Weekly Update: How we use data to hold government accountable

Friends,

On the last Wednesday morning of each month, I gather all of the city’s division directors in a big conference room. I sit at the front of the room; our chief operating officer sits next to me. Jen Krouse, who leads our Office of Performance Management, spends the next half-hour, hour, or however long it takes going over slide after slide of chart after chart, all of which measure how we’re doing in delivering city services to you.

I paint that picture today because I want you to know exactly what it looks like to measure results and hold city government accountable -- precisely what I promised to do.

Today, we’re following through with a third leg of that pledge: We’re making the data more accessible to you.

You can find this month’s presentation HERE.

You’re seeing one of the tools I use to evaluate how city government works -- and where we need to improve.

There are numbers in this document that make us proud. And there are numbers that need more work. We’re presenting this data, warts and all, because you, the taxpayer, deserve the unvarnished truth of how we’re performing.

That’s transparency.

Our commitment to use data to improve city functions, though, doesn’t just begin and end with one meeting. Jen’s team at OPM serves as an in-house consultancy. If the data shows a challenge in a particular function, her team is there to get to the bottom of it and find ways to improve.

I’ll give you an example. A few months back, we realized we needed additional work on getting invoices from vendors paid in a shorter amount of time. (It’s important, because if you’re a small business doing work with the city, you don’t have the luxury of waiting a long time for payment.) So the OPM team led us in an exercise to map the accounts payable process and uncover where the obstacles are. It was an extra hour after the usual meeting -- and yes, I took part, too. It’s too early for the data to tell us if this worked, but it is an example of the deliberate approach we’re taking to improvement.

Here's a photo from that exercise:

 

We’re making the data a priority and we’re making decisions based on it. The simple existence of a monthly check-in, with group input and the city’s leadership at the front of the room, sends the message that this matters to me.

You’ll start to hear more and more about this from us. Down the road, you’ll be able to access this data at your own convenience, as opposed to us simply posting the monthly check-in. Also down the road, I hope to be able to share more data and measure more functions of city government.

But in the meantime, we didn’t want to just talk about holding city government accountable -- we wanted to show you how we do it.

Again, you can find the data here, or on our Communications office’s Useful Documents page.

MWBE moves: Earlier this week, we publicly touted a handful of initiatives to help small, minority, and women-owned businesses in our city. Again, not just talk -- but real, tangible actions and programs that will advance our goal of increasing MWBE activity.

You can learn more about the Propel accelerator here, and you should visit smartstartmem.com for everything you need to start your business.

Congratulations, Alexis: Who was named Best New Hire in The Memphis Flyer’s annual Best of Memphis edition this week? Alexis Pugh, our new Memphis Animal Services director, who is off to a great start. Thanks to the Flyer and former staff writer Bianca Phillips for recognizing Alexis!

Thanks, AutoZone: It has been fun watching all of the AutoZoners in town this week for their annual national sales meeting at the Memphis Cook Convention Center. It’s a reminder of the impact of this great company, and we thank them for being a great corporate citizen.

Yours,