Lessons Learned from a Performance Management Implementation

This presentation will focus on the City of Minneapolis' Water Treatment and Distribution Services (WTDS) journey to implement a performance management program. WTDS selected a consultant to support the implementation of the program. WTDS integrated change management principles into the program to allow for greater buy-in. A steering team was developed to guide the program and working teams were developed to help make key decisions related to their areas of expertise. WTDS also hosted a series of workshops to gain internal stakeholder buy in. Prior to the project WTDS did not have formalized and documented levels of service statements nor an underlying performance management system. Goals of the project included: - Implementing a performance management program by identifying and documenting levels of service and accompanying performance measures for the utility - Providing line of sight from WTDS's strategic plan to its utility operations and asset management program Very early in the project WTDS identified that there was a need to update its existing strategic plan. Not all of WTDS's strategic initiatives are currently captured in the current strategic plan. The Levels of Service categories identified as part of this project will help inform a future project to update the plan. Performance measures will be used to align WTDS's goals with its asset management program and will be leveraged to educate internal and external stakeholders. The metrics will allow staff to track and trend the utility's performance over time. The project started with a kick-off meeting to establish the goals and boundaries of the program and then moved through a series of workshops, interviews and information and data gathering exercises. Along the way WTDS decided to expand the performance management program to focus on all utility operations not just its physical assets. This was driven largely by the utility's interest in developing levels of service around its employees and its customers in addition to its physical assets. The project utilized the Effective Utility Management (EUM) Primer framework along with the AWWA Benchmarking survey. One of the main parts of the project was identifying, prioritizing and selecting levels of service for the utility. To start each WTDS group met and ranked the ten EUM attributes (Product Quality, Customer Satisfaction, Operational Optimization, Infrastructure Stability, Operational Resiliency, Employee and Leadership Development, Community Stability, and Financial Viability) from high to low priority. The groups also ranked WTDS's achievement in each of these areas, from high to low achievement. The three or four highest priority attributes were then selected for the next part of the exercise. The groups identified levels of service categories that they believed would be best for WTDS to use for each of the top EUM attributes. After validating the levels of service categories, levels of service statements were drafted, revised, and finalized. These statements will be used to communicate more effectively with customers and stakeholders. The other main part of the project was identifying, vetting, and selecting performance measures. Example performance measures for each of the levels of service categories were identified based on alignment with AWWA's Benchmarking Survey, EUM Primer suggested measures, other best-in-class utilities, and WTDS's own ideas. Small groups of subject matter experts then worked together to select performance measures that best represented the level of service category. The process used to select performance measures balanced data availability, data quality, how directly the data measures the service, and ability to benchmark externally. Many of the metrics are now required reporting in the states that require asset management programs. These performance metrics can be applied to water and wastewater utilities throughout the US. Many of the metrics have benchmarks for comparison based on the national, geographic region, and size of the utility averages. The presentation will review the process and lessons learned from the implementation of the performance management program including the identification, vetting, and selection of levels of service and performance measures as discussed above. The presentation will also provide background information on levels of service and performance measures and some of the more unique aspects that affected WTDS's decision process as described below: - What is a level of service and how do you get all stakeholders to use the same terminology? - What are the different ways in which levels of service are expressed including leading and lagging indicators? - How EUM attributes can be used to identify and prioritize levels of service categories - How WTDS balanced its desire to have customized and unique performance measures with its desire to benchmark externally - How to make sure the levels of service were the right measures for WTDS. One example is reliability where a typical performance measure is break rate. However, WTDS' break rate is very low and would not be a good indicator of system performance for the distribution system. -The process of reviewing existing data sources — understanding the quality of the data and the value of the data to the particular level of service