At the 2015 ICMA Annual Conference in September, in addition to the formal presentations, attendees also had the opportunity to engage in informal roundtable discussions on key topics. One of those roundtables was focused on how to implement performance measures for departments that are so future-oriented that they don’t lend themselves to easy quantification. Among the suggestions were:

• Consider leading and lagging indicators, as well as proxy measures that might indirectly indicate a desired result. Public health accomplishments, for example, may take years to manifest themselves, but can be approximated via immunization rates, clinic visits, outreach events, or other metrics.
• Establish service level agreements where there’s some interim goal to be achieved (e.g., timeliness of key milestones, like completion of pending general plan elements).
• Where goals are longer term, consider surveying on the quality, equity or thoroughness of staff work performed.
• Where issues are not as easily quantified, consider focus groups. For instance, in advance planning, you may want to convene groups to discuss roles, responsibilities, and perceptions of staff, elected officials, planning commission, neighborhood groups, and homeowners associations.
• To what extent were minimum requirements met? To what extent were negative consequences avoided? Even if the mid-range bullseye is more difficult to define, you might at least be able to quantify (and work to minimize) when you miss the target entirely.
• In legal or risk management/liability areas, consider the survey outcomes from internal users, the timeliness and accuracy of advice, claims filed and claims paid (particularly in focus areas with more frequent activity, such as contracting and trip-and-falls).
• Compare to both internal history and benchmark data from other jurisdictions where applicable.
• Realize that no measures will be perfect, but they may point you to an underlying story worth investigating further.

Want to Hear More About Performance Management? Browse the Performance Management topic and add it to your interests.