Marrying Data-Informed Management and the Budget
As public servants we’re thoroughly familiar with the budget cycle designed to pass our budgets by a specific date. Here’s how it generally works: First, a baseline budget is released, accounting for inflation and cost of living adjustments. Cases are then made for enhancements and these proposals are thoroughly analyzed. After the budget officers make decisions about these proposals, the budget is passed along to elected officials. The budget then goes through amendments, gets adopted, and we shift into the monitoring phase. Year after year, we follow this cycle-wash, rinse, repeat. We know the rhythm and adhere to it diligently.
What if cities and states were as structured and predictable in their management functions? I am referring to the work of offices called “Management and Budget” or “Budget and Management.” Whatever the order, I find that the prioritization of management functions often gets lost. Data informed functions like performance evaluations and policy analysis are not well integrated into the budget cycle and can lose their impact.
We need to be more intentional about culture, systems, and practices that support this function. Management practices can be as predictable and unavoidable as the budget cycle.
As we explore this possibility, let us unpack common pitfalls and potential solutions.
Performative performance management
A common practice is for government departments to report performance metrics at regular intervals, often every month or every quarter. I applaud this discipline. The predictable reporting cadence enables the review of metrics with every annual budget request.
But even though the practice is in place, the results that it should deliver are often missing in action. Over the past few decades, I have observed that many programs go through the motions while habit and preference win the day. There’s often no connection between what’s reported and the resulting budgets. Performance management teams are not staffed for the person-to-person effort connecting performance metrics and budget requires. Yet the ritual continues without challenge and the purposes of the performance management can lose meaning.
Opportunities to make a difference
It is up to us in the management community to take every opportunity to make it easier for the budgeters to take our hard work and make it an integral part of the budgeting process. For example, making the connections between what the data say and the resource considerations that budget offices will have to take into account can be a route to success.
Providing context is critical, too. Data which is presented without a demographic lens can bury the impact to a vulnerable community. Including variables like seasonality and other external factors are central to making a persuasive case.
One often missed opportunity comes when leaders attempt to interpret data without the employees that understand it best — the front-line employees. This can be due to a lack of data stewards or not including a data steward type in the analysis.
Avoid blind confidence in consultants
Having spent eight years in management consulting, I have seen both sides of the impact consultants have in public sector management. Often, they fill critical skill gaps. As a result, we become highly dependent on them.
Like any employee, consultants vary in breadth and depth of their expertise. No matter the skill, they can only provide part of the puzzle. I have seen leadership treat consultant findings like gospel. It may be. But know for thyself!
Pressure test their insights by running them by the main players — front line employees and their customers. Look under the hood as if you were purchasing a vehicle. You may not be a mechanic, but if something doesn’t look or sound right you ask more questions. This way if it is missing the mark, you learn that. If it is spot on — you will have internalized it and know it for yourself.
Elevating management practices in offices of management and budget requires a mindset shift.
Waiting until the budget meetings to think together does not work. When we are under pressure we default to our inclinations and that is what leads to incremental management practices. I know I have been guilty of suggesting — “let’s put this aside until we are done with the budget.” The famous last words of many a good intention.
Central to success in this effort are at least four essential elements:
Treat management as a multidisciplinary approach.
Identify who those partners are throughout the organization and treat them as your core team to implement those practices.
Establish a rhythm to address management functions like resource allocation, labor contracts, or ineffective practices.
Create a culture of planning together, solving together, and often overlooked — learning together. The aim is to develop shared tools to address shared goals. Prioritize it and put it to practice on schedule. Build the habits together.
By integrating shared management practices into our routine operations, we can move beyond the performative aspects of reporting. This requires us to prioritize data literacy, think creatively about our challenges, and engage more partners in the management process. Management practices do not need to be statutorily required to bring accountability. It can become something more meaningful. Something that promises to bring more connection and impact to our communities.
Originally published at https://gfrc.uic.edu.
