Alliance Conference: Performance Management remixed

I have a confession to make. I'm not a fan of performance management. Reason being, performance management (in general) has to do with producing numerical outcomes and does not take into consideration measuring the performance of an entire organization.

Given my dislike of a performance management, I was hesitant to attend a session by Ingvild Bjornvold of Social Solutions Software and Andrew Niklaus of First Place for Youth about performance measurement. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this workshop.

First Place Youth explained how they engaged in organizational change process to plan and implement a new database and performance management software system within their organization.

They created a theory of change and involved their ENTIRE staff and board in the process. Before implementing this new system, they couldn't explain what factors made their clients successful. Now with the new system, they know and have proof about how are affecting change and know what their clients need to succeed. They can also tell what is or what isn't going well in the program. They are now more effective in their work and they are data driven!

For example, last year they were able to produce a variety of reports about how they located 239 youth and 97 children into housing. They showed that 92% of their clients maintain safe affordable housing and their caseworkers spend X number of hours with their clients. First Place Youth now knows at what level their clients are working, going to school, and staying in affordable and safe housing.

Ok, so this story doesn't sound that exciting in this brief blog post, but it is a really amazing story to me!! So many organizations just implement a new pience of software without taking into consideration the strategic and change implications within the organization. It is A LOT of work but so IMPORTANT to involve the entire organization in the performance management change process.