Software as a Service (SaaS) for Performance Management - Part 1

This is the first of a two-part post about Software as a Service (SaaS) for performance management. In the first part I'll provide an introduction to SaaS, define what it is and touch on some of its applications to performance management. In the second part I'll detail the various benefits of SaaS including but not limited to cost-effectiveness, reliability, and ease of deployment.

The race is on for Government to focus on results, but the race is long and difficult because the path is rot with challenges. New technologies promise transformation of performance management processes, a great opportunity, indeed, but often at a high cost with a long implementation timeframe. SaaS solutions offer a cost effective way to simpler performance management implementation.

Municipalities, large and small, need to discover Software as a Service (SaaS) — referred to by some as applications that live in “the cloud”, Web-based, online, or on-demand as a way to save time and money without sacrificing the basic tenants of performance management: Results, Relevancy, Transparency, Timeliness, and Accuracy. SaaS also brings applications under a single platform, making it easier to implement performance management programs as well as an improved ability to benchmark across jurisdictions. SaaS is a technology trend that promises to provide a simpler solution for implementing performance management programs.

SaaS Defined

SaaS, on-demand, and cloud computing have become common terms in the technology world. In one way or another, they refer to the growing trend of software vendors providing their applications over the Web as a service, rather than as a set of code to install on a local server or desktop computer. Some actually provide both solutions. With SaaS, customers tap into one code base that is refined and enhanced (producing better results for the users) based on feedback from all users. The whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. Organizations and/or individuals subscribe to the service and access it using a computer, laptop or even their mobile phone. These applications are known as on-demand, Cloud-based, Web-based, or online. Cloud computing is used by many SaaS providers and refers to massive server farms that host applications online for many customers. Cloud computing enables flexible processing power and storage capacity to scale up or down, depending on actual usage.

Almost everyone who uses the Internet today has used SaaS. Email programs such as Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail are examples of SaaS. What is really nice is that there is nothing to download or install, users simply create an account and log in through a Web browser. Popular social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter operate using a SaaS model.

SaaS as a Government Performance Management Tool

SaaS is ideal for government seeking technology solutions to help them implement performance management programs. Because these programs often encompass many disparate agencies/divisions that can geographically span hundreds or thousands of miles, it is useful to have a centralized, common technology platform that many users can share. In the event that some users are outside of your network, SaaS allows users to access your performance management data and application from anywhere. SaaS offers both simplicity and a cost-effective solution for government users.

The Future of Performance Management

I was at an AGA breakfast a few months ago and the point was raised that people in government had been talking about performance management for "some time", with few results. It got me to thinking abut whether there is a future in performance management and what it might look like. A couple of publications I recently read struck me as two different thoughts on where we're headed in this field, one being an "academic" piece on performance management and the other more grounded in practical approaches. The first was a point/counterpoint look at the history of performance management (largely using examples from New York city) and how it might inform better practices in municipal management around the country. The counterpoint in the article focuses on some of the failures at the Federal level in creating a useful performance measurement framework. The authors, Dennis Smith and Beryl Radin, have a largely academic debate which at times gets muddled in teasing out the nuances of performance "management" vs. "measurement". But generally speaking it's a good article with a few highlights that I took from it:

1. Cities like New York took decades getting to an effective performance management program so we shouldn't be too hard on cities that don't get it right away.
2. In the case of New York, moving from an input/output focused metrics to outcome based measures seem to be the turning point where measuring performance becomes effective.
3. Local efforts seem to have been more effective than national efforts in this space.

There's a lot more to the article and it must be purchased from JPAM, but it's an excellent piece.

The other is a series published by the Urban Institute called "Legislating for Results" and offers a framework not only for performance management within individual agencies, but also a more broad plan for managing an entire jurisdiction. What I liked about the series is that it's a practical, step-by-step guide to getting results from government (in contrast to more academic approaches in other pieces). One of the nuances that Urban employs in the series is using the term "information" synonymously with metrics/measures. In fact, what we're looking for from performance measures is actually nothing more than information, and the Urban plan emphasizes providing quality information to government decisions makers in the hope of improving outcomes. My main problem with the piece is that there are many moving parts and it incorporates budgeting, communicating to the media, etc. into the framework. As a whole the series is a little too much, but I see most of the value from the three pieces on getting the right information, getting quality information, and using that information for planning purposes.

From the two pieces I got that there are clearly failures in performance management, but also some successes. Additionally, even though some academics have been talking about performance measures and management for "some time", the approaches are under constant revision and dare I say, improving. The important thing is to continue to push for jurisdictions to use performance measures, and to assist those with existing performance management programs to constantly improve them.