Strategic planning, which provides a roadmap for organizational direction. Roughly half of municipalities with populations of 2,500 and greater have used strategic planning to establish organizational goals, according to Government Finance Review. Some use one-day retreats during which elected officials and senior managers identify a handful of long-term goals to help guide the allocation of organization resources. Other organizations use a rigorous process that calls for a hired facilitator and the involvement of all stakeholders to develop vision and mission statements, core values, long-term goals, quantifiable objectives, and performance measures.

Performance measurement, which monitors the performance of service delivery and helps program managers understand why specific services are provided and how they support the long-term goals of the organization. By the start of the 21st century, more than a third of all municipalities with populations greater than 2,500 and at least a third of all counties with populations greater than 50,000 were engaged in performance measurement to some degree[i].

Performance budgeting, which ensures that accurate and reliable performance information is part of the budget development, implementation, and evaluation processes. Performance budgeting can begin only in departments and programs where well-managed performance measurement systems are already used to support ongoing management decisions. If an organization waits to collect and use performance measures to justify budget requests, it has waited too long. 

Benchmarking, which compares performance results from one organization with the performance results from others to identify best practices. Two nationally known benchmarking initiatives that use the methodology of “comparison of performance statistics as benchmarks” are ICMA’s Center for Performance Analytics (formerly the ICMA Comparative Performance Measurement program) and the North Carolina Benchmarking Project. Although only a limited number of jurisdictions participate in these types of formal benchmarking initiatives, current interest in identifying best practices in local government is placing more emphasis on comparison statistics.

Program evaluation, which calls for the periodic, regular evaluation of programs and services to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of governmental programs  and to feed that information back into the strategic planning process. It is common, for example, for managers and department heads to analyze the community impact from recreational and social programs or the possibility of privatizing solid-waste services, adding new law enforcement officers, or cross-training selected personnel such as building inspectors and foster care workers.