Category Archives: performance

52 – Local government performance appraisal 1/4. What are the issues? (or 5 reasons it doesn’t work)

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                             700 words

performance - rowing

This is the first in a series of four posts on performance appraisal. The central idea is that current performance appraisal systems are not effective.

To begin with, the annual performance appraisal process (sometimes called the performance development plan (PDP) or staff development scheme (SDS)) is often not carried out in local government. When it is, people have usually been compelled to do so or they are simply ‘ticking the boxes’ and being compliant. I have often thought that this is important evidence that the process is not helpful. People ‘vote with their feet’ – if they thought that performance appraisal was useful and that it added value, they would be doing it.

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51 – An ABEF OSA. What is it and do you need one?

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                               900 words

puzzled

The Australian Business Excellence Framework (ABEF) provides a systematic way to think about your organisation and its improvement. It identifies seven categories of organisational activity that are systematically analysed when you conduct an organisational self assessment (OSA) to determine the approach, deployment, results and improvement. This examination of approach, deployment, results and improvement is called the ADRI cycle and it is similar to PDCA and other improvement cycles except that it focuses on outcomes not actions. So, that is what it is.

Do you need one? (And, more importantly, what will you get if you have one).

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46 – Labor’s rate cap to hurt services and infrastructure, ratings agency warns’. The Age, 27 February 2015.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                         900 words

 slices of cake
Image from http://www.that-is-good-crap.com

This article follows an earlier piece in The Age,  ‘Plan to cap council rates at inflation could lead to service cuts and job losses in Victoria’ on 23 February 2015. Both articles are about the planned legislation in Victoria to restrict councils to rate increases at or below the Consumer Price Index from 2016 unless they seek an exemption from the Essential Service Commission. Some councils have already started to cut jobs to reduce expenditure ahead of rate capping. Others are forecasting cuts to their services and reduced maintenance or renewal of community infrastructure.

This is occurring at the same time that the State government is shifting more costs onto councils and national grants to councils are being frozen. I have previously posted on rate capping (see here , here and here). As you can imagine, rate capping is dominating talk within local government circles. Continue reading →

44 – The Executive. What exactly is its role?

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                                         700 words

This seems to be a common question. You frequently hear people saying, ‘that decision will need to go to the Executive’, or ‘don’t do that until you have been to Exec’. If asked, the people saying this often can’t say why they have offered this advice and reviewing the terms of reference for the Executive will usually reveal that it is not a decision making body. It is individual members who have the authority to make decisions. So, what is its role? Continue reading →

43 – Developing a dashboard for performance measurement. A case study.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                         1000 words

mini dashboard

I was recently asked to create a dashboard for my unit with the intention that it function like the dashboard on my car (no this is not my car). This is to be done in the absence of an organisational dashboard or scorecard or performance reporting system. There have been a few posts on this topic by Lancing Farrell (here and here) and this post discusses the application of some of the theory.

I started by listing all of the current measures that are in place from external and internal sources of accountability. This included legislation, sector-wide improvement programs, customer satisfaction surveys, occupational health and safety accreditation audits, internal audit programs, culture surveys, organisational policies, and financial reporting. Some of these measures are applied continuously, some are annual and others occur periodically. All of them have some organisational or public reporting of performance. This list was very much a list of things that other people think it is important to measure about the performance of the department. For whatever reason.

Then I made a list of all of the things that I think it is important to measure to know work is being done properly. Continue reading →

42 – How do you listen to the ‘voice of the customer’ in local government? It can be done.

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                                              740 words

This post follows an earlier post Customer, client, citizen, resident or ratepayer. Who are we dealing with? It takes the concept of value further by proposing some tools that can be used to understand what customers expect and whether those expectations have been met.

I will start with Peter R. Scholtes and his views on the ‘customer-in mentality’, which he says is characterised by ‘thoughtfulness, responsiveness, empathy and altruism’. Customer-in thinking increases the likelihood that customers will get what they need – and need what they get. Listening to the customer is the beginning. Scholtes says we can start to do this by paying attention to what customers say when they contact us to make complaints, ask questions, or request services. Councils typically count the number of resident contacts. Some differentiate between service requests and complaints. Few actively evaluate what customers are asking about or saying to obtain qualitative data to guide service improvement.

Alternatively, or in addition, we can initiate contact with the customer to solicit information through surveys, interview or focus groups. Continue reading →

41 – ‘Where does the customer fit into a service operation?’ A brief discussion of the work of Richard B. Chase.

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                                                     1200 words

In 1978 Richard B. Chase published his paper Where does the customer fit into a service operation? John Seddon says this article began the separation of front and back office operations; something that he believes has created many problems in public sector service delivery today. Maybe he is right. But when you read the article, what Chase is advocating makes sense and I can’t help thinking that it isn’t necessarily a bad idea, rather it is an idea that has been used badly.

Chase is an operations manager. By 1978 he had already co-authored a popular operations management text. He starts his paper stating that a manager needs to understand the ‘operating characteristics that set one service system apart from another’ in order to make improvements. Continue reading →

40 – Unskilled, unaware, or both? The Dunning–Kruger effect at work.

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Posted by Colin Weatherby                                                                                         800 words

One of my favourite sayings is that ‘anything is possible when you don’t know what you are talking about’. I have often wondered why I feel the need to use it so often at work. After a colleague sent me link on the Dunning-Kruger effect I am starting to understand why.

The Dunning–Kruger effect is named after David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University. They published ‘Unskilled and Unaware of It: How difficulties in Recognising One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments’ in 1999. The title gives you a good idea about the contents. The focus of the paper is;

We argue that when people are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to achieve success and satisfaction, they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it.

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36 – What did you like and dislike about your previous managers?

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Posted by Whistler                                                                                          430 words

A colleague told me recently that they had been asked, along with the other managers in their branch, to write a list of the things they had liked and disliked about their previous group managers. The intention was for the new group manager to understand how managers would prefer to work with him. The method of finding out was just a little unorthodox.

The list of likes and dislikes had to be submitted typed on plain paper in an unmarked envelope. Each manager’s anonymous list would then be re-typed onto a longer list to be tabled and discussed at a branch meeting. This whole approach made me think about my previous branch managers, so I made my own list. It was a cathartic exercise. I can recommend it. It is also a way to crystallise your own thinking about what works for you in your relationship with your manager.

Here are my lists. Continue reading →

35 – Accountability in local government. Who are we really accountable to and why does it matter?

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Posted by Lancing Farrell                                                                                              650 words

The demands for accountability in local government are continuous. The challenge is that they come from many different places and focus on different aspects of performance.   Sometimes they create conflicts. For example, strict adherence to procurement policies can remove the flexibility required to respond quickly and meet complex community needs. But it keeps the Audit Committee happy. A community interest group gains political support for a project that hasn’t been included in the budget. But the councillor and their constituents are happy. I am sure you can think of other examples. Continue reading →