As Published In February 2007

Enterprise Performance
By Michael Locatis

Business intelligence is the key to metrics-based operations.

Last year, I helped deliver on a campaign promise made by Denver's mayor, John Hickenlooper, to implement a citywide 311 system. Designed to help citizens and businesses navigate the complexities (think thousands of phone numbers) of our local government, our 311 system uses a combination of Oracle software and an expert call center to address constituent needs.

Here in Denver's Technology Services agency, we've seen the 311 system lead to innovative use of customer relationship management (CRM) and support products. Since the July 2006 launch, we've gained greater visibility into the needs of our constituents. City managers know how many compliments, complaints, and service requests are made. They can see how many requests each government agency receives, how long it takes constituents to get a response, and how well we're meeting citizen needs. As more of our departments come online, we expect these improvements to transform our organizations.

It's no surprise that constituent expectations inspired us to provide better access to government services—having flipped through the blue pages at the front of the phone book from time to time, I know how frustrating it can be trying to find the right contacts within city government. But since the front-facing aspect of 311 is running, my attention is increasingly turning to improving operational excellence inside the government.

And constituents are driving this next phase as well, with increased pressure for accountability and improved performance from government services. Fact-based management, with measurable results, is key to addressing these growing pressures. But an intelligent look at operational effectiveness can have a profound impact on a municipality's ability to make targeted, strategic changes to the budget.

To respond to this pressure, we in the City and County of Denver are embracing performance management as our operational mantra. This approach involves using metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) to set goals and measure operational improvements in city agencies and in the jurisdiction as a whole. Strategies to improve performance and achieve desired outcomes are mapped out and implemented. Operational data is captured to establish baseline KPIs and is tracked over time to measure the success of strategic plans. Using business analytic technology is critical to consistently and efficiently collecting KPIs over time to measure and track success. And our performance management-based organization will be built on Oracle's powerful Business Intelligence (BI) software.

We implemented Oracle Balanced Scorecard to monitor KPIs related to 311, which gives us analytics on a slice of our operations across many agencies. That is giving us amazing insight, and helping us prioritize our next opportunities to improve efficiencies. It also whets our appetite for expanded BI analytics across more operations, and we're currently looking to broaden our Oracle BI footprint. We're planning to launch major enterprise performance management initiatives over the coming few years to collect more data for expanded analytic capabilities.

Setting KPIs, collecting metrics, and connecting everything to business analytics technology is the foundation for delivering operational improvements. All of these steps are possible with powerful BI software and the right data. From where I'm sitting, state and local governments would do well to analyze the benefits of performance management and build budget justifications to realize this potential.

And taking the first step may be easier than you think. Many state and local governments already have mature enterprise resource planning investments with a strong base of operational data available to analyze. This combination gives the public sector a platform from which to launch real BI technologies and realize a level of performance management previously thought to be limited to the private sector. I'm confident that we in the public sector can match and exceed the success that the private sector achieves.