We Have Performance Measures, Now What: Navigating the What Works Cities Certification for <50K Communities
Innovation, data analytics, and continuous improvement teams seem like the stuff of large cities and counties. Becoming a data-driven city with 0.5 FTE focused on performance measurement can seem next to impossible. Nearly every single city with a Bloomberg What Works Cities certification has a population of over 100,000. Where are all the small cities?
In late 2020, the City of Issaquah, Washington adopted its first Performance Measurement Plan. Over the past four years, the City went from meeting zero certification criteria to becoming the first city under 50,000 population to achieve the What Works Cities certification. Join this informative session on how Issaquah took its limited capacity to build citywide staff data literacy, invest in performance measurement and data analytics, and develop data storytellers across the organization. This session will provide valuable insights, practical strategies, and lessons learned that can empower smaller cities to overcome challenges and build a data-driven culture.
This session is designed for city managers and administrators, local government leaders, and performance managers from small to medium-sized jurisdictions looking to attain their What Works Cities certification or to build the data literacy and investment in evidence-based decision making of their organizations.
Learning Objectives:
- Upon completion, participants will be able to name key foundational conditions for building staff knowledge, skills, and investment in using data in their high-level planning and day-to-day work.
- Upon completion, participants will be able to identify specific initiatives or projects that support a city in developing a culture of data-driven decision-making.
- Upon completion, participants will be able to adapt tangible examples of data-driven practices to fit their own jurisdiction's opportunities, needs, and context.
