Performance measurement is a valuable tool for government.
And, for that matter, businesses and communities
too. It is a tool that not only measures results,
but can also be used to improve them.
In government, we use
it as a yardstick to measure our progress and to
see how close we are to achieving the goals we set
out in the
Government Business Plan. It helps us track
trends and plan for the future.
Alberta was the first
provincial government in the country to adopt publicly
reported results based performance measurement and
our leadership has encouraged others to follow,
using our system as a model to develop their own.
Click here for a list
of links to other performance
measurement sites.
While performance measurement
is a very complex science, it is based on a few
simple principles:
- Measure the right
stuff.
If you want to know
how wealthy Albertans are, you could look at their
gross earnings. However, this does not reflect
how much money they take home. To measure how
wealthy Albertans really are, it's best to measure
what percentage of their income stays in their
pocket.
- Find the
most accurate measures and use them consistently.
It’s important to
maintain consistency in what and how you measure.
This is what gives us the ability to track trends
and see the results of programs and services that
are operated over the long-term.
We haven’t yet figured
out all the best ways to measure our performance,
but we’re working on it. The quality of the information
in Measuring Up has improved steadily.
- Report
the results.
Good information
is of no value if no one knows about it. Albertans
are encouraged to examine the results for themselves
in our
Measuring Up report and in our
ministry annual reports.
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