Setting up a new performance measurement system can seem daunting, but on October 20, a webinar from the Alliance for Innovation (AFI) offered a slew of solid advice for local governments that are in the process of getting started. 

Advice came from panelists Roman May, Strategy and Performance Manager of the Town of Little Elm, Texas, and Aimee Ashworth, the Core Performance Manager of the Town of Gilbert, Arizona. 

Little Elm, located about 30 miles north of Dallas, started its performance measurement system in 2024 and Gilbert began its new efforts in 2020.

The webinar hit multiple categories that are part of performance measurement including data collection, strategic alignment, employee involvement, both internal and external customer engagement, and the use of measurement as a management and accountability tool. For Tracy Miller, vice president of member experience, at AFI, and the webinar’s host, an important message was not to be daunted by the construction of a new performance system, but to “just get started.”

One of the webinar slides presented key questions to ask: 

• “How do you collect the data and how often?”

• “Is there a team to support your efforts? Are they centralized and decentralized?” 

• “Do you have a performance management champion leading the effort?” 

• “How do you display and talk about data internally?  What about to the community?” 

• Are “your measures tied to your strategic plan?

• “How do you sunset a measure or bring on a new one?” 

• “Are you adjusting for seasonality?”

• “How valid is your data?”

With decades of experience in strategic planning and performance management, Miller provided background on the basics of performance measurement, while encouraging Ashworth and May, to provide plentiful examples of the kinds of measures they use, the benefits that have come from their performance measurement systems  and the lessons they’ve learned. 

Advantages were cited early in the webinar in a discussion that focused on the different kinds of measurements, including inputs, outputs and outcomes, and the use of both quantitative and qualitative measures.  In Little Elm, a high growth town with a current population of about 65,000, an efficiency measure has helped to provide calculations of the cost of different activities – for example, the cost to fill a pothole. Effectiveness measures have aided in the town’s desire to educate residents on code compliance with a focus on how educational efforts can help to reduce code violations.

In Gilbert, which has a notably large town population of about 287,000, Ashworth explained that advantages have come with the analysis of customer satisfaction data for parks and recreation. For example, customer views help to provide accountability for outsourced or contracted vendor services. Ashworth also cited a 39% drop in shoplifting – a performance measurement outcome that was tied to a town strategy that focused on seeking input from store managers.

Both she and May spoke strongly about the need to connect with their town’s strategic vision, as did Miller, who has worked in city management for a number of Florida cities and was manager of strategic development for Sarasota County for ten years. 

Other issues discussed included target setting – with the advice to avoid targets that are too easy to achieve as well as those that are unreasonably ambitious. Ashworth and May both said viewers should “keep it realistic” avoiding the unachievable goal of reaching 100% of a government objective. Other suggestions centered around avoiding data that could be manipulated and building a common performance language across departments. This means that everyone in the government would share a consistent definition of what is meant, for example, by a “line of service”.

Recommendations also focused on the way performance measures are communicated, with May noting the importance of telling a data story in ways that can be easily grasped. 

So, rather than describing the extent of street maintenance work in “square yards”, he helped the Little Elm community visualize the work that was done by defining a square yard as about the size of a folding card table. Communication of data only works, he said, “if people can understand it.”

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