A Guide to Measuring Performance: The City of Berkeley, CA Edition

Barrett & Greene

The Berkeley, California auditor’s office is well-known for the attention it pays to the measurement of performance, under the leadership of Auditor Jenny Wong. Lately, at the request of a councilmember, her office has been conducting “benchmarking and best-practice research on outcome-based budget metrics. The result? “A Guide to Measuring Performance in the City of Berkeley”, a document that provides sound advice for any community on creating useful and credible performance measurement systems.

GovEx Lessons Learned in Its First Decade

Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence

The founder of GovEx writes that since 2015: “GovEx partnered with hundreds of cities around the world. We visited countless city halls, sat across from mayors and frontline staff, and have seen up close how data can transform not just decision-making, but entire communities. We’ve learned what works, what doesn’t, and what it takes to build a data-driven culture that lasts.” She then offers seven lessons learned.

Performance in a Time of Instability

Barrett & Greene 

Zachary Markovits writes “When conditions are intense, the instinct in cities, counties and states is to chase the crisis of the day. . . .That instinct is understandable, and often necessary. But incremental, deliberate, data-driven management is not a distraction from urgent work. It is what allows governments to respond to crises without losing ground on their core priorities.”

A Moneyball Moment for Workforce Development

Results for America

The U.S. Department of Labor recently released new guidance that allow states to modernize how they design, fund, and deliver workforce programs funded under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Results for America encourages states to embed evidence in their state workforce systems via their state plans and waiver requests, and offers advice on how to shift workforce dollars toward proven programs.

Resource of the Week:  Performance America Consortium

U.S. Office of Personnel Management

The Performance America Consortium is a working group of federal, state, and local government agencies coordinated by OPM. This consortium is similar to other Fortune 50 company consortia that promote the use of common organizational assessment items and the sharing of data among companies.