WA Transportation Improvement Board Launches Dashboard

[michelecj]

Join us for an on-line discussion here beginning August 4, 2008 with Steve Gorcester, Executive Director of the Washington State Transportation Improvement Board. Steve will answer questions about the development of and implementation of the Dashboard - and what has happened since its launch in May.

Read an article Steve wrote for the July PPMRN Newsletter about the Dashboard here

[ahenderson]

Hi Steve,

Development of performance indicators is mentioned in the article as a significant step in the process. Can you provide some insight into how you chose some indicators and discarded others? Was there any discussion on a "proper" number of indicators (with too few indicators providing little useful information, and too many indicators becoming an administrative burden)?

There is also a brief mention of the common fear that data collected in the measurement process may be used to "punish" employees or open up the agency to criticism, and that these problems were realized to a small extent with the Washington TIB. Can you give some examples of how you dealt with these issues?

Thank you very much for your time and assistance.

[sgorces]

Hi ahenderson and thanks for your interest. Development of performance measures is a broad topic and took us about two years before we started dashboard development. It still continues today although to a limited extent. We didn't really set out to develop performance measures. We had very faulty business processes that had led to extreme over-programming and a lack of legislative confidence. Our effort started as a full scale reassessment of our own business processes. That led to process mapping, which helps to identify items or activities that need to be tracked better and turned into measures. We basically worked backwards to measures through this process. In other words, we did not start with an idea about a measure, we started with an idea about something we needed to do better, or needed to know more about so we could drive improvement.

For example, in 2001, the year I became Director, the agency ended the fiscal biennium about 5 months in arrears in payments. A local agency customer would bill us for a grant project, and wait 5 months to get paid. We immediately set a goal to reduce that to 90 days, then 60, and today we pay all customer agencies in an average of 17 days. When you look at your business from the view of what do we do? How do we do it? How can we do it better? Measures start dropping out like a byproduct. So today, the dashboard tracks average payment cycle and how many payments are made beyond established time targets. We also track the percentage of payments made to overdue projects, which dropped out of our payment process map AND our delayed project process map.

I have read some of the same articles you have about limiting the number of performance measures. I'm not convinced by the argument that we should only have a few, four to six for example. It depends upon the purpose of the measure. Measures that get reported to overseers like the mayor, governor, auditor, should be limited in number so you don't hide simple truths in over-information. We report four measures that we negotiated with the Governor's Office of Financial Management. For internal use, a work group should track as many measures as they can use in a meaningful way to drive improvement. A dashboard greatly reduces the marginal effort associated with adding additional measures. We have thrown out measures and dashboard pages because the item we were tracking was not useful so did not get used. I don't recall how many we've dumped because we always did so unceremoniously, "take that off the dashboard, we don't use it." In short, we track what we use. Report few and use as many as you need and no more. The dashboard takes the sting out of the administrative burden. We do not yet measure everything we need and the process is still evolving in a very active way. Nobody working on performance measurement in my office considers us done.

I involved my staff in identifying and setting performance targets but there was still some suspicion that we were micro-managing and would use the measure to nitpick insignificant details. I was accused of placing the measures above the needs of our customers. We dealt with these issues by making a conscious effort not to bring up every target violation and easing measurement into the discussion over a long period of time. Most importantly, the measures worked. The agency restored it's fiscal strength and the Legislature rewarded us with additional ongoing revenue and a new funding program. Success buys an amazing amount of cooperation.

[ahenderson]

Steve,

Thanks for the substantive and helpful answer. Having an insider's perspective of the evolutionary and quasi-experimental nature of the implementation process is of great benefit for those of us lacking direct experience.

Thanks again.

Alex Henderson

[cjones8555]

Hi Steve,

Can you discuss how the WA TIB uses its performance measurment process to drive budgeting activities and/or allocate transportation resources.

[Accountant96]

Hi Steve,

Three items (2 questions - 1 comment):

1) How many "audiences" do you try to serve with the dashboard and does it work equally well for all of them?

2) Do you use other forms of reporting such as an annual report?

3) I love that you linked to the "Dashboards by Example" website that has a video on your project. There are hundreds of links to other examples of dashboards http://www.enterprise-dashboard.com/sitemap/. One that I found very useful explained how to use color in Excel for "stoplight" reporting (i.e. red, green, yellow) - especially the 2nd video by "Mr. Excel" http://www.enterprise-dashboard.com/200 ... ormatting/.

Thanks for offering your time and expertise on this forum.

[sgorces]

Thanks for your question cjones.
I would not say that we develop a performance-based budget in the strictest sense of the term, where budget items might compete against each other based on performance scores. That said, we do use performance data in budgeting quite extensively. First, some background, our budget is quite different from most public sector budgets. We receive the revenue from 3 cents of the statewide motor fuel tax and our appropriation level reflects the forecasted proceeds. In reality, we get the amount of revenue generated by that portion of fuel tax whether more or less than forecast (lately less). We select city and county projects based on scores derived from our criteria-driven rating process. We select projects in rank order until we meet our revenue level less administration and reserves. I have under-allocated in recent years due to the obvious instability of fuel tax proceeds.

Performance data have driven changes to the project selection criteria and, in a few important cases, the types of investments we make. Our small city maintenance program is a good example. Washington has 174 small towns, those with population less than 5,000. A demonstration program we ran in 2003 showed the power of economy of scale when purchasing asphalt. We delivered a one-time program of small city maintenance projects and closely tracked contract prices against prior results. Maintenance projects delivered through a partnership with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) produced the best results, a 40 percent lower price for asphalt paving than TIB’s separate projects in small cities. WSDOT maintains most state highways and typically buys ten times more asphalt or more per project than a small city. A master contract with WSDOT now allows TIB to identify town streets for inclusion in nearby state highway paving projects.

The 2005 Legislature funded our sixth program partially in response to the results of the demonstration. The Legislature provided $1,000,000 per year for a street and sidewalk maintenance funding for small towns, but more was needed to effectively serve the 1,600 miles of eligible streets. Subsequently, we used performance data to show that the use of some existing revenues was comparatively inefficient and asked the Legislature to redistribute those funds to the small city maintenance account, tripling the size of the program. It’s a good thing, because we have since lost nearly one-half of our buying power to skyrocketing asphalt prices.

In a separate but related instance, performance data on small city street condition revealed nine towns with broadly failing street surfaces. These towns are marked with red indicators in the dashboard (Refer to the Project Information menu and select Small City Maintenance. Note that selecting the blue “Map System” button draws the town’s pavement condition on Google maps, a great feature!) This performance data led to the “Red Towns Initiative,” a performance-based spending decision by my Board to make larger investments in the repair of streets in the nine towns. Seven of the nine Red Towns received maintenance funding in our 2008-9 program and several major projects in the worst towns went to bid this month. We have set an objective to bring the Red Towns up to at least the statewide average pavement condition rating over the next five years.

[sgorces]

Thanks Accountant, we try to serve all audiences with the dashboard and it works well, but not equally well for all. The original intent of the dashboard was to provide better, more transparent information to our Board. The Transportation Improvement Board is made up of members from cities and counties, ports, WSDOT, transit and nonmotorized interests. Past financial presentations to the Board glossed over important financial information and gave no performance data at all. The results were nearly disastrous. The Board did not have the facts to decline proposals from the prior administration to vastly over-program agency resources, a situation that precipitated a nearly fatal gap in confidence with the Legislature. Board members are now conditioned to expect the highest level of visual information at every meeting, and often ask insightful questions based on changing results and trends.

I’ve been surprised by the power of the dashboard in communicating with Legislators. Most of my presentations before the House and Senate Transportation Committees now employ the dashboard. In addition, I take a laptop into individual meetings with Legislators and show them over the Internet what’s going on in the communities they represent. These highly visual presentations produce huge benefits in the quality of the information exchanged, and also in the perception of TIB as being on top of it’s own business. State legislators from the Council of State Governments selected TIB for a 2008 Innovations Award, so the benefit of communications with elected officials is no longer limited to Washington State.

Dashboard benefits with customers and the general public have had much less time to develop. The system moved to our public website less than three months ago after more than four years of internal use. Initial comments from customers have been very positive. The general public lacks awareness of TIB investments in their communities. The WSDOT program on state highways and Interstates are much better known. I hope publicity generated by the dashboard helps inform the public that tax dollars are getting back to their local streets and sidewalks.

[kingroly]

Im happy to heard they make an improvement board to WA Transportation..


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tax problems

[forerx]

Thank you for your article and it's really a nice one!!