You’ve received your marching orders to kick start a performance measurement program in your local government, so now what? Use these tips to help you plot your course through the performance measurement maze.

1.  Set your goals

The first step in selecting performance measures should always be identifying “What do I want to accomplish?”  Local governments often lay these out in a strategic plan or council goals, but individual departments and employees may need to develop their own annual goals.   Broad goals such as “optimize solid waste pickup routes,” or “increase resident engagement,” will help you narrow your focus and select the right performance measures.

2.  Select your measures

With your goals in mind, you should develop performance measures that are best able to quantify these strategic goals. These measures should be selected based on the ability to let departments know whether or not the strategic goals are achievable. Make sure these measures will

Tell you something actionable.

In the above example, “optimize solid waste pickup routes,” could be measured by the cost of solid waste pickup, the number of miles driven, the number of trucks on the road, or the number of employees. However, none of these measures on their own will tell you enough information to take action. You would need to know if the trucks cover overlapping neighborhoods, if the routes can be covered in the same time with fewer staff on each truck, and if the machinery can be updated to improve delivery.

Indicate a performance that you don’t already know

Say the police department has a strictly enforced policy to investigate all violent crimes. Reporting that 100 percent of all violent crimes are investigated every year is not going to tell you anything you don’t know.  It will be far more helpful for police departments to know how many violent crimes were closed in a year or how many violent crimes were unfounded.

Interest council members/residents/managers 

Detailed technical information and budget minutia may be interesting to those who are entrenched in department activities. However, when it comes time to explain a program to a council member or resident, your audience may quickly lose interest. Performance measures that are presented to the public should contain meaningful information and capture the interest of the average person.

3. Collect and review

Once you have identified the performance measures you wish to collect, another important step that should not be omitted is incremental review. If you only collect and review performance measurement data annually, by the time you discover a problem, it is too late to correct it. It is a good idea to schedule quarterly or monthly meetings to discuss performance targets to determine if you are achieving your goals.