So let's have a look at performance accountability,
everybody, and remembering that performance accountability is
about the clients of a programme, agency, team,
or system.
OK?
So now we're talking about clients.
We're talking about client outcomes.
Now we talked earlier about three types
of performance measures, OK, three types
of performance measures.
We always use these performance measures when we're talking
about the clients of a service programme, agency, or system,
and when we want to understand whether or not, for example,
a program is actually working.
And there are three types of performance measures, everyone.
I know that you're dying to say it with me,
but I won't make you today.
They are, how much did we do?
How well did we do it?
But most importantly, is anyone any better off?
OK?
That's the most critical performance measure anybody
could ever ask about a service programme, agency, or system.
Are your clients-- are your clients-- the word
anyone, remember, represents your clients--
are your clients better off?
And as you can see, we've got a quadrant here.
And I just want to quickly talk to you about that.
How much did we do?
We're actually measuring the quantity of effort, OK?
We're measuring the quantity of effort.
And it's always a number.
How well did we do it?
We're measuring the quality of our effort.
But the most important question is what is the quantity,
and what is the quality of our effect?
Were we actually effective in terms of the service,
programme, or initiative that we were delivering--
the absolutely most critical question we can ask of any
programme and/or initiative.
OK.
So let's have a few examples here.
This is an education example.
Of course, you can have more than one performance measure
in any quadrant.
But for the purposes of the one hour intro,
I've just got four there.
So this is some kind of education institute
or provider, for example-- how much did we do,
the quantity of our effort, number of students.
OK?
So the students are the clients of this particular provider.
Number of students-- we always want
to know how many clients we have.
Quality-- how well do we do it, the quality of our effort.
One example of a quality measure, for example,
might be the student-teacher ratio.
It just depends on who you talk to.
But remembering that's just an example today.
So student-teacher ratio could be
an example of a performance measure related
to how well did we do it?
What was the quality of our work?
But most importantly, the question
is, is anyone any better off?
Are the clients, are the students,
of this particular education provider, any better off?
We're going to measure that through the number
and percentage of graduates e.g., the graduation rate, OK?
If students aren't graduating from this particular institute
or provider, then we know that it's
a signal that they certainly aren't any better off.
That's for sure.
I just want to talk you quickly about the use
of a number and a percent, OK, a number and a percent.
Let's just say I'm the principal of the school.
And I come to you.
And you're my fabulous board.
And I say to you, look.
I've had an absolutely wonderful year.
And I've had 100 graduates.
OK, 100 graduates-- that's my number.
Thank you very much.
I'd like a $500,000 pay rise.
And you say to me, yeah, that's fantastic, Sharon.
Absolutely.
No problem.
Here you go.
OK?
But what I failed to tell you was that I had 1,000 students.
OK?
So the proportionate impact, or the proportion of effect,
was actually very low.
It was only 10%.
OK?
But as a responsible board using RBA,
you would throw that back at me, how much,
how well, any better off?
And then we would partner together those seven questions,
which would enable us to turn the curve on that 10%
graduation rate up, OK?
So I'll give back half my pay rise,
and then you can use the rest for
incentive-based performance.
So let's have a look at this, another example here.
And I'd like to acknowledge the Ministry
of Social Development, Vicky Lazenby and Shelley Marshall.
So this is a real life example.
It's a breakthrough integrated case management
service that's funded by MSD.
And this service provides some additional case management
support for at-risk youth and youth
who actually need a little bit more support,
but are not quite at-risk at this point in time.
So how much, how well, any better off?
How much, how well, any better off?
How much did we do?
We're measuring the quantity of our effort.
So the number of clients, we always want to know that.
And also, they're looking at the number of client completions.
How well did we do it?
The performance measure here is the percentage of clients
satisfied or very satisfied with service-- satisfaction
rates-- a very important measure of how well did we do it?
And also, the percentage of completions,
OK, so the proportion of clients who are actually
completing their plans.
And the most important question is anyone any better
off-- anyone, representing the client.
OK?
So here we have three measures, number and percentage
of clients who report.
The service us helped them to access or connect
to other services or supports they needed.
OK?
Helped them to access or connect to other services
or supports they need-- that's what we call
is subject of performance measure.
We're asking for the opinion of the client.
And it's about whether or not the service actually
helped them to do something.
We also have two objective performance measures here,
the percentage of clients in education, training,
or employment, and also the percentage of clients
who did not reoffend-- OK-- two great
better off performance measures in terms of positive behavior
change, and potentially whole of circumstance change,
for those particular youth.
OK.
So this is your new best mate slide.
Little did you know, but actually, we
have got copies for you at the end of the day.
So don't walk out without one.
And what I do is I encourage all my clients
to utilize this slide when you're designing or developing
performance measures.
And what's great about this particular slide
is that you can put it up on your fridge
where you can be potentially put it
next to your bed and lovingly read it at night.
And I know that that's what some of my clients do.
OK.
So separating the wheat from the chaff,
different types of performance measures, how much, how well,
any better off?
So how much did we do?
That's about the number of clients, or customers served.
You always want to know that core piece of information.
But also, you might want to look at the number of activities
that you're delivering as part of your service programme
or initiative.
How well did we do it?
Again, this is about the quality of the work that's
being delivered.
Now there are two types of how well do did we do it
performance measures, which we encourage you to have a look
at when you're designing yours for your service, programme,
or initiative.
Firstly, there are common measures here.
So examples are client-staff ratio, work-load ratio,
staff morale, staff fully trained, et cetera.
Those are examples of common performance measures.
How well did we do it?
You're very welcome to use any of those
if you think they're relevant to you.
There are also what we call activity specific measures.
So activity specific measures are basically
looking at the quality of particular activities.
Now I'm going to share a bit of wisdom
with you at this point in time.
You cannot develop an activity specific quality measure if you
do not know what your activity is.
OK?
It's amazing, isn't it?
I'd thought I share that with you.
Activity specific measures are usually
something to do with the timeliness of the activity,
the completion of the activity, whether or not
that activity actually meets a standard.
But most importantly, every one, and what we're focusing on here
today is client outcomes.
What are the outcomes that you are achieving
with and for your clients?
So the most critical performance measure,
is anyone any better off?
Anyone equals your clients, OK?
Now what we suggest is that there
are four categories of outcomes that you might want
to have a look at when you're designing your performance
measures.
So first of all, skills and knowledge, OK?
How have your client's skills and knowledge actually improved
as a result of utilizing your service?
Attitude/Opinion.
How has the attitude or opinion of your clients
positively changed in terms of your service delivery?
Behaviour.
How has the behaviour changed of clients in a positive way
associated with your service?
And last but not least, circumstance change.
Has the whole of circumstance of this particular client group
changed in relation to the service delivery?
Circumstance change, I once asked
Mark Friedman what that meant.
And he said, well, you can use it
as a catch-all, any particular outcome that
doesn't fit into one or more of these categories,
you can use circumstance change, which
I thought was very helpful.
Just quickly, a little note here--
point in time versus point to point.
OK?
So you can have different types of improvement.
So a point in time is basically at this particular time
has that client outcome improved?
Whereas a point to point is from, say,
year one to year two.
What was the point to point change?
What was the point to point improvement?
And sometimes this is where your targets kick in.
So the point might be 50%.
And then you want the second point
to be 40% or something like that.
That's point to point.
What we suggest in RBA is at any turn of the data curve,
be it an indicator curve or a performance measure curve,
any curve, any turn of that curve away from the baseline,
either up or down, depending on where you want to go,
is improvement.
OK.
So everybody, now, here we said seven questions for population.
There were also seven questions for performance.
And those of you who have memorized
the seven questions for population
will automatically realize that we're
starting at a different point, aren't we,
when we talk about performance accountability.
Because the number one question is about who are our clients?
OK?
Who are our clients?
But for the student population accountability questions,
the number one question was, who is our population?
OK?
So now we're talking about who are our clients?
A fascinating conversation to have with your team,
or within your own agency, or system,
because often we have different views of who our clients are.
And the critical issue is how can you
define an outcome for your client
if your team is thinking about different clients?
OK?
Great conversations to have.
Number two, how can we measure if our clients are better off?
Is anyone better off equals client outcome.
So we want to understand how can we measure
if our clients are better off.
We also want to understand how we can measure if we
are delivering services well.
OK?
If we are delivering services well,
and that's the performance measure, how well did we do it?
And then once we've identified our end, then
what we want to do is understand, again,
like in the population, turn the curve seven questions,
we want to understand for the performance, what
is the baseline data?
And what is the story, OK, so any piece of data
we need to understand the baseline data.
But we also need to understand what's the story?
Again, what are the causal factors associated
with the baseline data?
And five, who are the partners?
Again, RBA is very inclusive.
We always like to ask the question, who
are the partners that have a role to play?
Number six, what works to do better?
What works to do better including no-cost, low-cost?
And again, we encourage you to use common sense ideas,
but also research where available
in evidence-based practice.
And number seven, what do we propose to do?
So that's our action plan associated with performance
accountability.
And in particular, how are we going to achieve clients
being better off?
These are our means.
And these are our ends.
OK?
Like before, for population accountability,
here is a diagrammatic version of the seven questions.
Again, I'm not going to spend too much time here.
But you can ask questions, queries.
Try and find out more information and research
throughout any part of that journey from ends to means.