team, your co-workers.

Performance measurement can improve results. Don't let it be 100% perfectly boring.

Trusting Your Performance Info: Data Integrity Matters

2010-02-15T18:28:00.016-06:00

From Marv Weidner, CEO and Founder of Weidner, Inc. -

Recently in The New York Times, an article (http://tiny.cc/ZC2eI) cited a new report that raises questions about the integrity of the data included in the Major Crimes Report for New York City during the 1990s. The report raises questions about whether, and how, pressure to lower the Crime Rate lead to periodic manipulation of the data by some NYC Police precinct captains.

This is not the first check on the integrity of the data. An earlier report by New York University professor Dennis C. Smith contained this assessment: “We conclude, as did the state comptroller five years ago, that the city and department officials, and the public can be reasonably assured that the NYPD data are accurate, complete and reliable.”

So there are differences in findings and opinions about whether the NYC crime data was manipulated. However, there is little or no debate about whether the experience of crime in NYC has changed significantly for the better since the implementation of COMSTAT by Bill Bratton back in the 1990s – crime in New York City has plunged, and NYC has become one of the safest large cities in the nation. Similar efforts have been successfully implemented in law enforcement agencies across the country with similar results: using performance information can make communities much safer.

Data Integrity is Worth Fighting For

The stories from NYC point out the importance of data integrity. Data integrity goes to the quality of decisions made on the basis of that data – and to the integrity of the government organization reporting it.

I remember when in 2007 Toby Futrell, former City Manager for Austin, TX, won praise when she fired the Director of the Austin Convention Center for falsifying customer satisfaction data. (You can see newspaper coverage of that by clicking here.)

When Metro Nashville Davidson County, TN, started Managing for Results in 2002, then Finance Director David Manning insisted that the Internal Auditor certify the data before a performance measure could be included in their performance-based budget. And from the beginning, the Maricopa County, AZ, Internal Audit shop checked the integrity of performance information, and their efforts led to their receiving an Award for Excellence in Government Finance from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA).

Solutions to Better Ensure Data Integrity

If you’re collecting, analyzing, managing, and reporting performance data, the integrity of your performance data matters. There are several steps you and your organization can take to help ensure the performance data you receive and use is accurate and consistent:

** Set yourself up for success by clearly and consistently documenting the definitions of your performance measures and the people who are responsible for collecting, reviewing and reporting the data. Don’t depend on someone to remember how to do it – get it documented, so that anyone can step in and replicate the measurement, if necessary. Best practice performance information management systems like Weidner’s MFR Live software may support this documentation and role definition.

** Emphasize with all staff that service delivery decisions and performance reports are only as good as the data supporting them. Ensure they understand that this is not an exercise in submitting numbers by a deadline, but is how your organization does business.

** Use Internal Auditors or other resources to periodically check the data. Whether a periodic sampling review or a more rigorous assessment, a systematic approach to data quality will yield significant benefits.

** Publicly report on data integrity alongside performance reports. In Metro Nashville, the level of performance data certification was closely watched by department leaders.

Scenes from Snowpocalypse 2010 (Round II)

2010-02-11T16:34:00.007-06:00

Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation William Aaron and Senior Consultant Kevin Tolmich are working with Chester County, PA this week and got to see the "Big Storm" firsthand. Best guess is that 18+ inches of snow fell in about 24 hours. Conditions were so bad Chester County closed its offices for two days, the first closure in more than a decade.

For a couple of guys from the South, this is a LOT of snow! Kevin took a few pictures we thought we'd share.

MFR Live is Online! Join Us 2/23 for a Demo

2010-02-10T12:22:00.008-06:00

Looking for a way to easily and systematically convert your performance data into actionable, management information? We're very pleased to announce that MFR Live, our new performance information management and reporting system, is ready to roll!

Key features of MFR Live include:

Web-based, so there's no equipment to buy and nothing to install
Intuitive and easy to use
Customized Performance Dashboards for all levels of users
Competitively priced by jurisdiction size (with special Early Adopter pricing available!)
Unlimited number of users
Easy-to-access security controls and role designation for every user

Please join us for an online demonstration of MFR Live on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 3 p.m. CST. The demo will be led by Jeremy Stephens, Lead Software Representative. You can register by clicking here.

Want to know more about MFR Live? You can find out more here.

Want to see the system in action but can't make this demo? Contact Jeremy Stephens at jstephens@weidnerinc.com and he'll get you set up with a demonstration that works for you.

Free Webinar on "Delivering Better Performance: Essential Elements"

2010-02-05T09:24:00.006-06:00

Under pressure to improve performance? Need to do more with less? Is there anyone who isn't facing these challenges today?

We've got a free webinar coming up you'll want to attend. This one-hour sessionwill share Essential Elements of how successful public sector organizations across the nation have delivered better results for their customers.

Informed by Weidner's work with 50 jurisdictions at all levels of government since 1998, this session will share tools, techniques, case studies and lessons learned that you can put to work in your organization immediately.

We hope you can join us on Tuesday, February 16 at 3 p.m. CST. The webinar will be led by William Aaron, Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, and Jeremy Stephens, Lead Software Representative. You can register by clicking here.

We hope you can join us on Feb. 16. And we'll be doing more webinars more often in the coming months - so if you have a topic you'd like to suggest, please contact William Aaron at waaron@weidnerinc.com.

Did you get our February e-newsletter?

2010-02-05T09:11:00.005-06:00

We've just sent out our February 2010 e-newsletter, filled with useful tools, news about grants (free money!) and upcoming events, and other great information you can use if you're concerned with performance.

If you didn't get it, you can see it by clicking here.

And you can sign up to receive our free e-newsletter, delivered right to your e-mail box, by clicking here. There's no obligation, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Got a questiom? A suggestion for a topic you'd like to see covered on the blog? Great! Contact William Aaron at waaron@weidnerinc.com.

Citizen Surveys: Getting the Information You Need

2010-02-03T07:25:00.012-06:00

We asked Kate Blunt, one of our Senior Consultants, to share her expertise on the importance of citizen surveys - and the keys to making them successful. Kate spent more than 20 years as a Senior Executive with the federal government, most recently as the Director of Strategic Planning at the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. While there she established one of the best customer feedback programs in the federal government using the results to initiate innovative customer service delivery improvements including measuring and improving internal service. Kate is credited as the architect and leader of a corporate-wide culture change at PBGC resulting in some of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the federal government.

State and local governments across the country are struggling to balance budgets in the face of an economic slowdown and maintain service levels. They are facing a number of difficult decisions about how to allocate scarce resources across an array of public programs and services: what programs to improve; what to de-emphasize; how will citizens react?

Citizens can best identify which areas of government are functioning well and which areas need improvement. They can also be instrumental in identifying how best to improve quality and efficiency. They will give you clues about where you should invest scarce resources to do the most good. In these difficult times, citizen satisfaction measurement programs can be valuable tools for government agencies to better Manage for Results.

The concept of citizen-centered performance measurement is not new to the public sector. Since 1994, federal agencies have collected and used citizen satisfaction information to improve the delivery of services including everything from the issuing of benefit checks and providing park services to collecting taxes. Last year, Cobalt Community Research in partnership with the CFI Group conducted a national citizens’ survey measuring satisfaction with state and local governments. You can review the results of the Cobalt Citizen Satisfaction Study by clicking here; scroll down to "The Cobalt Citizen Satisfaction Survey." You may be required to register with the site to download the report.

A number of state and local governments collect and publish data on resident needs and opinions about service delivery. The benefits of doing so include raising citizens’ trust and engagement, enhancing the credibility of the government entity, and having the ability to measure and track how actions taken impact citizens. Well-framed citizen surveys also provide the opportunity to determine where cost cuts, given the current economic climate, will cause the least pain.

The biggest challenges for most existing programs are expense, demand on limited staff time, measurement quality and getting actionable data.

Getting your money’s worth out of a citizen satisfaction survey

Collect actionable data. Before fielding any survey, know in advance how you will use the survey data. If you are not going to use the data, do not ask the question. What’s the goal? In these difficult times it is not enough to use survey results as public relations tools. Use the information from citizens to identify your most important services and to focus improvement efforts. Determining the most effective allocation of resources for performance improvement that delivers maximum return on investment is fundamental to any citizen satisfaction measurement program.

Focus. Go for deeper coverage of a few critical elements rather than shallow coverage of many. You will get more bang for the buck if you do.

Survey often, do it cheap, make it easy. Survey citizens at least annually. Contract with a reliable vendor with a good reputation. Study vendor methodology to know what’s best for you and understand how their approach will support budgetary decisions. Realize that prices may vary based on the scope of the study, and that you can get the most basic surveys now for $5000. Keep the survey short and sweet. You want a good response rate.

Put together an internal survey team. The team should include operations staff that have something vested in the results. Use the team to help guide development of the survey, to analyze the survey results and to recommend action based on the survey data.

Use satisfaction scores to measure the success of your entity. Focus staff on citizen expectations vs. internal policies and processes. What citizen satisfaction outcomes do you want? How well are you doing compared with similar public and private entities?

Be transparent. Publish the survey results along with the actions you plan on taking to improve citizen satisfaction.

All too often public officials are left with great one-time insights into citizens’ opinions but no clear guidance on how to translate the information into an effective action plan, and no reliable mechanism to regularly measure progress and benchmark against other similar public entities. Don’t let that happen to you.

Polish Up Your Crystal Ball: Using End-of-Year Estimates

2010-01-25T16:32:00.009-06:00

Wish you could foresee the future? You’ve got a better and more powerful way to “tell your fortune” than you may realize.

If you’re collecting performance information (and if you’re not, get started!) it’s natural to look at the data you collect and see how you performed. It’s a look back, and an important one.

But much of the power of performance data comes in using it to understand how you will perform. Will you meet your performance targets? How do you and your organization need to respond to ensure performance meets (or exceeds) expectations?

Performance data not only tells you how well you’re performing – it also enables you to project how well you’ll perform by year’s end. It’s like driving to the Grand Canyon for the family vacation. If you know how many miles you’ve driven and how long it took you, you can understand when you’re likely to get there – and then make changes to your driving plan if you need to. Otherwise, you’re just sort of driving along (and hoping for the best).

End-of-Year Estimates enable you, as a manager and a leader, to ask and answer key questions that are at the heart of effective performance management:

ONE: Am I on track to deliver the level of performance I projected – and promised – for the year? Will I meet or exceed my target, or does it look like I’m going to fall short?

TWO: If I’m not on track to deliver the needed level of performance, why? What changes in my processes and services do I need to make to improve performance?

THREE: Do I need to look at reallocating people or other essential resources to help ensure performance reaches the needed levels?

Indeed, End-of-Year Estimates are so important, we built our MFR Live software to calculate an End-of-Year Estimate for every measure and automatically compare it to the performance target. (It's pretty cool, if we may say so ourselves.)

It’s a powerful tool and at the heart of actively managing performance. Don't leave it out of your toolkit!

Welcome Jeremy Stephens, Weidner's new Lead Software Representative!

2010-01-22T14:05:00.003-06:00

We're very pleased to announce that Jeremy Stephens has joined the Weidner, Inc., team as the company's first Lead Software Representative. In this role, he'll be leading the company's sales efforts for its new performance information management and reporting system, MFR Live. If you're interested in learning more about our new system, drop him a line at jstephens@weidnerinc.com.

Prior to joining Weidner, Jeremy worked for three years as the Director of Strategic Planning and Performance Management for Ticketmaster Entertainment’s online marketing and branding company Echo. While at Echo he spearheaded the company’s first comprehensive strategic business planning initiative and managed all aspects of the company’s performance reporting that encompassed both internal metrics and metrics pertaining to the company’s 250+ clients. In addition, Jeremy worked in business development creating client strategies, presentations and proposals for artists such as Beyonce, Bon Jovi, Diddy, KISS and Kings of Leon. (So, yeah - he's a rock star!)

Before joining Ticketmaster in 2007, Jeremy served as the Performance Management Coordinator for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, where he worked with William Aaron, Weidner's Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation. During his five-year tenure at Metro Nashville Jeremy helped drive the government’s pioneering deployment of Managing For Results through the facilitation of numerous departmental Strategic Business Plans as well as providing critical consultation, training and technical assistance across all facets of managing for results.

Jeremy is a recognized speaker and has had the opportunity to present at a variety of conferences – including GFOA, the Advanced Learning Institute, and the Performance Institute – to share the lessons learned from his experiences with managing for results. Jeremy received a Bachelors of Arts in History, Bachelors of Science in Business Administration, and an MBA in Marketing and Logistics from the University of Tennessee.

Notes from Hawaii: Setting the Stage to Deliver Results

2009-12-11T21:12:00.011-06:00

Marv Weidner, founder and CEO of Weidner Inc., sends word from Hawaii that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs continues its strong moves to transform its organization to Manage for Results:

"On Wednesday, Dec. 9, the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), Haunani Apoliona, gave the annual “State of OHA” address at St. Andrew’s Cathedral here to an invited audience of more than 300 Native Hawaiian community leaders and other friends of the organization. Marty [Weidner, co-founder and Senior VP] and I are here working with OHA leadership and felt fortunate to be a part of this event.

"A centerpiece of the address was OHA’s extraordinary work to use Strategic Business Planning and Managing For Results to give direction to the future and achieve results for Native Hawaiians. OHA is changing its structure from a topic-based organization, e.g. health, to a functionally organized agency with four Lines of Business: Resource Management, Community Relations, Research, and Advocacy.

"OHA is using its Strategic Plan to fully focus all of its resources on measurable results for Native Hawaiians. We had goose bumps sitting among the members of the community and hearing the Chair’s very public commitment to the Strategic Plan and Managing for Results."

You can read a PDF of the Chair's "State of OHA" speech here.

There's a video available of the speech that you can view here.

Local newspapers covered the event as well. You can see the coverage by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin here and by the Honolulu Advertiser here.

Budgeting In Tough Times: Lessons From Michigan

2009-12-08T16:19:00.003-06:00

The Governing Conference on Managing Performance is always a rich environment for new ideas and best practices. This year’s conference – held in Atlanta, GA, earlier this fall – was no exception:

No one knows more about how to budget in tough times while still investing strategically in the future than the State of Michigan. Lisa Webb Sharpe, the Director of Michigan’s Department of Management and Budget, gave a high value presentation at Governing’s Managing Performance conference entitled “Budgeting in Tough Times: Strategies that Work, Gimmicks that Don't.” Lisa’s “do and don’t” insights are worthy reminders for everyone in the public sector:

Do - Define government's role. Examine current programs and functions. Are they still relevant in today's environment? Prioritize polices and fund them. Ask the question: what is government's role and core mission?
Do - Develop a long-term vision and invest. In Michigan, our investment in education, early childhood, K-12 and higher education, is key to our economic recovery.
Do - Fix structural problems rather than plugging holes short-term. It's easier said than done. If your tax structure is manufacturing-based, and your economic model is moving toward services, the tax structure must recognize that to provide adequate revenue. Likewise, government can't be all things to all people. Re-examine services and programs for relevance and effectiveness, then prioritize and make the tough calls. Of course, you must look for efficiencies and economies of scale in administrative functions.
Do - Maintain a rainy day fund, because the rain will certainly come.

Don't - Play around the edges. Symbolism is great to help the public understand you're watching every penny, but look at your real cost drivers – education, corrections, and health care – and work to produce appropriate reform that achieves solid results for the taxpayer money you're spending.
Don't - Assume wholesale outsourcing works. States must examine each project or program separately to determine if outsourcing makes good business sense, both short and long term. In Michigan, our vehicle fleet is outsourced and it works tremendously well for us. Based on an independent review of our accounting operation, we are high performers, with the exception of a small portion that is privatized.
Don't - Offer across-the-board early retirements to thin the employment ranks. Early outs can drive up the employer contribution rate paid by state agencies, and the brain-drain is significant.

Effective Communication: Enlisting Others to Help Spread the Word

2009-11-23T07:47:00.011-06:00

One of they keys to success in any change initiative - and Managing For Results is certainly included on that list - is relentless, focused communication.

It's almost impossible to "over-communicate." Even when we think we've talked about a particular topic or issue until we're blue in the face, our audience almost certainly still needs more information from us.

An important element of any successful communication strategy is enlisting other people within your organization to help spread the word. Different messengers bring different skills, can reach different audiences, and lend their credibility to the effort.

For a great example of this principle in action, check out this employee newsletter (click here to see it) from Gunnison County, Colorado. The lead article, "Changing Seasons," is by Paula Swenson, the Chair of the County Board of Commissioners. In it she sends a clear message to every employee that Managing For Results is a good thing for Gunnison County and its citizens.

If you've got examples of great communication - internal, external, or both - send them to us and we'll share the best ones here. Send them to William Aaron at waaron@weidnerinc.com.

OKC's Cathy O'Connor named "Woman of the Year"

2009-11-20T09:50:00.005-06:00

Congratulations to Cathy O'Connor, Assistant City Manager for the City of Oklahoma City, who was named "Woman of the Year" by The Journal Record, a statewide business publication, in October.

O'Connor was selected from a pool of 50 nominees in recognition of her success in economic development and her strong community involvement.

O’Connor began her career with the City while still an undergraduate student at the University of Oklahoma where she received her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Public Administration. Prior to becoming an Assistant City Manager she served in various positions including the City’s Finance Director, Budget Director and Business Manager for the Oklahoma City Fire Department.

Her responsibilities include oversight of five departments: Finance, Planning, Development Service, Public Information and Marketing and the City Clerk’s Office. She is also responsible for the City’s economic development efforts.

Congratulations, Cathy!

Need Better Performance? To Do More With Less?

2009-11-19T08:27:00.005-06:00

The old saying says that "what gets measured, gets managed". What we know, though, is that this is not necessarily true. It really depends on that how effectively the performance information is used.

Dick Grote, one of the acknowledged experts in the field of employee performance management, said in The Performance Appraisal Question and Answer Book (emphasis added):

“Goal setting directly increases productivity. Research on goal-setting programs has found that companies that introduced systematic goal-setting programs enjoyed an average 39 percent increase in productivity. Interestingly, the size of the benefit varied dramatically among the employees, with the key differentiating factor being the amount of management support. In those companies where top management lent strong support to the goal-setting initiative, there was an average 57 percent increase in productivity; but in those companies where there was little top management support, the increase was a paltry 6 percent.”

It’s not enough to just measure performance. You’ve got to use performance information. You’ve got to show your team members that it matters.

Saving Money with Managing For Results: Chester County, PA

2009-11-16T13:57:00.005-06:00

Congratulations to Chester County, PA, which just earned the rare "triple/triple" -- that is, they've received the top AAA bond rating from all three of the major government bond rating agencies.

Chester County is one of only 24 counties in the entire U.S. to attain this status, and the only one in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This means that Chester County will save millions of dollars in interest on its bonds in the coming years.

“Receiving the highest rating reflects the county’s philosophy of managing for results,” said County Commissioner Carol Aichele.

Standard & Poor’s, which awarded the County a AAA rating last week, highlighted Chester County’s strong management practices including quarterly reports to elected officials and the voting public on budgeted numbers compared to actual results.

You can see the County's press release here. Congratulations to Chester County!

Managing Performance: Systems, Budgets, and Media, Oh My

2009-11-04T19:04:00.010-06:00

The Governing Conference on Managing Performance is always a rich environment for new ideas and best practices. This year’s conference – held in Atlanta, GA, in early October — was no exception. Weidner CEO Marv Weidner and Consultant Kevin Tolmich presented two workshops and had a few reflections from the conference:

Keep It Simple: As governments increasingly use performance information to inform their discussions and decisions, the software systems they use to track and report that information are becoming increasingly important. In our “Simple Systems” workshop, we had a very thoughtful, high level conversation about simple systems that support the use of performance information. A couple of points worth mentioning:

“Simple” is a very high value characteristic of both the systems and the price that cities and counties really need right now. Throughout the conversation, the dominant and consistent themes were “easy to use” to describe the system and “easy to access” to describe what the systems does for the user. Curtis Tani of Long Beach, CA, said upon reflection that he wished that they had stayed with the simple system they initially created for themselves – “Beach Stat” – rather than move to a more expensive and not so simple commercial system. Nashville, TN recently shelved their commercial high dollar performance management system because it was too expensive to maintain in this economy.

While it is sometimes quite useful to develop a system in-house, the opportunity cost incurred in using increasingly scarce internal IT resources should give one pause before taking that strategy. Oklahoma City has a great system built in-house, but because of cutbacks, they don’t have the IT resources to build version 2.0 even though they know the changes they want to make.

Meeting the Challenges of Budgeting: In our workshop “Budgeting Right When Revenues are Tight” a number of jurisdictions shared what they were doing to get the most value out of their fiscal resources. The South Florida Water Management District had a very interesting approach to budget management that they have used with real success. To ensure managers are spending their resources wisely to achieve performance targets. Instead of waiting until the end of the fiscal year, they have a policy that allows the Director to take back any funds not obligated by midway in the fiscal year. This better ensures that funds are being used wisely and for the performance purpose they were intended.

Another key point made from a couple of local elected officials in attendance was that it is essential that elected officials can see, in the budget, how their priorities are being addressed. This is critical to building their confidence in the budget process and essential to a mutually trusting relationship with their administrative staff.

It is very apparent that many jurisdictions in attendance understand the need to have performance data with their budgets. The conversation seems to be moving away from convincing/promoting the need for (or why they should use) Managing for Results or any other program/performance based budgeting model – and instead focusing on how to get it done, and then ultimately what the end result will be for the jurisdiction.

Getting the Word Out: Jonathan Walters is always worth a read or a listen, as his pithy style makes his truth-telling all that much more enjoyable. In his workshop, he made a point that is worth repeating because it is often ignored: create a relationship with the press and help them do their job. At the time you need them to help get the word out, you will be glad you did.

Sneak Preview: "MFR Live" Performance Management Software

2009-10-16T14:49:00.028-05:00

We're very pleased to pull back the curtain just a bit on our newest product, MFR Live. It'll be ready for release in the very near future - we could not resist sharing a few snapshots!

This performance information management and reporting software is designed to support Managing For Results as well as other performance management systems. Key features include:

Web-based, so there's no equipment to buy and nothing to install
Intuitive and easy to use
Customized Performance Dashboards for all users
Competitively priced by jurisdiction size
Offers each customer as many seat licenses/users as needed

As the images below make clear, the system provides clear, compelling tools to communicate performance in ways everyone can use. For more information on MFR Live, contact Raechel Barnes at rbarnes@weidnerinc.com or 512.347.7054.

This screenshot of the "dashboard" function shows how actual performance compares to targets for a Family of Measures(R). This enables leaders to quickly and effectively analyze and address performance issues.

MFR Live allows you to track performance information intensively over time for any particular measure, including performance against targets. It provides clear warnings when performance varies more than the tolerances that you set.

MFR Live also includes context-sensitive "Help" so users can get the answers and guidance they need when they need it - that is, when they have a problem.

We'll be rolling out MFR Live soon. Contact us if you're interested in learning more!

Resources: Upcoming Events

2009-10-14T13:06:00.005-05:00

If you're looking for an opportunity to connect with other leaders who are focused on managing performance in their governments, there are two great conferences coming up before the end of the year.

On November 5 & 6, the Performance Management Conference put on by the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) will take place in Seattle, WA. While a primary focus of the conference is performance reporting, the agenda is filled with panel discussions from folks who are using performance management tools in the front lines of their operations. We know at least a couple of our customers will be there; Matthew Birnie of Gunnison County, CO, and Rebekah Stephens of Metro Nashville, TN, will both be presenting. Rebekah also serves a member of the Technical Review Committee that has put the conference together. For more information, click here.

We're a sponsor again this year and our Chief Operating Officer Raechel Barnes will be there. Be sure to drop by our table to say hi to Raechel and to register to win a free iPod!

On December 2-4, the Results-Based Management for Government Conference put on by the Advanced Learning Institute will take place in Ottawa, Ontario. This conference presents speakers from government in the U.S. and Canada who share their experience integrating performance measures, program evaluation, strategic planning and budgeting into a results-based management system to ensure accountable, innovative, efficient and effective government.

William Aaron, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, will chair the conference. For more information, click here.

Driving Change by Managing For Results: The Office of Hawaiian Affairs

2009-09-30T13:41:00.007-05:00

Some very big news about changes at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) - the Board of Trustees has ratified a Strategic Plan that included six Priorities and ten Strategic Results all focused on “improving the conditions of Native Hawaiians”.

Created in the 1978 Constitutional Congress, OHA is using its Strategic Plan to fully focus all of its resources on measurable results for Native Hawaiians. As part of the planning process, OHA re-defined its roles as Advocate, Researcher and Asset Manager. This means, according to Clyde Namu’o, OHA Administrator, "We are fully focused on systemic change to improve the conditions of all Native Hawaiians." Secondly, OHA is completely restructuring itself to fully manifest these three roles and achieve measurable results for all members of the Native Hawaiian community. Hey MFR Surfers – this is world class!

Much is at stake! Native Hawaiians experience much higher rates of chronic diseases, lower success rates in education and lower family incomes than the population of Hawaii as a whole. Some of the numbers around chronic diseases are among the worst in the world.

Through an eight month process, which included a statistically valid survey of nearly 3,000 Native Hawaiians, OHA has developed a Strategic Plan that is the foundation of a full MFR system, which includes integrating planning, budgeting, reporting, employee and contractor performance, decision making, and an integrated research and advocacy service delivery system. Based on new clarity about results and the three primary roles, OHA is now "Re-Organizing for Results." And they are going top-to-bottom.

Talk about courage! Over the next few weeks, OHA is changing their structure from a topic-based organization, e.g. health, to a functionally organized agency with four Lines of Business: Resource Management, Community Relations, Research, and Advocacy. The new position of COO has been filled by former senior special assistant Stanton Enomoto. Subsequently, LOB and Program managers will be hired in October and November, as well as a Chief Knowledge Officer. This mission-driven organization is reshaping itself around its Strategic Plan and becoming results oriented more quickly than any we have worked with in 11 years and 49 jurisdictions! Note that their courage comes from an urgent sense of mission to achieve results for their own Native Hawaiian community.

The focus on systemic change through advocacy, built on research to develop the best information available, is giving OHA a renewed sense of purpose and direction. On September 23, Haunani Apoliona, OHA Board Chair, and Mr. Namu’o held a press conference announcing the Strategic Plan and the organizational changes. You may find their Strategic Plan on the OHA web site at http://www.oha.org/stratplan/; there is also an hour-long video featuring OHA leaders as well as our very own Marv Weidner you can watch there. You can catch a replay of the press conference at http://www.oha.org/ccn/2009/09/23/.

To see some of the great press coverage of OHA’s Strategic Plan announcement check the editorial published in the Star Bulletin (click here to see it). We would all like to have some of that in our morning paper! Fantastic press.

Folks here at Weidner are proud to be OHA’s consultant for Strategic Planning and MFR organizational and systems alignment. More great stories to come from the land of Aloha!

Managing for Results: The Relentless Pursuit of Clarity

2009-09-09T18:51:00.002-05:00

Our friend and long-time colleague, Charles Curry, the former budget officer for the City of Austin, has observed that many organizations, both public and private, “enjoy the temporary comfort of ambiguity.” Sooner or later, your customer (or the local newspaper publisher) is going to remind you of the results that matter most to them.

We recall that when David Smith, the award-winning County Manager for Maricopa County, AZ, started Managing for Results there, he said he wanted to have a response to negative press. And the only response he believed that would work is reliable information about the results that customers actually experience. Like many government leaders, David lives in a tough political neighborhood and, because of Maricopa’s years of working with Managing for Results, he has a lot of good performance information about results achieved by the County.

Over the past 11 years, the members of the Weidner team have had the privilege of working with literally thousands of program teams to use Weidner’s Managing For Results tools to achieve uncommon clarity about who the customer is and what results they want the customer to experience at the operations level. They have taught us a lot about the journey to clarity.

Here is how we summarize the process:

If you can think it clearly,
You can write it clearly.
If you can write it clearly,
You can measure it.
If you can measure it,
You stand a good chance of getting it done.
© 2009 Weidner, Inc

It all begins with clear thinking about who your customers are -- and what results you want them to experience as a consequence of receiving your services.

Accountability & Transparency in Metro Nashville, TN - Are You Smart Enough for a 5th Grader?

2009-08-21T10:44:00.008-05:00

Our new "Smarter Government" column for Governing magazine's Management e-newsletter profiles Metro Nashville, Tennessee, and its award-winning work to provide accountability and transparency via the web for that government's budget process and performance.

Metro Nashville, which implemented Managing For Results beginning in 2002, draws tens of thousands of visitors each year to its two "Citizens' Guide" websites, the Citizens' Guide to the Metro Budget and the Citizens' Guide to Metro's Performance. They're definitely worth a look.

Check out our column to learn more about these great tools, including the power of the "Tyler test" and why two clicks matter. You can see it by clicking here.

And if you haven't subscribed to Governing's free Management e-newsletter, it's a great resource. You can subscribe by clicking here.

New Performance Guidance Drafted -- Your Feedback Wanted

2009-08-14T10:35:00.002-05:00

You may already be aware of the National Performance Management Commission, an effort begun last year by 11 prominent public sector organizations to identify principles and practices for use by state and local governments in managing performance. The effort is modeled after the work done by the National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting (NACSLB) in the mid-1990s, which provides some excellent support for Budgeting For Results; if you're not familiar with their work, you can check it out here.

The National Performance Management Commission has released a a public review draft of A Performance Management Framework for State and Local Government: From Measurement and Reporting to Management and Improving, and is seeking feedback from reviewers. They're also looking for case studies that illustrate the concepts in their framework.

You can check out their draft document and download the reviewer and case study forms at www.pmcommission.org. Deadline for input is September 25.

Setting Goals to Get Better Results

2009-07-24T11:00:00.005-05:00

Goals are common; they are everywhere organizations do strategic planning. Indeed, you may even be asking why Goals are worth a blog entry. (Trust us – read on.)

Goals are an assumed, essential part of strategic planning, and strategic planning is an expected part of a well-managed government organization. In fact, they are so commonplace that government organizations often become unconscious both about the form they take and about the impact they can have on your organization and your customers.

Over 11 years, 45 jurisdictions, hundreds of individual departments and thousands of program teams, Weidner has been in the ring for many a 12 round “title bout” as our customers fight for meaningful Goals. In the very early days in our work with some very well-managed local governments like Austin, we developed what were pretty stock-in-trade strategic planning Goals. Unfortunately for our customers, our own understanding had not evolved at that point past the strategic planning norm that Goals were either:

A) general statements of intention that don’t lead to anything but a good feeling about the status quo, or

B) lists of tasks and strategies which departments surely knew they would and could accomplish.

So in the early days of Managing for Results, the Goals we helped our customers developed held little chance of actually influencing the future – which is, of course, why anyone does strategic planning in the first place.

Then in 2000-2001, Marty (Weidner) applied our own methodology to our own methodology. She started writing Goals as Results – specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused and time limited (yes, SMART Goals, for those of you who know the acronym). These Goals are different, and more powerful. They look like:

** By 200X, 67% of children in foster care in Franklin County will be place in permanent homes within 12 months
** By 20XX, residents of Maricopa County will experience 300+ ‘breathable’ days per year
** By 2007, auto theft rate will be reduced by 20% to 7.8 annually
** By 2008, the part 1 violent crime rate will be reduced by 20% to 3.2 annually.

Charles Curry, the former Budget Officer for the City of Austin and a Weidner lead for Budgeting For Results since his ‘retirement’ in 2001, has taught us what happens when Goals are not written as results. Give an organization a task and it will focus internally to successfully execute the task. Give an organization a strategy and it will execute the strategy. However, give an organization a result to achieve for customers and watch how the experience, wisdom and energy of the organization is released to make sure the customer experiences that result. Many different tasks and strategies may be brought to bear so the customer gets to experience the desired result. The focus is not on getting through the “to do” list – but on ensuring the best results for your customers.

It really does matter how you write Goals. Ask yourself: are our Goals perpetuating the status quo, or are they exciting the organization to higher performance, innovation and creativity – and most importantly, improved customer experience? It really does depend on how they are written.

Four Levels of Government Transparency: Where Do You Fall?

2009-07-12T22:31:00.005-05:00

It’s hard to recall a time when there has been more focus on the need for transparency in government.

We define transparency in government as having four levels, beginning with the least transparent (and least valuable):

Level One: How We Plan to Spend Money. This is about where government has traditionally defined transparency: what does the budget say about how we intend to spend money? It’s the first step - it speaks to what we plan to spend money on, after all. We might declare that we’re adding $500,000 to the budget to fight truancy. Many governments are working hard but still struggling with this first level of transparency.

Level Two: How We Actually Spend Money. At this level, we may be able to be clear about how dollars were spent – did we actually spend that $500,000 we budgeted to fight truancy on the anti-truancy effort? At this level of transparency we are beginning to have a story of fiscal responsibility – but are not yet able to tell a story about performance.

Level Three: What we Delivered With the Money. At this level of transparency we are able to be clear that our customers got something for the money we spent. We are building a more complete story of transparency of whether we spent the money appropriately and delivered what we intended to deliver. With the additional $500,000 to fight truancy, we provided X number of counseling sessions or Y number of tutoring sessions – so we know what services were delivered. To be fully transparent, though, we need to report on results customers experienced as a consequence of receiving our services.

Level Four: What Results Were Accomplished with the Money. This is the highest level of transparency, where government gets very clear that spending money is only a means to an end which is defined as the experience or result the customer has as a consequence of receiving the services. What difference was made? With the additional $500,000 we spent to fight truancy, did we actually change the truancy rate? Did we improve academic achievement? Increase the graduation rate?

At this highest level of transparency, you are telling your customers the extent to which you are able to influence the results you clearly laid out in Level One: the Budget. As the good folks in Oklahoma City say, “We Deliver What We Promise” – and they mean it in terms of results.

Government organizations which are widely recognized as among the best managed in the nation can answer these questions with objective performance information – and they use that same information to guide their management decisions, including how they allocate their budgets.

So how transparent is your organization? And – more importantly – how transparent do your customers expect you to be?

Check out our free Self-Assessment tool (click here to download) to help you determine how well your government is doing at being transparent and accountable.

Sucessful Strategic Planning: Inclusion & Participation

2009-06-05T13:04:00.004-05:00

County Manager Terry Doolittle of Pinal County, Arizona, is leading the County through Managing for Results, integrating Board strategic planning, department strategic business planning, performance budgeting and reporting – and a big commitment to cultural change.

Counties are statutory creations of states and hold in dynamic tension the elected Board and agencies that report to then through the County Manager side by side with a host of independent elected officials and the Criminal Justice System. The structure of counties provides real challenges any effort to move the entire county in one direction – together.

Doolittle has used two of the oldest strategies on the books – inclusion and participation – to build what Board Chair David Snider termed “a preponderance of similar philosophy” among all elected officials. The Board and all elected officials participated in the development of the County Strategic Plan. Board members share the belief that by building the Strategic Plan together with all elected officials they will be better able to move through the current budget crisis. According to Snider, “The Strategic Plan tells everyone what is important and where we want to go as a County and what we are doing to accomplish when we are faced with big challenges like we are right now.”

Further outstanding evidence that Doolittle's strategy is working is best told by senior leadership of the Criminal Justice System. Check out the extraordinary message of participation in Managing for Results by Todd Zweig, Chief Probation Officer, in one of Pinal County’s internal newsletters (click here to download it).

Accountability & Transparency: Are You Ready?

2009-05-12T14:21:00.002-05:00

Times are uncertain. People are anxious. And the forces pushing government to be accountable and transparent have never been stronger.

"Accountability" and "transparency" aren't empty buzzwords - they're real expectations for you and your colleagues in government, everywhere. Citizens are not only counting on government to be effective and efficient - they're increasingly demanding it.

We're happy to share a resource with you that we hope you'll find helpful in meeting this challenge. It's a self-assessment tool (click here to download it) that will enable you to quickly and easily get a clear sense of how your government measures up in its accountability and transparency. You can complete it in about five to 10 minutes and get a good sense of where you're strong - and your opportunities for improvement.

We hope this tool is helpful as you continue to focus on greater accountability and transparency. Please feel free to contact us to let us know what you think and what we can do to make it more helpful. Send your comments to William Aaron, Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, at waaron@weidnerinc.com – or feel free to call him at 615-390-7006. We look forward to hearing from you.

Improved Satisfaction & Lower Cost: Success in Maricopa County, AZ

2009-05-09T09:32:00.008-05:00

We all know health care costs only go one direction: up. And by "up" we usually mean "up by a lot."

But Maricopa County, AZ, has demonstrated that it doesn't have to be that way - that you can influence that trend, and that you can, in fact, contain costs AND make your customers more satisfied at the same time.

Mike Schaiberger is the Director of the Employee Health Initiatives Program for Maricopa. He has used the tools of Managing For Results to drive a variety of award-winning improvements in the way Maricopa provides health care to its citizens and employees. A focus on how employees access prescription medications, for example, has yielded savings of millions of dollars per year while increasing employee satisfaction with the program.

"The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and the Maricopa County Employee Health Initiatives Department, through Managing For Results, is working to improve the quality of life of all its 26,000 employees and their dependents, as well as Maricopa County's financial bottom line," Schaiberger said.

You can read about Maricopa's remarkable success in a recent article in the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) magazine, Government Finance Review, by clicking here. There's also a presentation Schaiberger made through a National Association of Counties (NACo) webinar that he's shared that you can see by clicking here.

The Relentless Pursuit of Clarity

2009-05-08T17:02:00.003-05:00

The clearer you can be about the results you are after, the easier it is for your customer to understand and support your efforts. Likewise, the clearer you can be about the results you seek, the easier it is for everyone - departments and individual employees alike - to align to those results.

We recently watched how this works in Gunnison County, Colorado. Each year, following specific criteria, County Manager Matthew Birnie develops and proposes a Capital Investment Plan (CIP) set of priorities and budget. In the Strategic Plan the Board of County Commissioners developed in 2008, they set forth very clear and specific infrastructure Strategic Results:

By 2011 Gunnison County will complete construction of a new Public Works facility.
By 2012, Gunnison County will begin construction of a new Detention Center, with funding not wholly derived from new taxes.

Then, in preparation for his 2009 CIP proposed priorities and budget, Birnie modified the criteria to provide additional scoring if a project aligned with the Board’s Strategic Plan. So among many CIP priorities, those aligned to the Board’s Strategic Plan receive the highest score and the highest priority. There is no ambiguity for Marlene Crosby and her Public Works Department – they know their priorities and the expectations are clear. It is a very successful example of how clarity around results produces better results for the community and an aligned organization.

U.S. "Chief Performance Officer" named (again)

2009-04-24T08:40:00.004-05:00

On Monday, President Brack Obama picked Jeffrey Zients to be the nation's first Chief Performance Officer. According to National Journal Online, Zients "is a government outsider, but observers say [his] private sector experience could prove valuable in improving federal programs and reducing waste government-wide."

Those of you paying attention to this will recall that the President's first selection for the post, Nancy Killefer, withdrew her name from consideration in February because of issues with her personal income taxes.

Given the President's strong public statements on accountability and transparency, it'll be interesting, to say the least, to see what happens with a CPO on the job.

If You Drive Change...

2009-04-14T09:41:00.004-05:00

... but no one knows about it, have you changed anything?

The folks in Chester County, PA, are leading their government through a robust Managing For Results deployment, with departments creating Strategic Business Plans and core management systems being aligned around results for customers. They know communicating this change to their employees is a critical element of their success. They've built an internal website with a rich array of resources and recently published a "special edition" of their employee newsletter, which you can see by clicking here. It's good stuff.

Getting the word out to your folks about change is critically important - but too often tends to get lost in the shuffle. To successfully drive change, you can't let that slide. People are smart, and they look to their leadership to see what's really important - to see what their bosses really want them to focus on in their work. Rich, frequent communication like this newsletter can be an important part of changing expectations and culture.

Words of Welcome

2009-03-17T15:07:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the Managing for Results blog!

On behalf of all of us at Weidner, Inc., thanks for joining us here as we all work together to help make government more effective, transparent, and accountable. The trends and pressures on government have never been clearer: customers are counting on governments to deliver outstanding results for them each and every day. During the decade we’ve been in business, we’ve seen these demands grow constantly, and they sure won’t let up any time soon.

So we've created this blog as a platform for sharing ideas, resources, and occasionally even a little fun. We won't be updating it daily, but more like once or twice a week, so the best way to keep up will be to subscribe using the links provided here. We hope you’ll do so.

Our hope is that this blog becomes a place where we can not only share success stories, connections to helpful resources, and other tools with you - but that it also is a place where you can comment, ask questions, and contribute your own wisdom and lessons learned. That way, all of us who are working to help government work better will benefit.

Please don't hesitate to let us know how we can improve this blog. Feel free to drop a line to William Aaron, our Chief of Consulting Services and Innovation, at waaron@weidnerinc.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Marv Weidner
Founder and CEO
Weidner, Inc.