Citizen‘s Charter

Workshop II Standards and Targets

Second step: Define suitable performance indicators

• The choice of indicators depends on definition of quality
  • Infringement of minimum standards?
  • Meeting objectives/purposes?
  • Meeting customer expectations?
  • Creating symptoms of customer emotional identification with ‘brand’?
• Proxies for quality: rate of innovation, level of adaptiveness, ability to learn

A typology of quality indicators

• Input indicators: e.g. number of employees, money spent, number of hospital beds, number of public buses …
• Output indicators: e.g. number of pupils taught, number of discharged patients …
• Outcome indicators: e.g. increased grades achieved in schools, reductions in unemployment …

Third step: Define standards of quality

• ‘Hoped-for standards’ (political targets)?
• ‘Minimum’ standards (‘promises’ by the organisation)?
• Assured or guaranteed standards (legal targets)?
  • Redress?
• Budget implications?

Remember – a target (e.g. a standard for quality) specifies …

• the quantified level of a performance indicator
• to be achieved within a given time period

Group Exercise 1:.Defining quality indicators and targets

• Think of the definition of quality you used in the previous session
• Choose a priority service delivered by your agency
• Define 2-3 indicators and targets for the quality of this service, keeping in mind your definition of quality
• Check in a small group whether your indicators meets the SMART test

The SMART test for targets

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-related

Group exercise 2: Who should decide the standard of quality in your organisation?

• The top manager of your agency?
• Your marketing department?
• Your middle manager?
• The external consultants/advisors?
• The minister/mayor?
• The front-line staff in service sector organisations?
• NGOs?
• The service users?
• … Someone not mentioned here?

Quality measurement is a multi-stakeholder issue

What are we looking for in successful ‘organisational performance’?

• Clarity about purposes of performance management- control, direction, learning
• PIs related to objectives, unless …
• Targets related to each objective
• Balanced portfolios of PIs - separate PIs for economy, efficiency, effectiveness, outcomes, equity and quality
• Agreed PIs, not imposed PIs (unless …)
• PIs set and reported for priority issues first
• Comparisons made over time and between departments/agencies, with transferable lessons identified and implemented
• A clear and systematic performance management system, with responsibilities of staff clearly set out
• “Short, sharp, snappy” system!

Unintended consequences of PM

• Measure fixation (ignoring the real objective)
• Tunnel vision (ignoring non-measurable objectives)
• Sub-optimization (achieving your own objectives rather than those of the organisation)
• Myopia (pursuing short-term or narrow objectives)
• Misrepresentation (deliberate ‘glossification’)
• Misinterpretation (‘lions controlled by donkeys’)
• Gaming (keeping down the rate of improvement to make future performance look better)
• Ossification (ignoring new needs and opportunities)

Some ‘Silver Rules’ of Performance Measurement

• Be clear about purposes
• Relate PIs to objectives, unless …
• Use targets – but only AFTER setting the underlying objectives
• PI portfolios must be balanced
• Set separate PIs for economy, efficiency, effectiveness, outcomes, equity and quality
• Self-assessment is normally better (but requires audit)
• Agree, don’t impose (unless …)
• Assess priorities first – ‘proportionality’
• Make comparisons over time and between departments/agencies
• Organise for performance management
• “Short, sharp, snappy”

Summary

• Of course, you cannot measure every dimension of quality and you should not try to do so
• But if you do not try to measure some important dimensions of quality, you will probably not achieve them