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July 2007 · Volume 89 · Number 6
Performance MattersPerformance Measurement Is Rocket Science, and Citizen Surveys Provide the LiftA rocket scientist brags to a colleague after an intense lead-up to an experimental launch: “This was the most successful engineering project I’ve ever been part of. We held 10 mock EVAs with the robot exploration team. I had the most advanced jet engine configuration from Lockheed, the best O-rings, and the tightest heat-reflecting tile. Every engineer who worked on the project was cum laude from an Ivy League grad school; even the space rats had pedigrees. The operation went off without a hitch, and each of our team members performed like a surgeon on a transplant team.” “That’s fantastic!” the colleague said, “Has the payload landed yet?” “No,” the engineer admitted, “It blew up a few feet off the pad.” Certainly by some measures of performance, the scientist did not draw a perverse conclusion about his success. But this example emphasizes the fact that not all performance measures are created equal, and even rocket scientists face measurement problems that are like those faced by government managers. Performance outputs in local government, like staffing ratios, dollar allocations, and number of services performed, fail to capture critical successes or failures. Performance outcomes—whether a rocket flies and lands or a patient lives or dies—are harder to come by in local government because few cities or counties go defunct for lack of adequate management. Instead, the bottom line in local government tends to be what the people think about the quality of service delivery and the quality of community life. For rocket scientists and local government managers, it comes down to this: It’s not just how hard you try; it’s how well you do. How well you do in government doesn’t get measured as easily as how hard you try because how hard you try relies on common metrics like minutes, miles, and money. But how well you do often depends on belief—the belief of the residents you serve. Perception and reality are two sides of the performance coin and both have currency, but even if your community’s streets are smooth as olive oil and just as safe, you have a street repair and public safety problem if residents think the streets are pitted and they’re afraid to walk them at night. Most residents know what they think about the job you’re doing, and it doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to tease the hidden truth out of them. Citizen surveys are the medium by which a savvy local government manager eavesdrops on the people who are served. More and more managers are putting their ears to the door to listen. Citizen surveys done right provide a statistically defensible read of an entire community’s perspectives about the quality of local government services, the quality of community life, the engagement of residents in local activities, and general trust in local government. With service and community evaluations as well as resident reactions to proposed new policies and programs, the citizen survey defines success and provides insight into how success can be sustained. If you listen closely, though, you almost can hear the hand-wringing of America’s survey researchers who worry about the changing environment in which survey research occurs. The truth is, despite declining response rates for certain kinds of surveys, scientific surveys continue to provide accurate estimates of opinion and projections of behavior. Virtually all of the best national surveys anticipated the hairsplit vote of 2004, they predicted the democratic landslide in the 2006 midterm congressional elections, and they continue to project accurately where voters plan to mark their ballots. Both politicians and private sector purveyors of products rely on surveys to plot strategies, hone messages, and swing behavior. For local government managers, innovations in citizen survey research have transformed the enterprise from a straight-razor shave to (slight exaggeration here) a trip to the spa. The National Citizen Survey™ (NCS) was created by National Research Center, Inc. (NRC), and in 2001 was offered to ICMA members in a partnership between NRC and ICMA. It is a turnkey survey service designed to minimize cost and burden to local government staff and at the same time provide scientifically valid resident opinion relying on completed sample sizes of 400 to 1,000. The survey has been conducted in more than 100 jurisdictions in 35 states. In 2005 and 2006, the response rate from the mostly mailed surveys for NCS clients averaged 40 percent. Meanwhile, response rates were much lower for typical phone surveys from which national estimates of voting behavior were made. The basic NCS sample of a random 1,200 households (with about 400 returns expected) offers a margin of error of about five percentage points. It employs a widely tested five-page survey with questions clients select about their community characteristics, service quality, community engagement, public trust, and demographics. Clients also can create unique questions that gauge the public stomach for new taxes, assess their priorities for new services, or report their perspectives in their own words. One of the most important features of NCS is that it permits local governments to compare their results with results in scores of cities or counties roughly of their size across the United States or in their regional backyard. NCS typically costs less than half that of a fully custom survey. As local government managers and rocket scientists measure their successes, each must broaden definitions beyond proven processes and stellar materials. In local government, tracking the arc of resident perspective draws the map of service success. Resident opinion is the path to sustainable government quality and done correctly, it provides a management vehicle that won’t blow up in your face. For more information on citizen surveys, visit the NRC Web site at http://n-r-c.com/services/nationalcitizensurvey.html or the ICMA Web site at http://icma.org/ncs. |
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