Revelstone Wants to Hear Your View on Shared Services!

April 10, 2013Posted by Lisa Minneci

More and more municipalities are researching and turning to shared services.  There are a number of benefits to shared services:

  • Cost reductions
  • Greater effectiveness
  • More efficiencies
  • Better service levels
  • Improved quality of services and citizen satisfaction
  • Better management or operating infrastructure
  • Economies of scale

We want to know if you are considering shared services, or if you have already adopted shared services with one or more local governments.  The results will help us identify and share with you how prevalent shared service agreements are in local governments, the benefits your peers are seeing from shared services, the most common departments that participate in shared services and the challenges of shared services agreements.

Please take a few minutes to fill out our quick survey on shared services before Friday, April 19, 2013.  The survey should take only 3-5 minutes. We will publish the results of this survey on our website on Friday, May 10, 2013 or you can register for our webinar, The…

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Are Citizens Satisfied with Municipal Services?

April 10, 2013Posted by Lisa Minneci

Companies like SeeClickFix and Public Stuff are most well-known as apps that allows citizens to report potholes.  It’s not just that potholes capture the imagination of citizens – it’s that citizens are largely unsatisfied with the streets, sidewalks and infrastructure of their towns and cities.

ETC Institute recently conducted a national survey on how satisfied citizens are with the services their towns and cities provide.  The survey shows many citizens are largely satisfied with how their municipalities are performing.  Here’s a quick look at the some of the findings:

  • Citizens are least satisfied with public transportation (47%) and streets/sidewalks/infrastructure (48%)
  • Citizens are most satisfied with trash/yard waste services (77%) and police/fire/EMS (80%)
  • The majority of services received satisfaction rates between 50% – 75%
  • Most services’ satisfaction ratings improved or remained the same from 2011 to 2012; the exception was parks and recreation, which went from 71% satisfaction to 69% satisfaction

The good news is that some…

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Morristown, NJ – Engaging citizens through performance management

March 26, 2013Posted by Lisa Minneci

“For years, people at our council meetings have asked what our government does,” said Mayor Timothy P. Dougherty of Morristown, New Jersey. “We realized we needed to do a better job of showing what we are doing and to do that, we needed to establish goals, build metrics and measure our performance so we can communicate the results to our citizens.”

Morristown, New Jersey is working hard to transform its government into one that focuses on citizen services and sustainability. As Mayor Dougherty mentioned in his 2013 re-organization address, “The Morristown Office of Sustainability continues to champion ‘Morristown Performs’ – the Administration’s performance management initiative. It manages the relationship with our Dodge Foundation-funded consultants from FDU’s Institute for Sustainable Enterprise and the inter-departmental integration of data collection and new technologies to better measure, assess and improve government operations and budgeting.”

One of the goals of Morristown’s performance management initiative is to overcome the pervasive and negative sentiment of how local governments typically operate. The Mayor established goals…

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When municipalities come together…

March 21, 2013Posted by Allie Sharkey

What can happen if you bring municipalities, all with the common goal of wanting to manage better, together for a full day of learning and networking? The short answer…a lot. And a lot took place took place on the picturesque campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University just a few weeks ago during Revelstone’s Second Annual Customer Interaction Day.

For the second year in a row, municipalities who subscribe to Compass, Revelstone’s web-based performance analytics and benchmarking platform, gathered for a conference-style event of education, networking, best practices exchange and more. Filling the room were municipal managers and department heads eager to hear what others are doing with their performance initiatives and to discuss the challenges and successes that go along with it. Sessions ranged from the latest updates on Compass to open discussions and interactive workshops on implementing a performance management culture and creating a 2013 performance plan.

The event provided a forum for municipalities,…

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Oakland, NJ – Performance management is not just for big cities

March 20, 2013Posted by Lisa Minneci

The success of performance management in big cities is well documented – the Boston About Results program, Charlotte’s Performance Management and Strategic Planning initiative and Baltimore’s use of CitiStat. But increasingly, smaller cities and towns want the same insightful information that bigger cities are gleaning from using a performance management system so they too can gauge how well they are delivering services to citizens.

Using Revelstone Compass, Oakland, New Jersey is an example of a small town that is embracing performance management to systematically gather and examine detailed department data such as:

  • Police: Oakland can dive into when and where speeding tickets and citations are issued, correlate traffic enforcements hours with summonses issued and accident rates.
  • Public Works: The borough can measure how quickly services are rendered and how much those specific services cost.
  • Construction Code Permitting: Oakland can measure the percentage of inspections that are done on schedule, how much inspections cost and the average cost per…
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Denver, CO – Realizing peak performance levels, one department at a time

March 5, 2013Posted by Mark Nelson

“To succeed in an era of scarcity, public agencies must do more than just measure their performance.  Success requires a focus on larger organizational goals that lead to questioning longstanding practices and structures,” writes Charles Chieppo in Governing.

Chieppo’s article, Giving Public Workers the Tools for Efficiency, provides an overview of Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’ Peak Performance initiative, which is designed for each city agency to “understand who its customers are, how it delivers value to them, and most important, areas for potential improvement.”

This initiative is part of a nationwide trend: examining the state of services in order to find efficiencies.  The approach to this is different than in the past.  Identifying efficiencies is not about simply cutting services blindly—it’s about looking at real, empirical data to find ways to deliver higher value to citizens.

Denver, like many cities and towns, examined the data on its…

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Can you drive your town without a dashboard?

February 13, 2013Posted by Mark Nelson

When I hop in my car, I don’t give much thought to it.  I know with a lot of certainty that my car is equipped to take me where I want to go.  Now,  I imagine if my car was stripped of its dashboard, I would  quickly find myself  asking questions such as:  How fast am I driving?  Do I have enough gas?  Is the engine too hot?  And I would surely be lost without my trusted GPS.

Just for fun, imagine yourself driving to work with no dashboard.  You get in and quickly realize that you have no way of knowing if there is enough gas in the tank to get you there.  What options do you have?  You might start driving and hope you get there before running out of gas.  You could call the fleet department (aka your spouse) and ask when was last time he/she put gas in the car and how many miles the…

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“How’m I doing?”

February 5, 2013Posted by John Fry

Thank you, Mayor Ed Koch.

He served three terms from 1978 to 1989.  I was fortunate early in my career to work on a seminal project, New York City’s Project Scorecard, that later became one component of the Mayor’s Management Report.  The work was developed as a system for rating the cleanliness of New York City’s streets and sidewalks by the Fund for the City of New York and was later adopted by the Mayor’s Office of Operations.

Our metrics were outcome-based and measured cleanliness, not the amount of curb miles swept (that’s an output measure).  With increased attention from the Koch administration, the efficient delivery of municipal services during one of the greatest periods of fiscal stress was addressed.  Project Scorecard was expanded in the 80’s to measure the services of the parks department, the division of school building maintenance, and the Midtown Enforcement Project.

Scorecard operationalized Koch’s iconic greeting within the halls of local…

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Can Shared Services Help the NJ Rebuilding Effort?

January 25, 2013Posted by John Fry

Shared services amongst and between municipalities is a growing trend with meaningful impact on citizens.  It all comes down to increasing the effectiveness and efficiencies in local governments.  As the government of New Jersey looks for ways to best rebuild the devastated parts of our state, it’s advocating a move to shared services.

The New Jersey Senate recently passed a bill on the issue.  Senate President Steve Sweeney commented, “The bottom line is that the taxpayers of this state need a break and shared services is one way to give it to them.”

There are pros and cons to the NJ bill, but the value of shared services is unquestionable.  Large cities can afford their own departments for every aspect of government services.  Smaller municipalities may not be able to afford everything.  And when that happens, the most common reaction is to cut services.  Whether it’s reducing the number of trash pickups per week, or reducing staffing…

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What are Holiday Season Fires Costing Your Town?

December 20, 2012Posted by Allie Sharkey

While Mythbusters found that Christmas tree lights do not cause house fires, the National Fire Protection Association can prove otherwise. The Association reports that U.S. fire departments responded to an annual average of 240 house fires started by Christmas trees between 2005 and 2009 alone. These fires resulted in:

• 13 deaths
• 27 injuries
• $16.7 million in property damage

Although Christmas tree fires are not a common occurrence, the numbers prove they still happen and preparing for these fires is something towns need to be doing every year.

To start, municipal officials can educate their citizens. Wishing your town a safe and happy holiday season is no longer enough. A simple fact sheet distributed to citizens and/or posted on your town website could be a great way to bring awareness to holiday season fires. For example, did you know that Christmas tree fires don’t just…

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Ready, Fire, Aim

November 27, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

There is an old story of a man shooting a gun. Over and over, he keeps firing but missing his target each time.  If you happen to notice him firing, you would assume that he was an expert marksman, never stopping and just firing away.  However, if you saw his target, you would see that nothing was hitting the target.  When his friend stops him to ask, “Why don’t you slow down and take aim before firing?” his reply, “No, I’m too busy firing and I don’t have time to aim.”

This story is an old cliché, but one that is played out in municipal departments every day.  Workers are busy working, however, there is often no aiming going on and no targets or goals are being established.  If you ask your managers and workers to measure their progress or activity, the answer is always the same, “We are too busy delivering services for that.”  Yup, firing away and…

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Can Data Help Avoid Thanksgiving Traffic Jams?

November 19, 2012Posted by Lisa Minneci

Every year AAA issues a projection on the amount amount of people who will travel between the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through the Sunday after.  The 2012 projection is not out yet, but the 2011 prediction offers insight on how data can help cities and towns better cope with the volume.

The 2011 prediction was for 38.2 million people – 90% of holiday travelers will drive to their Thanksgiving destination.

I frequently visit family in the Boston area, so lets look at the Massachusetts Turnpike, as I’ve sat in long lines of traffic many times.  Historically, the Massachusetts Turnpike and towns along a portion of the Mass Pike have struggled to manage the situation.  The trigger is at the Mass Pike/84 interchange’s toll booths.  The cash lanes often create an enormous back up.

This happens on many holidays, most recently over the 2012 Columbus Day weekend.  The Mass Pike had a 45-mile backup that Friday, resulting in one of the largest traffic jams in the history of…

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Civic Startups are Hot!

November 15, 2012Posted by Lisa Minneci

Civic startups are hot.  Why?  There’s a growing movement to develop technology solutions to help governments of all types and sizes operate better, adopt private sector best practices and improve the efficiency of services delivered to their citizens.

Want proof?  The civic startup space – and in particular the seven startups in the Code for America Accelerator program – have received significant coverage from influential media outlets.

One of the recent articles was a result of Code for America’s recent Demo Day.  Government Technology ran an article covering Revelstone and the other six companies in the program.  They are: Aunt Bertha, Captricity, LearnSprout, Measured Voice, MindMixer and Recovers.org.

Other recent articles include:

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GovFresh: Revelstone Brings ‘Moneyball’ to Government

November 6, 2012Posted by Lisa Minneci

Code for America’s Accelerator is invaluable to the seven elite civic start-ups participating in the program.  Their most recent support came with last week’s public “Demo Day,” where all seven of us presented our solutions for better government.

Events like this are helping to increase the spotlight on civic start-ups and their innovative technology ideas.  Most recently, this came in the form of an article by Luke Fretwell of GovFresh.

We spoke with Fretwell last week, which resulted in “Revelstone Brings ‘Moneyball’ to Government.  Fretwell asked Mark Nelson, our COO, a number of questions, the most important of which is how we are helping local governments with our performance analytics platform.  Fretwell’s piece also includes our own Ken Wolf, CEO, in a video explaining the importance of municipal governments analyzing not just their performance, but also that of similar governments in order to learn new strategies and best practices.

Check out the GovFresh article…

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Why I’m Coding for America

October 25, 2012Posted by Rob Gordy

I’ve spent my entire career understanding data.  Looking deep into the numbers to figure out what decision would be best.  This started when I was consulting with Arthur Andersen and continued throughout the years working with private sector companies, taking it from data analysis to performance analytics.

I’ve seen the benefits the private sector gets from relying on data-driven decision making.  They are many, and all fall into the wide buckets of efficiency and effectiveness.  And now it’s time for the public sector – specifically, cities and towns to move to performance analytics.

Taking a data-driven and performance culture into government requires a change in thinking.  It requires municipal leaders to focus on operating like a business and not like “business as usual.”  And it will take an army of believers to get this new thinking about how to better manage our cities and towns to reach critical mass.

And that’s why Revelstone is Coding for America.

Talking about data and performance analytics can sound esoteric. …

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Mashable: How Code for America is Reinventing Government

October 24, 2012Posted by Lisa Minneci

We’re believers in Code for America (CfA), a non-profit that is “helping governments work better for everyone with the people and the power of the web.”  But of course, we would be big believers – we’re one of the seven companies selected for Code for America’s Accelerator program.

Last week, Code for America, Revelstone and some of our fellow program members spoke with Lauren Drell (@drelly) of Mashable.  Lauren’s article, “How Code for America is Reinventing Government,” talks about how Code for America is taking the incubator/accelerator model common in the startup world to organizations focused on technology and government data.

As Lauren reports, companies like Revelstone – civic startups – existed, but as CfA’s Director of Strategy and Communications Abhi Nemani commented, “The term ‘civic startup’ hasn’t yet crept into the Silicon Valley vernacular.”

Thanks to the folks at CfA, it will soon.  All seven of us in the accelerator program received a grant, mentoring, networking and invaluable strategic…

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ICMA 2012 – “Stimulate the Progress” of Local Governments

October 16, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

I’m writing this blog entry from my airline seat at 30,000 feet somewhere over the middle of the country, thinking about all the interesting people I met at ICMA 2012.  I’m reflecting at the awesome number of opportunities facing local government leaders today—opportunities to adopt new technologies, enhance communications and improve citizen’s lives.

New technologies to enable local governments to transform how things are currently done were evident all around ICMA 2012.  From the omnipresent use of social media and the ability to attend the conference virtually via the Internet, to the exhibit hall flourishing with new civic startup technology companies, change was in the air.  The Code for America’s session on open source software and specifically Jim Collins’ (author of Good to Great) keynote address were inspiring to all.

Jim Collins spoke about innovation, presenting the concept of “preserving the core and stimulating progress.”  The idea of preserving the core is something that I think we all…

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Code for America Accelerator Ruminations – Part II

October 9, 2012Posted by Ken Wolf

Earlier this week I had the privilege of presenting Revelstone’s performance analytics and benchmarking solution to an audience of about 200+ innovative government leaders at Code for America’s (CFA) annual Summit in San Francisco (check out the video on YouTube).  I must admit the response to our offering, along with those of our peers in the CFA Accelerator program, was indeed overwhelming.  The folks at CFA have begun to successfully transmit their optimism about what can be accomplished to government leaders all over the country.  So, what is everyone so jazzed about?

The work of the CFA Fellowship, Brigade and Accelerator programs has proven that citizens can become more connected to their local governments and the services that they offer.  That today’s technology can, in fact, be applied to solving problems of government in ways not achievable in the past.  For example, BlightStatus helps residents of New Orleans get…

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Engaging with performance leaders at the ICMA’s 98th Annual Conference

October 3, 2012Posted by Allie Sharkey

Every day we hear about the struggles facing local governments, from the rising costs of delivering service to slashed sources of funding and increased citizen demands. Revelstone understands the pressures facing municipal leaders, and next week we are bringing our knowledge of performance analytics and creating government efficiencies to thousands of municipal officials at the ICMA’s 98th Annual Conference.

Revelstone  shares  the ICMA’s vision of building better communities and is dedicated to helping local governments operate more efficiently while improving the services that are delivered to citizens.  As a conference exhibitor, we aim to “use the floor” to empower attendees to become performance leaders despite the tough economy and the ongoing battle to do more with less.

However, to get there you have to first understand how you are performing. Often times municipal managers don’t know where to start, but with performance analytics and Revelstone Compass, managers can begin analyzing their services and costs…

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The power of the network

October 2, 2012Posted by Ken Wolf

Last week’s NY Times Magazine ran a thought-provoking article, “The Internet? We Built That,” by Steven Johnson, which posed the question, “Who created the Internet and why should we care?”  Was it government researchers?  Private corporations like Apple and Xerox?  Academia?  Al Gore?  The answer – none of the above and all of the above (except maybe Al Gore).

The Internet, Johnson states, was created by “…decentralized groups of scientists and programmers and hobbyists (and more than a few entrepreneurs) freely sharing the fruits of their intellectual labor with the entire world.  Yes, government financing supported much of the early research, and private corporations enhanced and commercialized the platforms.  But the institutions responsible for the technology itself were neither governments nor private start-ups.  They were much closer to the loose, collaborative organizations of academic research.  They were networks of peers.”

The article goes on to discuss how the results of that effort, the Internet, have enabled peer networks to grow and thrive and create…

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Code for America Accelerator ruminations – Part I

October 1, 2012Posted by Ken Wolf

A few months ago, we learned that Code for America (CFA), the non-profit organization dedicated to bringing government into the digital age, was launching its first ever Accelerator program in August of this year.  The mission of the Accelerator is to turbo-charge a handful of exciting civic startup companies by helping them with business advice, national awareness, networking with the technology elite of Silicon Valley and nurturing potential investment opportunities.   Revelstone is fortunate to have been chosen as one of the seven inaugural companies in the Accelerator program, out of a pool of 235 candidates.

The program requires members of our management team to spend four weeks over a four month period at the CFA offices in San Francisco meeting with an ever-growing list of mentors who give us guidance on product, messaging, financing and our go-to-market strategies.   It’s an opportunity for us to step back and focus on our business, rather than in our business.  How refreshing!

As of this writing we are…

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What about the services?

September 28, 2012Posted by John Fry

With concerns surfacing in the last few years about fiscal stress in local governments and the focus on reducing tax costs, attention to the delivery of public services seems to have taken a back seat.  We are beginning to see early signs of the opposite reaction on the part of the public–concern over the adequacy of the services that remain after budget cuts.

In the era of “Cut! Cut! Cut!”, sometimes little attention is given to the implications of the cuts, until an ambulance does not arrive quickly enough because of cuts in EMS.  Municipalities, often with little data other than prior costs at their fingertips and feeling the pressure to act quickly to adopt a budget, use across-the-board or best-guess tactics to determine what they could cut.

What if the phrase “could cut” was further understood with data about the level of services that were being delivered, presented in a context for those levels, such as a comparison to the target set by management.  Decisions would have taken the…

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Why Revelstone is looking forward to the Code for America Summit

September 28, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

As one of the seven companies selected for the Code for America Accelerator program, we’re really excited for next week’s Code for America Summit in San Francisco.  Why?  Not only will we be presenting our Compass performance analytics solution and seeing our fellow Accelerator teams like MindMixer, Captricity, Measured Voice, Aunt Bertha, LearnSprout and Recovers.org, but the overall event looks fantastic!  We look forward to networking with the many forward thinkers that will be there and learning how they are innovating in their governments.

If you’re not familiar with the Summit, it’s an invitation only event for more than 200 leaders and innovators in civic technology.  An impressive twenty cities were represented at last year’s event, and more will be at this year’s event.

Just some of the speakers are:

  • Emer Coleman, Gov.UK
  • Mayor Ed Lee of San Francisco
  • Richard Price, a fire chief
  • Nigel Jacob, new urban mechanic

    • …

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What’s your answer to the local government squeeze?

September 24, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

A recent Pew Charitable Trusts report, “The Local Squeeze: Falling Revenues and Growing Demand for Services Challenge Cities, Counties and School Districts,”  local governments “have been hit with a one-two punch.” They are faced with declining revenue and demands for increased service.

It’s easy to agree that municipalities have a massive challenge ahead of them. As Pew rightly states, the “local squeeze will be felt for years to come.”

According to Pew:

  • State aid, which funds nearly a third of local government budgets, fell by 2.6 percent, to $12.6 billion in 2010
  • In 2012, property tax revenues saw the first annual decline since the mid-1990s – and it was the largest in decades
  • Property tax revenues fell in 2011, and are expected to continue falling in 2012 and 2013.

To make matters worse, the ways many cities and towns have addressed this are unsustainable:

  • Raising taxes
  • Reducing spending
  • Cutting services
  • Eliminating jobs

Eventually, there will be nothing left to cut. And citizens are never…

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Why I decided to intern at Revelstone this summer – Derek Aurori’s story

August 16, 2012Posted by Guest Blogger

My name is Derek Aurori, and I interned as a Marketing Research assistant at Revelstone this summer. As a marketing major in the Smeal College of Business at Penn State, I have learned plenty about how marketing works, but never got to experience any of it first hand.  Therefore, I wanted my summer internship to be a learning experience where my input would truly make a difference.

When applying for internships, Revelstone was the only group to make it clear that my time working would really make an impact.  Most other internship descriptions ended with me giving this sort of reaction.  After quickly accepting the position at Revelstone, I spent the first few days building my knowledge of the field by working with the team members and fellow interns.

Since then, my work has been an ever-changing mix of research and creative projects to help Revelstone expand.  Each project presented its own unique problems,…

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I believe governments can operate better

August 9, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Why don’t governments have the newest and coolest software and technology?

I’m not sure I can answer that question, but Code for America is on a mission to change governments for the better. Have you heard of Code for America? It’s a small group of smart, talented and dedicated people with a mission to improve the experience of governments by delivering simple-to-use and beautifully designed software that helps governments operate in the 21st century. At Revelstone, we have the privilege of working with the Code for America team in the newly created Accelerator program.

I’m writing this post on the plane as I fly home from our first full week in Code for America’s San Francisco offices, and I couldn’t be more energized at the prospect of helping governments become more efficient. When we started Revelstone just a couple of years back, I sat in a room with my co-founders and we envisioned a world where municipal leaders could sit at…

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Targets: The Key in Getting from Measuring to Managing Performance

July 19, 2012Posted by John Fry

If you are using a performance management system and you are not setting targets, are you really managing or are you just measuring? Setting targets is an essential part of the management process that allows you to be proactive and take action based on the results of what you measure.

To really be proactive, targets need to be set according to changing conditions. When doing this, it is important to remember that you are managing in the real world, not in a sterile, academic setting. There are several questions that you should ask yourself in regards to each measure:

  1. What can I expect the measure to be if nothing is different? Normally, a measure from an appropriate prior time period (same month last year, for example) is your best guess at what to expect.
  2. Does the recent trending of the measure (maybe the last several months) change my expectations based on last year? Recent trending may indicate changing conditions of which you were not aware.
  3. Is the amount of…
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Why I decided to intern at Revelstone this summer – Kelly Bryden’s story

June 28, 2012Posted by Guest Blogger

Hello! My name is Kelly Bryden. I am the graphic design intern at Revelstone and I thought I would share a little about my experience interning here for the summer.

After returning from four months in Florence, Italy, furthering my studies in graphic design, I was looking for a summer job that I could further build and practice my skills. While interviewing with the marketing team I became immediately excited about the position they were offering. They told me they are looking for new fresh designs and that my projects would include making new graphics for their promotions and events, creating new ads to sell their company, and new images for their website. Little did they know that all they had to say was “you get to do what you love” and I would have been sold.

Not only did I learn and practice my skills as a graphic designer at Revelstone, but I also…

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The Five Myths of Performance Management and Benchmarking Myth #5 – I don’t know where to begin

June 20, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Performance management is not a new topic in municipal governments, yet its use is often limited to only the biggest of cities.  Through our research and working with municipalities of all sizes, we have identified The Five Myths of Performance Management that have plagued municipal leaders for decades.  At Revelstone, we are determined to help debunk these myths and demonstrate how you can start managing better with quantifiable metrics, depend less on anecdotal stories and help make data-driven decisions in your jurisdiction quickly, easily and cost effectively.

Myth #5— I don’t know where to begin

If you have read past blog posts here, you probably know that I spend a great deal of my time speaking with municipal leaders talking about performance management.  “I don’t know where to begin,” is probably the one phrase I hear most often, giving rise to this myth.  What I find interesting is that most municipal managers can extol the benefits of…

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Government Performance Management and the 21st Century Digital Government

June 13, 2012Posted by Ken Wolf

The White House recently issued a Presidential Memo—”Building a 21st Century Digital Government”—directed to the heads of Executive Departments and Agencies.  The memo provides the major federal agencies with a 12-month technology roadmap, including how to deliver digital services and how to make applicable government information available to the public.  But most significantly, the memo included, as an integral portion of the edict, a directive to include measurement.

Excerpt from Memo:
“The Strategy will enable more efficient and coordinated digital service delivery by requiring agencies to establish specific, measurable goals for delivering better digital services; encouraging agencies to deliver information in new ways that fully utilize the power and potential of mobile and web-based technologies; ensuring the safe and secure delivery and use of digital services to protect information and privacy; requiring agencies to establish central online resources for outside developers and to adopt new standards for making applicable Government information open and machine-readable by default; aggregating agencies’ online resource pages for developers in a centralized catalogue…

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8 Steps to Establishing a Performance Culture

May 31, 2012Posted by John Fry

As performance measurement systems evolved into performance management systems in municipal governments, many early adopters realized something pervasive had happened.  Dialogues were now about results, not activities.  The entire organization became focused on how to improve results instead of just reading what the results were.  Even departments that had only partial control over a result saw their responsibility not only in doing their part, but also in collaborating and coordinating with other departments and with stakeholders outside the municipality to achieve the desired goals.  Setting targets became an important part of the process that led to knowing where you were and giving a direction to where you wanted to be.

The evolution from measuring to managing performance can only be attained by establishing a performance culture and this is not always easy. The following 8 steps provide a critical framework for establishing this type of culture:

  1. Determine what results you are trying to achieve.
  2. Communicate the goals you want to achieve – clearly and often.
  3. Make learning your…
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The Five Myths of Performance Management and Benchmarking Myth #4—It’s too expensive

May 9, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Performance management is not a new topic in municipal governments, yet its use is often limited to only the biggest of cities.  Through our research and working with municipalities of all sizes, we have identified The Five Myths of Performance Management that have plagued municipal leaders for decades.  At Revelstone, we are determined to help debunk these myths and demonstrate how you can start managing better with quantifiable metrics, depend less on anecdotal stories and help make data-driven decisions in your jurisdiction quickly, easily and cost effectively.

Myth #4—It’s too expensive

Since performance management has historically been practiced by the largest of cities with many resources, the perception is that they probably spend a lot of money on:

  • Software with big, up front capital expenditures
  • New hardware servers
  • Consultants to configure the software
  • In-depth training
  • Endless amounts of data gathering

And in the case of the biggest and richest cities, this might indeed be true. …

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The Five Myths of Performance Management and Benchmarking Myth #3—I don’t have the data to compare to others

April 26, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Performance management is not a new topic in municipal governments, yet its use is often limited to only the biggest of cities.  Through our research and working with municipalities of all sizes, we have identified The Five Myths of Performance Management that have plagued municipal leaders for decades.  At Revelstone, we are determined to help debunk these myths and demonstrate how you can start managing better with quantifiable metrics, depend less on anecdotal stories and help make data-driven decisions in your jurisdiction quickly, easily and cost effectively.

Myth #3—I don’t have the data to compare to others.

How many times have you sat in staff or council meetings discussing the latest issue and wondered, “How have other towns resolved this issue?”  After all, there are nearly 40,000 municipalities in the United States and chances are that some other town has faced the same issue and resolved it successfully.  Do you pick up the phone and call the…

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Is service efficiency in the “eye of the beholder”?

April 18, 2012Posted by John Fry

Efficiency is a major component of municipal performance management, but deciding exactly what to measure isn’t always so straightforward.  A good example of this challenge is with recurring maintenance, such as mowing of parks and fields.  You have to deal with factors such as frequency and level of quality desired for things like manicured fields or golf courses.  Balancing efficiency versus desired outcomes is not the only challenge.  Let’s explore this issue further.

Many performance management systems use the cost per acre to be mowed as the measure of efficiency.  Town A spends $50,000 a year mowing five acres of fields and they mow them about 40 times.  Town B, which just cut its recreation budget, now spends only $20,000 on its five acres, but they did that by letting the fields get a bit shaggy before mowing (which resulted in only 10 mowings a year).

Using the example above, Town A spends $10,000 per acre and Towns B spends only $4,000 per acre to be mowed.  When this comes…

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Municipality meltdown: Is your town headed toward a financial crisis?

March 23, 2012Posted by Allie Sharkey

This article landed on the front page of the New York Times. I urge you to read it and start thinking about the actions your town should make to avoid a municipal meltdown.

From California to New York, municipalities across the nation are facing a financial emergency. An emergency so extreme, that it will require officials to make difficult choices in order to avoid potential seizures from state oversight boards. These choices are not easy to make. Think about your own town and ask yourself, “Would I rather cut the police force patrolling my streets or the number of teachers in my schools?” Your answer would probably be neither, but what if you are one of the many municipalities that HAVE to make this choice?

This is a harsh reality for many government officials, but the truth is municipalities didn’t get there overnight—these meltdowns have been years in the making. The economy, falling property values and rising pension costs are all factors in the equation for failing local…

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The Five Myths of Performance Management and Benchmarking: Myth #2—I can’t compare to others; I’m unique

March 16, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Performance management is not a new topic in municipal governments, yet its use is often limited to only the biggest of cities.  Through our research and working with municipalities of all sizes, we have identified The Five Myths of Performance Management that have plagued municipal leaders for decades.  At Revelstone, we are determined to help debunk these myths and demonstrate how you can start managing better with quantifiable metrics, depend less on anecdotal stories and help make data-driven decisions in your jurisdiction quickly, easily and cost effectively.

Myth #2—I can’t compare to others; I’m unique.

You’ve heard this myth before… possibly in your own town.  “We can’t compare to other towns because we have a _____ [insert one of the following: a shopping mall, a university, a downtown district, a volunteer fire department, etc.] and the other towns near us don’t have that.”  It’s the classic apples-to-oranges comparison dilemma.  While it may be true that your neighboring…

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The Five Myths of Performance Management and Benchmarking: Myth #1—My people are too busy.

February 28, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Performance management is not a new topic in municipal governments, yet its use is often limited to only the biggest of cities.  Through our research and working with municipalities of all sizes, we have identified The Five Myths of Performance Management that have plagued municipal leaders for decades.  At Revelstone, we are determined to help debunk these myths and demonstrate how you can start managing better with quantifiable metrics, depend less on anecdotal stories and help make data-driven decisions in your jurisdiction quickly, easily and cost effectively.

Myth #1—My people are too busy.

Municipal departments are, in fact, short-staffed and very busy.  But a common problem we see in many municipalities is that staff members sometimes do things that aren’t necessary.  How often have you dug into a problem or task to ultimately ask, “Why are we doing this?” only to hear the common answer, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Is your staff really too busy…

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The Five Myths of Performance Management and Benchmarking

February 15, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Performance management is not a new topic in municipal governments.  Excellent examples of a performance-based management approach are well documented in New York City and Baltimore’s successful CompStat and CitiStat programs.  With governments struggling today to find efficiencies in their service delivery, the need for good data to base decisions on is needed more than ever.  So why haven’t smaller local governments followed suit and adopted their own performance management programs like those that have worked so successfully in larger cities?

Our research has shown there are five common myths that have become so ingrained and accepted that the mere notion of a performance management program is almost automatically dismissed as impractical unless you have the budget and staff of a large city like New York City.

I’m writing a five-part blog series in an effort to help debunk the five myths of performance management:

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What if they didn’t keep score at the Superbowl?

February 6, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

Can you imagine the Superbowl if they didn’t keep score?  What if the refs said, “Sorry, we’re too busy, we don’t have time to track the score”?  Would anyone find this acceptable?  How would we know who won the game?  How could you measure your success if the score wasn’t counted?  Let me ask you an important question about your jurisdiction—can you tell if you are delivering services well and making good decisions if you aren’t measuring the important activities and outcomes?  How often do you hear the same excuse, “Sorry, we don’t have time” from your workers when asked to measure or count performance?

Someone famously said, “Football is a game of inches.”  Everything in football is measured and counted and we sports junkies track each and every stat.  The newspapers are filled with wonderful statistical analysis to slice and dice the entire game from quarterback passing yards, number of first downs, totally yards rushed, etc.  For fun, let’s imagine the Superbowl were managed the way most local government…

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“It’s easy to do nothing.”

January 19, 2012Posted by Mark Nelson

I spend a great deal of my time speaking with leaders of local governments about improving performance of municipal operations.  This week, I was speaking with a business administrator of a small city and he acknowledged that it’s not uncommon for a town to be delivering services that could be improved or made more efficient.  What he said next, surprised me, as if exposing a dirty little secret of managers, “It’s easy to do nothing and just let it be, and that has been the strategy of many towns for the past 15 years.”

Today, it’s a completely different story.  With revenue shortages and little ability to raise taxes to cover budget shortfalls, administrators must find new ways to become efficient or risk having to stop delivering a service.   I just learned of one New Jersey town that reduced garbage pickup to once a week.  As you might imagine, the residents are not happy and very concerned about the smells that will likely come, when the weather gets warm this…

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Is there a perfect measure?

January 11, 2012Posted by John Fry

Bob Behn, a cut-to-the-chase guy, whose work I have followed because of his longstanding efforts (and pithy comments) in promoting performance leadership, cautions not to get wrapped up in perfecting your measures.  Behn is known for promoting the Citi-Stat review model as a mechanism to improve performance in government.

But as important as managing with data is, I believe the most important thing is to start measuring.  In the closing of Behn’s recent management report, focused on distortions that may be created by measures, http://www.hks.harvard.edu/thebehnreport/All%20Issues/August2011.pdf, Behn writes that there are no perfect measures.  He argues the best approach is to start with a few good measures, not perfect ones.  Be aware of their flaws. Expect your indicators to be criticized and improved while your organization learns about improving performance.

I spend a great deal of my time thinking, developing and researching measures for inclusion in the Revelstone Compass system.  I’m trying to identify and develop measures that would be most relevant for small to moderate…

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“What gets measured, gets done.”

January 4, 2012Posted by Lisa Minneci

Peter Drucker famously said, “What gets measured, gets done.”  If you don’t measure results, you can’t tell success from failure, and if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage or improve it.  What eludes most local governments is how to create performance management systems that align measures with what they are trying to accomplish:

  • How well are we doing?
  • Are we meeting our goals?
  • Are our citizens and stakeholders satisfied?
  • What improvements or changes are necessary?

So how do you get started?  It doesn’t have to be a daunting task!  Successful performance management systems adhere to the following guiding principles:

  1. Appoint a champion.  Leadership is critical in designing and deploying effective performance management systems.
  2. Identify the key activities and outcomes to measure.  Revelstone’s Compass makes it simple by providing a library of more than 500 key metrics to choose from.
  3. Involve the people who are responsible for the work to be measured and give them a sense of ownership.
  4. Establish accountability for results that is…
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Do your meetings include data-driven discussions?

December 15, 2011Posted by John Fry

Whether you are an inspirational leader, an experienced administrator or a newbie figuring out how to have a positive impact on your local government, you can complement your “natural” abilities with data-driven management techniques.  The IBM Center for the Business of Government thinks so too, and recently published A Guide to Data-Driven Performance Reviews written by the Urban Institute’s  Harry Hatry, a long-time leader in measuring performance.  In this article Hatry focuses on managing with data, not just on the measurement, which I have long believed is the key to why we measure.

Warning:  This article might be discouraging because it addresses the management of performance in large federal agencies.  However, the insights in this paper are useful for small to moderate size municipalities if we use a lean performance management perspective.  Those key concepts are:

  • Ongoing and regular meetings
  • Involvement of the chief executive or chief administrator in the meetings
  • A data-driven meeting agenda based on reviewing key measures and determining actions to…
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Lessons from Baggage Claim – What NOT to Measure

December 8, 2011Posted by Ken Wolf

I recently took a business trip to the west coast where I had with me a small briefcase and my carry-on bag which would easily fit in the overhead compartment of the airplane.   I was not traveling on my usual airline, so I didn’t have any special boarding privileges.  However, since I was seated in a forward row, my section was the last to board.

By the time my section began to board, the gate agents claimed that there was no space left in the overhead bins and I would have to check my bag, picking it up later in baggage claim.  Oh, what fun.  I was skeptical, but complied, nonetheless.

I was somewhat surprised and slightly miffed when I boarded the aircraft to discover that there was plenty of room overhead.  Too late—the doors were closing.  Why would they have told me otherwise?  “Well,” I thought, “I’ll never let that happen again.”

On the next leg of my trip I was in the same predicament (and traveling on the…

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Revelstone does its part in “Creating a Community with a Common Vision”

December 1, 2011Posted by Allie Sharkey

Creating a Community with a Common Vision was the theme behind this year’s New Jersey League of Municipalities (NJLM) Annual Conference, and as a first-time exhibitor, Revelstone was excited not only to participate but also to offer a solution for local governments that tied directly into this messaging.

On November 15th-17th over 10,000 attendees gathered down in Atlantic City for what is considered to be the largest gathering of public officials in New Jersey.  Over this three-day event, the NJLM hosted educational panels, clinics and workshops while commercial, government and association exhibits displayed the latest products and services for municipal government.  The Revelstone team had the opportunity to participate in these sessions, tour the exhibit floor and network with new and familiar faces.

As an exhibitor, our goal was to communicate how Revelstone is helping local governments operate more efficiently.  Through our innovative performance management solution, Compass, we are enabling local governments to track their own performance data, benchmark against peers and learn from each other to…

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Are Extreme Cuts Coming to Your Town?

November 17, 2011Posted by Allie Sharkey

Before you read on, I invite you to first watch this video that recently aired on NBC featuring communities being forced to make extreme cuts.  It’s a “sign of the times” or so they say.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/44910124#44910124

Proposing government employees bring their own toilet paper to work in an effort to save money?  That’s really extreme.  This is truly a sign of the times—a sign that governments are continuing with the struggle to do more with less, or as Brian Williams put it, “less with less.”  Have you started to consider extreme cuts that once may have seemed unthinkable?  How exactly can governments continue to deliver the same programs with the same quality of service on an extremely reduced budget?  I don’t think there is an easy answer to this question.

Another controversial question is how governments are determining where to cut resources.  For the sake of citizens and the programs they depend on, one can only hope that research has gone into these decisions and towns are relying…

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The 26 Mile Goal

November 8, 2011Posted by Mark Nelson

On Sunday I completed a life-long goal and ran the New York City Marathon.  Since I was 12, I’ve always wanted to run the NYC Marathon.  When I was younger I made all kinds of excuses about not having enough time to train, however, secretly, I just couldn’t imagine that I could actually run 26 miles.  It just seemed like an unachievable goal.

A few years ago, with a milestone birthday, I was struck with a simple idea—run half a marathon.  It was sheer genius!  I convinced myself that if I could run a half marathon, then I could think about trying to run a full marathon.

What I later realized was that I had set a realistic goal for myself.  Not so much intentionally, but what I had done was set a long-term goal, something almost unconceivable to accomplish and then set smaller goals that were achievable to measure my progress.  First I learned to run 5 miles, then 10 miles, then half a marathon.  After a year of…

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Does the Act of Measuring Itself Produce Results?

November 2, 2011Posted by Ken Wolf

Does the act of measuring performance drive results, or must we wait until the data has been analyzed and decisions are made in order to realize improvement in our organizations?  I recently answered this question in one of my own organizations and was quite surprised by the results.

One of my sales teams had been doing a great job of working deals through the sales pipeline and closing them.  However, our pipeline was weaker than it should be because they were not generating enough qualified leads.  We pleaded, then encouraged, then mandated that our sales people dedicate time each and every day to prospecting activities.  While they agreed in principle, they generally seemed to find other priorities that got in the way.  So, once deals in their pipeline were closed, they found themselves lacking in new deals to work.

Eventually, we knew something had to change.  So, we began requiring that they get on a call at 8am each morning and report their previous day’s prospecting results.   We tracked:

    …
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Moneyball your Municipality

October 21, 2011Posted by Mark Nelson

Have you seen the new movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt, or read the book of the same title by Michael Lewis?  It strikes me that there is an uncanny similarity from what the Oakland A’s faced in Major League Baseball to what local municipalities are facing in today’s challenging economic times.

The central premise of Moneyball is that the collective wisdom of baseball insiders (including players, managers, coaches, scouts and the front office) over the past century is subjective and often flawed.  Common baseball statistics such as “stolen bases,” “runs batted in” and “batting average” have historically been used as the gospel to gauge a player’s performance and are relics of a past way of thinking.  The book/movie argues that the Oakland A’s front office took advantage of more empirical measures of player performance to field a team that could compete successfully against richer teams in Major League Baseball.

Rigorous statistical analysis had demonstrated that new measures like “on-base percentage” and “slugging percentage” are better indicators of…

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Big or Little—How do Municipalities Find Success with Performance Management?

October 13, 2011Posted by John Fry

The success of Performance Management has been achieved in some of the largest municipalities and some well-managed counties in the United States, but the transfer of this management technology to small and moderate-sized municipalities has been slow, at best.  Revelstone has resolved the technology issue by providing a practical solution that doesn’t demand a large multi-year project or significant IT costs with Compass—a web-based platform that contains a catalog of precisely defined measures.  Municipalities need only to choose a few of these measures to get started, and can add to them as their sophistication and needs grow.  From our experience talking to town managers and elected officials, the remaining stumbling block is the establishment and acceptance of the value proposition for Performance Management itself.

While glowing statements of the general success of Performance Management projects, as well as promotion of the success of a particular model or process by consultants offering that solution, do exist, concrete examples that are undeniable are hard to find in published…

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Should You Measure for Today or Tomorrow?

September 23, 2011Posted by Mark Nelson

A common question I hear when talking to township officials about performance management is, “What do I measure?”

Deciding on what to measure involves focusing on today’s challenges and tracking areas that are in immediate need, or planning ahead and collecting information that may help you solve future problems. The choice you face is whether to concentrate on measures that address short-term issues to detect and solve today’s challenges or take a longer term approach and track measures that will help detect and solve future problems.

For example, if you are having current issues with evaluating the size of your police force, you would probably want to track the following measures:

  • Number of police calls for service
  • Average response time for emergency calls
  • Overtime hours

Conversely, if you have increasing costs in your fire department, a common solution is to consider a shared services arrangement. You will be better prepared to make current and future decisions regarding this by tracking these measures:

  • Number of calls responded to…
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Welcome to the Revelstone Blog

September 22, 2011Posted by Lisa Minneci

Revelstone is dedicated to creating communities of local governments that inspire each other to improve the quality of life for their citizens, employees and stakeholders.  We hope that you find this blog inspirational and useful. Our goal is to provide you with information and techniques about how other towns are using performance management and benchmarking to deliver services and cost-efficient solutions to improve your government operations.

In the coming weeks and months, you will hear from some of Revelstone’s leaders who are co-authors of this blog. We will bring to you our varied backgrounds from the public service, the private sector and academia. We will share ideas and stories from our many customers and engage in open discussions about efficient ways to deliver municipal services, all from different view-points. You’ll hear about towns who are pioneering new management techniques to reduce costs and improve service delivery efficiencies, as well as those that are implementing innovative solutions.

We invite you to join the conversation by checking in with us every week or…

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