Real Business Intelligence Insights: The Performance Management Imperative

Business Intelligence (BI) is defined as “knowledge gained through the access and analysis of business information”.?The tools and technologies that enable BI tools include query and reporting, OLAP (online analytical processing), data mining and advanced analytics, end-user tools for ad-hoc query and analysis, and dashboards for performance monitoring.?This definition, from Howard Dresner’s 2007 book “The Performance Management Revolution: Business Results Through Insight and Action”, has truly stood the test of time with a constantly evolving BI technology and solutions landscape.?Our Dresner Advisory Services Wisdom of Crowds Enterprise Performance Management Market Study Report covers solutions that allows organizations to plan for the impact of various internal and external factors on its future performance and business outcomes.?Our premier flagship research The Wisdom of Crowds BI Market Study has been tracking Business Intelligence (BI), data, and analytics for years; like EPM, Performance Management is a key capability that cuts across BI and with it, EPM.?All of this contributes to the success of BI solutions leveraging Performance Management in organizations of all sizes, across all industries.?

I tremendously enjoyed working in a global marketing Business Management Office (BMO) for several years, focused upon Marketing Performance Management.?Our work included dashboards, reporting of marketing-sourced pipeline and revenues, and performance across key performance indicators (KPIs).??All of this was supported by regular governance and reviews, ensuring complete alignment with the business and key stakeholders. It was my great pleasure to recently discuss this fascinating area of work with Courtney Moores, Director of Performance Management at the City of Boston.?Courtney will be part of the outstanding faculty at our fifth annual Dresner Advisory Services Real Business Intelligence conference coming up September 21st and 22nd 2021.?She will join Stefanie Costa Leabo, the Chief Data Officer (CDO) for the City of Boston, in their keynote session “Step Up and Start Your CDO Journey”.

Q: Courtney, how does Performance Management contribute to success for “Data Leaders”??How do we define key programs to ensure increased data literacy, and with-it, greater success of BI, data, and analytics initiatives?

A: Performance Management really contributes to success for all leaders and not just Data Leaders. When leaders have truly thought-out measures of success, they can easily see how they are doing and quickly figure out what might be causing below target numbers and address it before it gets worse. When measures are created just for compliance but don't actually reflect the performance of a department, team, etc., those numbers don't actually help to inform decisions and don't help alert when things might be moving in the wrong direction.

Where Data Leaders come into play more than others is helping to create those higher quality measures of success. Those that understand the importance of data and how it leads to better decision making, can help to create measures that actually show performance. They're not coming up with counting measures that just track activity within the City of Boston, but instead how departments are actually performing and what is causing the good/poor performance.

When it comes to local government, which is often slow and resistant to change, it's important to make data approachable and less intimidating. Many in local government are scared of analytics projects or conversations because it's new to them. So, it's critical for us as Data Leaders to be patient with those that are new to data and analytics. If we put in the time to make sure that people can not only start to understand what data actually is and how to use it, but to also understand its power, then we start to break down those barriers. As those people start to get comfortable with using data, they'll encourage others to do the same, and gradually data literacy will improve, and analytics becomes a more natural part of day-to-day operations.

?Q: How does your team and the work you do benefit from data leadership, including reporting to the Chief Data Officer (CDO) for the City of Boston? How do you measure the success of your Performance Management initiatives?

A: Quality Performance Management work in local government is difficult to pull off without buy-in from the Mayor's administration. Without that buy-in, many departments look at Performance Management as a compliance exercise. It's important for the Mayor and their administration to understand the role of Performance Management and data. When they can communicate that importance with Cabinet Chiefs, that allows my team to have more meaningful conversations about data within each cabinet and how to measure success.

The Performance Management team of course benefits from reporting to our CDO, Stefanie Costa Leabo, and her data leadership. Stefanie has helped to teach leadership in the City of Boston the importance of data when it comes to decision making, as well as the increased role that data can play. As mentioned before, the more buy-in we can get at a Chief level, the better our data and our Performance Management program is going to be, and that starts with Stef, our CDO.

It's a little embarrassing to admit, but we currently do not have an actual KPI to measure the success of our Performance Management initiatives. Right now, measuring our success is not a clean KPI and is instead just tracking general progress. However, as the Director of Performance Management, I of course understand the importance of having a measure like this, and it is certainly something in the works.

Q: Courtney, one of the most common questions we get among “Data Leaders” is “how do I get started and become a Chief Data Officer (CDO) (or Chief Analytics Officer (CAO) also a key role for data leadership). In your domain of Performance Management, how does one get started, what are the requisite skills needed, and what is the mix of business and technology focus for a team’s BI projects?

A: I think I've had a pretty unique path to getting to my Director of Performance Management role (reporting to the CDO). I started working in finance, then marketing and advertising. I started working with sales data, then spent 4 years working almost exclusively with survey data. From there I was working mostly with social and web analytics. After that is when I made the move to local government, using all kinds of data across the City of Boston. My job and industry have drastically changed a few times, as has the type of data I've been working with. However, I've always been working with data in some capacity and having to navigate varying levels of data literacy and skill sets across my colleagues and clients/stakeholders.

While the technical skills are of course important (especially as someone is starting a career in data and is actually doing the analysis and reporting work), a bigger picture understanding of how data fits into an organization and how to build a data literate culture is equally, if not more, important. This type of understanding comes from exposure to different types of data work but also interacting with people of varying skills and comfort levels when it comes to working with data. Instead of starting too technical, it's important to know how to meet people where they are and build that trust to improve their familiarity and help them to become a data believer and advocate

Courtney, we appreciate your great insights as a practitioner of Performance Management and so much more.?We look forward to your session with Stefanie at this year’s Real Business Intelligence Conference and your outstanding contribution to our program.???

Be sure to visit the Real Business Intelligence 2021 Web site for the latest information on content and speakers and register now for the on-line event.?As a bonus, ticket sales help benefit charity.?Be sure to join the Dresner Advisory Services team for their free educational Luncheon Learning webinars.

Courtney Moores is the Director of Performance Management at the City of Boston and helps make local government more effective and more efficient with BI, reporting, and analytics.

Connect with her on LinkedIn

Fred Isbell is a Research Director at Dresner Advisory Services, a high technology industry marketing veteran and former Senior Marketing Director for SAP Global Marketing.???

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