Last Updated: Monday, 24 August 2009
King County, Washington State's Performance Management Journey – Second Installment
Questions, Answers, Challenges, and Progress
In our first article we shared some history in how we got to this point. That is, King County has mandated establishment of a countywide performance management program which includes a countywide strategic plan, public reporting, citizen engagement and agency five year strategic plans linked to the countywide plan. While the county has received accolades for many steps it has taken recently, it also has many miles to go and the journey continues.
In this article we pose some of the key questions about how we got to this point and how we keep moving forward. Our comments reflect two vantage points: one as the performance management lead in the executive’s office and the other as the county auditor who is appointed by the county council. One of the benefits—and challenges--of King County’s approach is that legislative and executive interests drove a countywide movement.
You are invited to provide further questions and perspective on how to effectively implement performance management.
Questions
1. By way of background, what are the features of King County’s countywide PM program? What is the current status?
King County has been working on creating a performance management system for over ten years. However, it has been only in the last several years that the county has made major strides in developing the key elements of an effective performance system.
Since 2002, King County, Washington has put in place a number of key elements of a performance management structure. In particular, we have accomplished the following:
• Established by council motion an advisory performance measurement work group in the county auditor’s office. The work group was requested to prepare a work plan for developing a countywide strategic planning, performance measurement and management system. Over the next 5 years the work group conducted various activities to develop and implement the plan, each year receiving support from the county council, the county executive and the other elected officials in county government.
• Established KingStat, a county-level version of CitiStat, which we use to present performance information to the County Executive. Our version includes three types of data: 1) departmental dashboards, 2) comparative data among the agencies, and 2) an integrated/thematic data layer that focuses on interdepartmental collaboration and integration. Our process is more focused on outcomes at the department and community level than on outputs like many other "Stat" programs.
• Created a public performance website called "King County AIMs High: Annual Measures and Indicators" (http://your.kingcounty.gov/aimshigh). Researchers from the IBM Center for the Business of Government recently said they thought it was "best in class" among the limited number of jurisdictions that are trying to tie community condition indicators with agency performance measures.
• Developed a 4-page performance scorecard after conducting research via focus groups funded with support from the National Center for Civic Innovation’s Trailblazer grant program.
• Required business plans to be submitted with agency budget requests incorporating mission, goals and performance measures. These plans laid the groundwork for strategic plans.
• Developed guidelines for business and strategic plans for use by agencies in all three branches of county government.
• Developed two, day-long courses for staff and managers on performance measurement and management.
• Passed the Performance and Accountability Act which codified a number of these existing best practices and requires countywide strategic planning and strategic plans for all agencies and departments. This ordinance makes King County one of a handful of jurisdictions that requires strategic planning and performance management. Related to the adoption of the ordinance, the King County Executive created the new Office of Strategic Planning and Performance Management (OSPPM) and the countywide performance management work group was codified.
• Expanded citizen engagement initiatives including outreach around budget priorities and a countywide community forum process.
In 2009, the county is developing a countywide strategic plan to guide the policy and budget direction for the next five years. OSPPM is leading the planning effort and is receiving extensive participation from elected officials and staff from every agency and executive department. In addition, we are involving residents through a variety of means and collecting new data from employees (via our first countywide employee survey) and the community (via our first countywide community satisfaction survey) to support the strategic plan.
2. What is so unique (or not) about King County’s PM endeavor?
King County has some particular elements in its performance system, while perhaps not unique, are significant. Starting in 2006, the Executive branch made a significant push to create a performance management system (called KingStat) and report performance to the public (via reports, Web site, and scorecard). The focus was explicitly on the Executive branch believing it should lead by example and the reality that starting with a countywide approach would be too complex and politically risky. At the same time, the County Auditor led the Performance Management Work Group, an inter-branch group that provides a structured way to discuss various performance measurement and management efforts and to identify ways for the multiple agencies and departments to work together on common issues. As new processes and products came from the Executive, other agencies could see how they might fit into the reporting structure and the theory became more real. In addition, other agencies included the courts and three agencies led by elected officials (Assessor, Prosecutor, Sheriff) who administer their agencies independently. These agencies had emerging performance management efforts that were shared and could operate under the countywide umbrella. The Work Group served as an “idea incubator” for improving the county’s performance system; the group developed tools and proposed legislation to support the creation of a countywide system.
The focus on integrating performance measures with community indicators is another hallmark of the county’s program. The county website and the Executive’s KingStat performance management program both rely heavily on community-level indicators for context, policy relevance and alignment with agency performance. Some of these indicators already existed at King County due to the previous work by the county’s Benchmark Program and Communities Count. Community feedback on policy, budget, and strategic issues is also being solicited through a unique citizen engagement process, the Countywide Community Forums. Through this new public outreach program, overseen by the Auditor’s office, issues related to county government performance and budget priorities may emerge that can be reflected in the county’s indicators, measures, and related policies.
Lastly, codifying via ordinance the performance management system and the creation of a new office to support the mandate has helped institutionalize the program at a time of political change.
Some less unique, but essential, elements of the program include strong leadership from elected officials from both the executive and legislative branches, a shared sense of the importance and value of performance management among senior staff, and sufficient experienced staff to ensure the development and operation of the program. Ultimately, we started and kept adding elements as we go—and have kept the communication channels open as participants have changed.
3. What was the motivation to go down this particular path?
Initially, the desire was to create a performance management system that replicated Baltimore’s CitiStat. However, as it became clear that our issues needed different type of information, the performance system needed to be able to address more policy and management, rather than operational, needs. This meant focusing on community-level data and effectiveness (outcome) data. There was also an interest in transparency and accountability that led to a focus on public performance reporting.
From a countywide policy perspective, major motivators were external and internal ones. Both the executive and council were not satisfied that the county lacked a performance management/measurement system that they could embrace and use. Moreover, Washington State and other local governments in the area had received recognition for their performance in this area. Why one of the largest counties in the country did not have a performance management system was questioned.
4. What is making King County’s approach work now (or not)?
The National Performance Management Advisory Commission has proposed a performance management cycle that includes: planning, budgeting, management, evaluation, and measurement and reporting. King County is substantially closer to that vision that even three years ago, but we are not all of the way there.
Key elements of the performance management system are now in place: strategic planning, management system (KingStat), and public performance reporting. The evaluation function exists in the form of performance auditing. In addition, codifying these requirements is intended to ensure that they receive ongoing attention. The upcoming Executive transition will test that hypothesis.
What remains to be done is to develop sustainable methods and systems for performance budgeting and ongoing public engagement. In addition, we need to ensure strategic planning and performance measurement is working. This includes measuring and evaluating results.
5. What are the roles of the executive, judicial and legislative branches? Are they appropriate given separation of powers?
King County has three branches of government and over 20 elected officials (including judges). While the county executive oversees the majority of county departments, he has limited authority for the administration of the other branches and elected officials. During the initial development of the countywide performance management program concerns about separation of powers and prerogatives of elected officials arose. At the same time, there was a commitment to the tenets of performance management and a desire to be at the table in the development of countywide expectations. Thus far, it seems that an appropriate balance has been struck in developing policy and common requirements while providing flexibility in how the elected officials implement them.
The countywide work group meets regularly. Over the past two years the work group has established subcommittees to work on issues and bring recommendations back to the full group. Currently there are four sub committees focusing on designing key elements of the countywide strategic plan; elected official engagement, community engagement, employee engagement, and Strengths/Weaknesses/Opportunities/Challenges (SWOC) analysis.
6. Why has it taken so long to get moving in this direction?
There were several factors that hindered previous progress. Previous efforts were not focused on a collaborative approach among the branches. Legislating performance measures was not successful at getting buy in or support for measurement. Previous efforts on the Executive side were too narrowly focused on trying to replicate a CitiStat-like program with attention on service delivery and outputs when the leadership was in reality more interested in understanding program effectiveness, policy issues, and the relationship of county programs to community results.
In addition to these factors, this work takes time. Even with the renewed Executive emphasis starting in 2006, major elements of the program take time to develop. In the first year we created KingStat and revised the previous performance report. In the second year, we built a performance Web site and continued KingStat. In the third year we conducted focus groups to help us define the content and form for a four-page performance scorecard and proposed changes to agency business plans to better link measure sin the budget. Realistically, all of these are important but that can’t all be created at one.
In theory, we should have started working together with a strategic plan and developed measures and management systems around that, but in reality we needed to go where the energy was and that helped get buy in and build the systems, processes, and products over time. And how do we know what this should take to achieve the desired system and outcomes?
Stay tuned! In future articles we plan to share some “How To” tips, discuss some key areas of focus such as increasing the impact of citizen engagement and anticipating what lies ahead for King County’s performance management program.
– Cheryle Broom, King County Auditor and Michel Jacobson, Manager, Performance Management, Office of Strategic Planning and Performance Management
To read the first installment visit: http://www.ppmrn.net/resources/articles/5002.
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