The City of Montgomery embraces the High Performance Organization model of simultaneously providing outstanding customer value, high product and service quality in a sound financial manner to its residents, businesses and visitors.  A culture of innovation and continuous improvement is critical to being successful as a high performance organization.  As part of the experience, a work culture has been developed that focuses on employee engagement, leadership, accountability and a culture of innovation.  The City of Montgomery has established a clear mission of “Taking Responsibility Together to Provide Superior Services” with Value statements, employee expectations and an organizational leadership philosophy that emphasizes a commitment to responsive, high quality service, employee leadership at all levels of the organization, decision making based on creative problem solving, collaboration, continuous improvement, and stewardship of the entire organization.  The City of Montgomery’s pursuit of innovation and a system of continuous improvement has yielded significant savings financially and improved service quality.

This case study was submitted to the Alliance for Innovation in consideration for the 2010 Transforming Local Government conference.