Build a Better Performance Measurement System: Step 1
Step 1: Cast a Vision for Change
Change is hard…for most people. At times, I struggle to understand the resistence. After all, I have been known to change everything in my life at once — graduate college, get married, move across the country, start a new job. Yup, that all happened in the span of two months. (Perhaps) surprisingly, I thrived. I was optimistic and seeing endless opportunity and potential for the future. Yet, I know that embracing change is not the norm.
Whatever the mix of biology and socialization, we are hardwired to resist change. I see it in my 6-month old, as well as parents in their 60s. Routine and predictability create safety and security. If we like the results we see through our routines, why change them? If we don’t believe a change is necessary it makes it even harder to adopt what is new — whether it is a habit, a process, a tool, or a technique.
Communicate a compelling case for change
The same dynamic is in play in organizations. So, when Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula (BGCP) decided we needed a new data system to monitor program activity we started developing a case for change.
Our case for change was fairly straightforward:
- Our previous data system was not meeting our core business needs and no amount of money or time spent “fixing” the system was going to solve the problem.
- The cost of inefficiencies in our old system were too great to sustain, and the new system would substantially and immediately improve efficiency.
- The new system would be designed around our users; data capture by part-time staff (mostly college students) would be easy and intuitive.
We gathered data to back up each case statement. With data in hand, we identified measurable goals for a new performance measurement system. These goals were further described in a Product Specifications Document (PSD) that we sent to potential technology partners when we were ready to search for a vendor. For those of you (like me) who had never heard of, let alone written one; a PSD “provides product teams the information they need to build out new features or functionality,” according to ProdPad.
For example, related to case statement #2, our PSD specified a goal to: “Reduce the time it takes for administrative staff to review, edit, and approve a student application to less than 5 minutes while preventing duplicate student records from being created.” At the time, staff were spending nearly double that amount of time to enter application information in our previous system. Given the thousands of applications we process each year, this change would lead to days of work saved for our program assistants and office clerks.
Link the change to your long-term vision
While the case for change was strong, there also needed to be a long-term vision for what this new data system could help us achieve as an organization. This was going to be a heavy lift for our entire organization in the coming year. What was it all for?
A clear statement of how the new data system would enable us to become a stronger evidence-generating organization and better serve students was vital, especially for our senior leadership and board.
We benefitted from articulating a 5-Year Vision in our Strategic Evidence Plan a few months prior. The Strategic Evidence Plan provides a roadmap to becoming an evidence-generating organization. Shifting to a new data system would help us live into that vision by giving BGCP greater flexibility and effectiveness in assessing programs in real-time, enabling us to learn from and improve the effectiveness of BGCP programs more quickly.
Communicating up, down, and all around
We didn’t use or need an elaborate communication plan to share our case for change. We did engage all the critical stakeholders who needed to be on board to successfully launch a new performance measurement system.
- Board — During our budget meeting, strengthening data systems was listed as an organizational strategic priority and had a dollar amount tagged to it. Our CEO led the charge on communicating why this was important for the organization at this time.
- Leadership Team — A short memo with our vision, rationale, and timeline with some key milestones was all that was needed to ensure our leadership team — including development and finance, was aware of what we were doing and why.
- Program and Site Directors — Monthly strategy sessions to establish our organizational priorities dug (very briefly) into why we needed a new data system. This provided a space for directors to ask critical questions on behalf of their teams and give input into the priorities and plan.
- Impact Strategy Taskforce — this 12-person, cross departmental, cross functional group designed to strengthen our data culture was a “working group” that held us accountable and gave input into the different phases of activity once we got started.
Importantly, when we cast the vision for change, we made a request: share this information with your teams, ask them questions, and bring back ideas for consideration as we move forward.
We left it up to program directors when they wanted to share the news with their direct services staff. This was requested by program directors, and we were happy to oblige. Why? Some managers were concerned it could undermine their current push for timely, accurate data entry. They didn’t want staff to think the data they were entering into our old system didn’t matter. As a result, most staff were aware of the change only as we started getting user feedback and doing testing— in other words, once we had something tangible to show for our efforts.
Consider phasing in change
As I communicated the vision, I was concerned about overpromising. At the end of the day, there is no silver bullet technology solution. Every solution has pros and cons. And, data would not enter itself. If 20% of success was a result of a great technology solution, the other 80% was dependent on the people who use the system every day. Adequate training and support with adoption would make or break the transition. As a result, we communicated from the outset that this would be a multi-year change process that happened in Phases.
For us, Phase 1 was all about data capture and storage. Without that, the bells and whistles of automation and outcomes integration would be moot. This allowed us to stay focused throughout design and implementation and to keep expectations in check.
More on the benefits of a phased-in approach in the third post in this series, “Scope the work.” Want more? Check out the resources below.
Resources
- Choosing Strategies for Change — John P. Kotter and Leonard A. Schlesinger
- Ten Reasons People Resist Change — Rossabeth Moss Kanter
- Project Evident — Strategic Evidence Plan (for Practitioners)
