Practice Areas:  Strategic Performance Management   (Return to Practice Areas)

Top government executives are managing their agencies in an extremely volatile environment, and the performance stakes are higher than ever. Strategic Performance Management is an essential tool for managers aiming to provide the information and accountability that is expected of them.

Strategic performance management builds on your organization's core strategies to identify a balanced scorecard of performance metrics that will promote the achievement of agency goals and provide direction and commitment for future success. This tool is built around results-oriented measures, not just financial measures, but those driven by the three building blocks of effective measurement:

• Knowledge of your customers
• A focus on business processes
• External information that affects the success of an agency in achieving its goals.

A balanced scorecard provides for measurement of the customer satisfaction, cycle time and cost of processes, employee growth and satisfaction, and financial data. The metrics for the balanced scorecard are defined with reference to the strategic plan, so they can be used to assess alignment with this strategic plan.

Our results-oriented focus requires commitment on your organization's part, and ideally, one or more project champions. NewPoint Group works with your organization to secure this commitment and generate enthusiasm for the project. Our team will assist with developing the balanced scorecard of metrics, defining the data collection process, and developing an integrated and continuously operating performance management system.

But we don't stop there. Our team will sit down with an organization to identify next steps - recommendations for future activities that will allow an organization to continuously improve performance. This process aligns your agency with its business goals and is responsive to the needs of your customers and other stakeholders.

Measurement Building Blocks

Customers — understanding the needs of external and internal customers enables you to evaluate whether your services and products meet their expectations in terms of delivery time, cost, and quality.

Business Processes — measurements oriented towards your business track the actual flow of work in your agency, helping you to focus on specific areas that need attention. Can you reduce turnaround time and costs? Are resources deployed efficiently? Have you overlooked opportunities to improve quality?

External Information — awareness of external factors such as stakeholder needs and regulatory requirements will allow you to stay informed about opportunities and threats to your agency. Are you missing out on relationships with other government agencies that could enhance performance? Are you aware of strategic issues facing your agency?

There are many performance measures — the key is identifying those that will drive improvements in performance in your agency.

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