Technology for group decision making: how Fairfax County redesigns financial processes.

• Author: Higgins, John D.

The authors describe how "meetingware" was used to redesign financial processes in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Editor's note: Each year the Government Finance Officers Association bestows its prestigious Award for Excellence to recognize outstanding contributions in the field of government finance. The awards stress practical, documented work that offers leadership to the profession and promotes improved public finance. This article describes the 1997 winning entry in the Technology subcategory of the Financial Management category.

In 1997, the County of Fairfax, Virginia's Department of Finance received the GFOA Award for Excellence for its program "Using Group Systems to Redesign the Year End Business Process." This program involved the use of a local area network and commercially available software to conduct electronic meetings to examine and improve the year-end process. The success of the task and the portability of the techniques make this use of technology an inviting prospect for successfully meeting one of the most consistent challenges faced by financial managers: understanding the needs of their customers and hearing ideas from all areas of the organization.

Time is one of the few commodities which cannot be recovered, recycled, or replaced. In large and small organizations alike, it is lost each day to meetings which are less than fully productive. That, of course, translates to lost money. One could estimate the total hourly wage of employees in a meeting and assign the total amount to the product of the meeting. One could then conclude, "We just spent $850 to agree that we have a problem, yet we are no closer to a solution than when the meeting convened." This is not an atypical outcome; however, it does not need to be that way.

The Year-end Dream

Wrapping up business at the end of a fiscal year is often a complex undertaking for local governments. The larger and more diverse the organization and its mission, the harder it is to design and implement a process to accommodate the full range of needs across the organization. No matter how large or small the organization, the demand for accuracy and completeness in recording all valid encumbrances and paying bills up to the last-minute increases organizational stress. Accrual of revenue and expenditures, compliance with various grant requirements, state and federal reimbursement programs, and diverse accounting systems used by county departments simply add to the complexities. The key to a successful year-end routine is two-fold: 1) planning - which takes into account the needs of all users of the financial system, and 2) clear guidance - which can be followed and used by individuals of varying backgrounds and experience. With close to one hundred agencies in Fairfax County, it was almost taken for granted that the year-end process was an annual agony that was to be survived rather than conquered. Multiple group planning sessions, long plenary meetings with representatives from all county agencies, and Department of Finance processing sessions lasting well into the night were part of the ritual. Dedicated employees always came through, but this ordeal was draining. County managers felt that there had to be a better way.

Are there better ways to match the needs of the central accounting system with the many and diverse needs and requirements of the user agencies? Are there more effective ways of communicating with end users and agency staff? Attempts to find those ways were never fully successful. The problem was that planning sessions barely scratched the surface of the creativity and practical ideas among county staff. In addition, meetings were long and too few of the right people contributed. That was the real problem.

Need for Effective Meetings

Much has been written about how to conduct effective meetings. Steps to conduct effective meetings are generally well-known: use a written agenda; clearly state the meeting's objective at the beginning; appoint a facilitator to keep the discussion on track and to encourage full participation; record minutes; demand respect for dissenting opinions; summarize what was said and describe...