The City of Tyler has long enjoyed a reputation for innovative, forward-thinking management, focused on performance excellence. That reputation was strengthened when the City invested in programs such as Lean Six Sigma, City University (a continuing education program for employees), began participating in the Alliance for Innovation, and focused on internal communications, tri-annual department budget forecasts and review, monthly department budget forecasts, strategic planning and quarterly departmental business planning. These programs were integrated in January 2012 along with the use of the Malcolm Baldrige criteria, to form the City of Tyler combines a number of systems to form the City's Performance Excellence Program (PEP). Through the use of these systems, leaders can make decisions and allocate resources in the most effective and innovative ways, while focusing on results. PEP helps the organization’s employees better understand how several different programs work together to accomplish the vision “to be the standard for performance excellence in local government.”

At the heart of PEP is the evaluation process that is conducted by City employees, who are Lean Six Sigma Black Belts and have also attended training to be Quality Texas examiners. The evaluation is designed to measure the leadership, strategic planning, customer focus, measurement analysis/knowledge sharing, workforce focus, operational focus, and results of each department. The seven criteria areas are used to identify opportunities of improvement and recognize strengths within each department that can be shared as best practices. By providing feedback and a score, the departments learn where they are in their journey.