By Brent Stockwell, Assistant City Manager, Scottsdale, Arizona

I have the privilege to speak to audiences across the country about the importance of performance management, and I often share experiences about Scottsdale’s effort to reinvent its performance management program. The things that have helped us the most have been a big part since the beginning.

We have a clear plan and a great team.

Seven years ago, Scottsdale’s city manager decided to refocus on organizational effectiveness. At the same time, elected officials were seeking better performance information to aid in reviewing the budget.

I was tasked with developing a new initiative to meet these needs. I started by researching Scottsdale’s existing and past practices, as well as best practices throughout the country. The National Performance Management Advisory Commission was meeting at that time and published their framework, which was a helpful summary.

In fact, it was so helpful that we adapted the framework for Scottsdale, and it has served as a clear plan to guide our initiative ever since.

The guiding principles of the Scottsdale Performance Management Framework are:

• Aligned with City Council and General Plan mission, goals, priorities
• Results focused. Strategies, processes, and decisions are designed to achieve desired results
• Relevant. Matters to both the city government and the community
• Transparent. Easy for stakeholders to access and understand
• Timely, accurate, and pertinent. Data drives decisions and processes
• Transformative. Continuously improves the organization, management decisions, and policy-making processes
• Sustainable over time and across organizational changes.

We also identified the need for visible leadership, with a clear champion both citywide and in each division. The city manager designated a team leader, who formed a performance management team consisting of management and professional staff from throughout the organization. The team reviews and makes recommendations about all aspects of the performance management initiative. We knew that input and ideas from many employees would be helpful in ensuring that this initiative succeeded, where past initiatives had faded or lost value.

Several team members have served the entire time, including a retired community volunteer whose input and independence have been very valuable to keep us on track. Team members have a wide variety of backgrounds, skills and experiences, but share a commitment to the importance of this effort.

Team members have been critical to launching internal and external surveys, process improvement and customer initiatives, as well as a regional benchmarking effort. Lately we’ve had great discussions about the value of each other’s measures in our quarterly performance report – taking us to a new level of transparency and openness.

My advice? Develop a clear plan and build a great team as you start, or restart your effort. It’s critical to the success of any performance management initiative.

More information on Scottsdale’s performance management initiative is available at ScottsdaleAZ.gov, search “performance.”