Moving from reporting performance information to using it: Prince George's County, Maryland: Prince George's County, Maryland, is overcoming the challenges inherent in using a performance management system to make informed budget and management decisions.

• Author: Useem, Greg
• Position: [PM.sup.2] Connections: PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT & MANAGEMENT

Strategic plans and performance measures make a difference only if managers use them to make decisions. Simply reporting strategic plans and performance measures may lead to accountability, but rarely results in using information for decision making. Moving from reporting to evaluating performance information and making data-driven decisions is the key to improving government services. It is a difficult transition.

Simply implementing policies and procedures that call for using performance information is not enough. An effective performance management system requires continuous improvement, constantly identifying and fixing barriers. Otherwise, the system may fail as employees naturally resist change.

GETTING STARTED

Prince George's County, Maryland--which has a $2.6 billion general fund budget and a population of approximately 840,000--started moving from reporting to using strategic plans and performance measures in mid-2007. To accomplish this, the budget office devised a system that included not only strategic plans and performance measures but also performance-based budgeting and a statistical review program similar to Baltimore's CitiStat. The county plans to implement its statistical review program in the summer of 2009.

In the first year, the new performance management system did not lead to either performance-based analysis or real decision making. Upon review, the county determined that the system had been unsuccessful for two reasons. First, strategic plans and performance measures from county agencies did not communicate key information to analysts and managers. Second, existing processes, tools, and procedures did not assist and guide analysts and managers in using the performance information they were provided.

If written correctly, strategic plans and performance information are the crux of analysis and decision making. Strategic plans and performance measures need to communicate the intended direction of the agency, gauge the level of service that will be provided, and measure how well the strategic plan is being accomplished. With this information, analysts and decisions makers can formulate assessments and determine how to adjust, remove, or revise resources, processes, and services to best accomplish the strategic plan.

Without this information, effective analysis and decision making are unlikely to occur. In the first year after the county implemented its performance management system, only one out of 24 participating agencies had a viable strategic plan and performance measures, and all others required improvement. In the worst cases, agencies focused on using their performance information to communicate how busy they were or how many more resources they felt were needed. Not surprisingly, analysts and managers were uncomfortable evaluating and making decisions based on this meager and often flawed information.

Agency staff acknowledged that their strategic...