Performance Management Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Non-Profit’

Rating and Ranking Countries from World Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group

Friday, January 7th, 2011

A very interesting conference presentation by Victoria Elliott and Helena Tang from the Independent Evaluation Group.

The Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) is an independent unit within the World Bank; it reports directly to the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors. IEG assesses what works, and what does not; how a borrower plans to run and maintain a project; and the lasting contribution of the Bank to a country’s overall development. The goals of evaluation are to learn from experience, to provide an objective basis for assessing the results of the Bank’s work, and to provide accountability in the achievement of its objectives. It also improves Bank work by identifying and disseminating the lessons learned from experience and by framing recommendations drawn from evaluation findings (IEG, 2011)

Rating and Ranking Countries – Presenters Helena Tang and Victoria Elliott from Independent Evaluation Group on Vimeo.

IEG experts highlight key aspects of their recent evaluation of World Bank’s Doing Business program and discuss country ratings.

References

IEG 2011, About IEG available at http://www.worldbank.org/ accessed 7 Jan 2011

Tags: evaluation, Helena Tang, IEG, Independent Evaluation Group, Non-Profit, Rating and Ranking Countries, Victoria Elliott, World Bank
Posted in KPI, Measure, Performance Measurement | No Comments »

Measuring performance in non-profit organisations

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

A recent www.smartKPIs.com blog post, ‘Social and Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions’, outlined that Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are strongly associated with a social mission, therefore MFIs performance focuses both on social impact and financial outcomes (smartKPIs.com, 2010).

In turn, Non-profit organisations manage and measure performance using various KPIs in order to cover social impact performance, financial and grant performance, as well as effectiveness and other operational aspects. However, in comparison to MFIs, non-profit organisations use specific KPIs for their domain and less customer oriented indicators.

A newly published KPI in practice, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, presents a customized approach regarding performance management, by developing its own performance framework with annual KPIs for review.

Their performance framework is shaped as a pyramid, building from an assessment of the core functions of the Global Fund Secretariat at the base, through evaluation of grant performance and the effectiveness of Global Fund financing, to measuring the impact achieved on the three epidemics: AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (The Global Fund, 2010).

Framework Overview

Source: The Global Fund (2010)

The performance framework implementation presents the following benefits:

differentiating the organizational performance of the Global Fund and the performance of the Secretariat’s internal operations
facilitating the assignment of responsibilities to different teams
offering a stable and comprehensive measurement framework over time
grouping KPIs into different areas of performance
aligning the reporting frequencies with the data availability and reporting systems (The Global Fund, 2010).

For additional information with regards to The Global Fund KPI in practice and for further examples of non-profit performance reports explore the Non-Profit / Non-governmental KPIs in practice section of smartkpis.com (smartKPIs.com 2010).

References:

The Global Fund 2010, Key Performance Indicators, available at: http://www.theglobalfund.org/en/performance/kpi/ (accessed 1 September 2010)

smartKPIs.com 2010, Social and Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions, available at: http://www.smartkpis.com/blog/2010/06/02/social-and-financial-performance-of-microfinance-institutions/ (accessed 1 September 2010)

smartKPIs.com 2010, Non-Profit / Non-governmental KPIs in practice, available at: http://www.smartkpis.com/kpi_examples_in_practice/industries/non-profit-non-governmental/ (accessed 1 September 2010)

Tags: Microfinance Institutions, Non-Profit, Social Performance, The Global Fund
Posted in Case Study, KPIs in practice, Performance Management, Performance Measurement, smartKPIs.com | No Comments »

Working with initiatives in Performance Management – Check and Act vs. Study and Act

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

smartKPIs.com Performance Architect update 23/2010

In one of my previous updates I reviewed the history of the Deming cycle and its relevance for Performance Management. One of the most important benefits of managing performance in organizations is that it facilitates a structured process of improving the achieved results, which is the essence of performance.

Improvement doesn’t automatically derive from measurement. A robust process of analysis and decision making is required to facilitate suitable actions or initiatives. And to illustrate this process, Study as in the PDSA cycle is more meaningful than the Check as in the PDCA cycle.

The Performance Management case study presented the scenario of a non-profit organization interested in addressing childhood development issues. Some of the measures used were:

% Incidents of anemia
# Average scores on language and communication skills for toddlers
# Average scores for vocabulary tests

Using the traditional Plan – Do – Check – Act (PDCA) approach, the Check and Act phases would resume to gathering performance results data, reviewing it and taking actions to improve results. Generally the initiatives established as a result of this process would aim at doing more of the same thing. Improve efficiency or increase the volume of efforts.

However, a subtle change, that might appear superficial and technical to some, might mean more that it seems. Replacing Check with Study, shifts the emphasis from control and fixing the existing approach to learning and finding new ways to address the issue. For many years performance management has been associated with checking, inspecting, and controlling conformance. Performance Management for learning is a more balanced, mature approach to improvement.

In the case analyzed above, a review of the literature in the field and the latest research in the area of children health and development would reveal that the solution to the stagnation in achieving results might come from a surprising new direction. Under the title “Housing, Health, and Happiness” a new study published by the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy reveals that “replacing dirt floors with cement floors interrupts the transmission of parasitic infestations and should therefore reduce the incidence of both diarrhea and anemia. The reduction in anemia is expected to have positive effects on cognitive development” (Cattaneo et al, 2009).

The study, commissioned by the Mexican government, reveals the following results achieved during the experiment conducted in Mexico (UCBerkeleyNews, 2009):

20.1% reduction in incidents of anemia
30.2 percent higher score on the McArthur test (language and communication skills for toddlers ages 12 to 30 months)
9% improvement in the scores obtained in the PPVT test (vocabulary tests for children ages 36 to 71 months)

When limiting themselves to checking the data and doing more of the same thing, organizations do not create the suitable conditions for leaning and integrating new ideas. Expanding the scope of inquiry from current approaches to researching new ones and investigating what happens in the field they operate in around the world, the improvement process benefits from using a more robust view on performance management, that emphasize the role of the study component.

In the case described above, reviewing recent research in the issue of health and early childhood development reveals a potential new approach that might just be the solution sought after. Setting up a new initiative that aims at replacing dirt floors with cement promises to a positive impact on the health and cognitive development of young children in the targeted community.

Study puts initiatives management in a new light.

Stay smart! Enjoy smartKPIs.com!

Aurel Brudan

Performance Architect,
www.smartKPIs.com

References

Cattaneo, Matias D., Sebastian Galiani, Paul J. Gertler, Sebastian Martinez, and Rocio Titiunik. 2009. “Housing, Health, and Happiness” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 1(1): 75–105. Note: a working paper version of the article is available at: http://www.stanford.edu/group/siepr/cgi-bin/siepr/?q=system/files/shared/pubs/papers/pdf/SCID367.pdf

UCBerkeleyNews, 2009, “Inexpensive flooring change improves child health in urban slums” available at: http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2009/03/10_floors.shtml, accessed 05 June 2010.

Tags: Deming cycle, Initiative, Non-Profit, PDCA, PDSA
Posted in Case Study, Government, KPI, KPIs in practice, Performance Architect update, Performance Management, Performance Measurement | No Comments »

Performance Management case study: Plan – Do – Check – Act (PDCA) in a non-profit organization

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

smartKPIs.com Performance Architect update 22/2010

Improving children’s quality of life in developing countries is today a priority of thousands of non-for-profit organizations. It is a difficult journey, influenced by many macro and microeconomic, political, social, cultural and religious factors. Many such efforts are structured in programs and projects. Monitoring not only their implementation, but also their impact is a requirement not only for tracking if they make a difference, but also for attracting new funding and other resources for future programs. Overall, many non-profit programs employ robust performance management systems to support the achievement of their purpose. Designing and using such systems is not as straightforward as it may seem.

Organisation

A non-profit organization.

Setting

The organization operates in both urban and rural regions, implementing programs and projects targeting specific health and early childhood development issues.

Mandate

Improve the health and education of children in at risk communities in developing countries.

Instruments

A performance management system is in place, linking objectives, performance indicators and initiatives.

Performance indicators

To monitor the achievement of this objective a set of performance measures can be established, targeting some of the specific issues to be addressed. For example:

% Incidents of anemia

# Average scores on language and communication skills for toddlers

# Average scores for vocabulary tests

Scenario

The organization is following the standard Deming cycle applied in a performance management context: Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA). Each year it formulates a plan of activities, specifying objectives, performance indicators and projects to be implemented. It monitors results every six months, when following an analysis of these results, review meetings take place. They generally result in a recalibration of initiatives and sometimes new ones are established. Several programs and projects are running at any time, aimed at raising awareness in the community of health and educational issues. Additional projects targeted specific issues such as improving the economic situation of the families in the community, better equipping the kindergarten / primary school and training the educators.

Some success was reflected by the reduction of the incidents of anemia and improvement in the scores.

However, after a while, the performance reports started to reflect a stabilization of results and no further improvements were achieved.

Questions

What changes to the existing portfolio of projects and programs should the organization make to improve results?
How should the organization alter the Performance Management System in use to facilitate better results?
What approach to stakeholder management should the organization take to facilitate sustainable changes in the community?

Stay smart! Enjoy smartKPIs.com!

Aurel Brudan

Performance Architect,
www.smartKPIs.com

Discuss the case in the smartKPIs.com Forum

This Performance Management Case Study is now available in the smartKPIs.com Forum, where members of the smartKPIs.com community are invited to contribute to the discussion (after logging in by using their registration details). New members are invited to join (for free) the smartKPIs.com community.

Tags: Education, healthcare, Non-Profit
Posted in Case Study, Government, KPI, Performance Architect update, Performance Management, Performance Measurement, smartKPIs.com | No Comments »