Reinventing Government: The Need for Constant Innovation
In 2000, then Baltimore mayor Martin O’Malley implemented a data-driven management system called CitiStat. CitiStat helped Baltimore improve the time it took to refill potholes. Residents can report a pothole by calling 311 and Baltimore now refills 97 percent of potholes within 48 hours of notification. CitiStat was also a major instrument in helping Baltimore to reduce its violent crime rate by 40 percent between 1999 and 2003. Baltimore’s success did not go unnoticed and policymakers from around the country have attempted to replicate CitiStat. In 2005, based on the success of CitiStat, Washington state Governor Christine Gregoire launched a data-driven performance system called the Government Management Accountability and Performance system (GMAP). GMAP differed from CitiStat in that it evaluated results based on a thematic approach instead of reviewing results by department and agency. Gregoire and her administration identified eight priority areas (health care, public safety, transportation, vulnerable children and adults, education, natural resources, economic vitality, and government reform and efficiency) and helped agencies focus on specific problems in those areas. The first results were very positive with strong improvement in the response rate for reports of child abuse or neglect and faster turnaround time for agencies to issue permits for construction projects.
In 2011, towards the end of her second term, Governor Gregoire conducted a review to assess the state of GMAP and the results were mixed. Wendy Korthuis-Smith, GMAP’s director said “The system we’d built didn’t feel flexible and nimble. There was too much focus on polishing presentations, when what we really wanted were cycles of experimentation, improvement and results.” She realized that GMAP had become another compliance system and needed to be changed in order to fulfill its mission of encouraging innovation. Korthuis-Smith now runs Results Washington for Gregoire’s successor Governor Jay Inslee. Results Washington is based on Toyota’s “Lean” approach which encourages assembly-line workers to identify problems and suggest solutions. “Innovation […] must become a natural discipline in government”, says Christian Bason in Leading Public Sector Innovation, “Public leaders must find better ways to institutionalize innovation” with the structures that effectively embed innovation in the organizations. Results Washington is indeed taking this advice to heart, working with agencies and citizens to review the data and discuss strategies and solutions at monthly meetings. Korthuis-Smith demonstrates the importance for government to constantly evaluate and assess even its own performance evaluation system in order to keep innovating.
References:
1. The CitiStat Model: How Data-Driven Government Can Increase Efficiency and Effectiveness, Center for American Progress Website, April 23, 2007 https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/general/reports/2007/04/23/2911/the-citistat-model-how-data-driven-government-can-increase-efficiency-and-effectiveness/
2. Has the Crusade to ‘Reinvent Government’ Fallen Short? Government Technology Website, September 2, 2016 http://www.govtech.com/people/Has-the-Crusade-to-Reinvent-Government-Fallen-Short.html
3. Bason, Christian, Leading Public Sector Innovation (The Policy Press 2010)
