From Governing.com
By Thomas R. Davies
Let’s face it, performance measures for technology are stuck in the past. It doesn’t seem that way at first glance. State and local leaders make bold pronouncements about ambitious plans to transform their governments through technological improvements. They recruit talented new CIOs. They invest in exciting new technologies.
But they overlook a basic reality: The way they measure technology performance hasn’t changed in decades. When it comes to technology, too often they have 21st-century visions but 20th-century performance practices.
It’s important to close this gap. You don’t have to have an advanced degree in psychology to know that people do what they are rewarded to do. And how they are rewarded is in good part determined by how they are measured. So the question becomes, are state and local governments measuring the right things when it comes to technology? And are they providing their people with the incentives that are needed to focus attention on the important priorities, such as transformation of government?
You can answer some of this for yourself. Here is a sample of technology performance measures from several jurisdictions, all of which have ambitious and even visionary technology plans and are recognized as being national leaders in the use of performance measures:
· availability of computing and telecommunications resources;
· average price per minute for long-distance telephone charges;
· number of technical standards reviewed;
· number of scheduled production jobs completed;
· percent of help desk calls resolved within accepted standards;
· number of customers served.
Do you consider these to be critical measures of how effectively technology operations are being run? I’d say they are hardly what you might expect if the goal is to transform state and local government. If this were education reform, these measures would be tantamount to assessing the success of years of investment based on achievement of minimum literacy standards. In other words, you can only expect so much progress from technology if how you measure achievement keeps everyone focused on doing what you’ve always done but doing it more efficiently.
There are ways to move forward. States and localities can start by requiring every new technology reform and transformation initiative to have clear measures of what success looks like. These need to reflect how outcomes are going to change as a result of whatever is being proposed.
Please note: The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of Manatron or its employees. This article is meant for educational purposes only.