Breaking down silos and boosting results through HUDStat: An interview with Lisa Danzig of HUD

April 24, 2012 By Andy Feldman

I think the benefit of HUDStat is that instead of [for example] public housing [staff] looking at the various metrics they’re looking at to manage appropriately and multi-family housing [staff] doing the same thing, you’re doing this holistically to say: We’re going to serve 200,000 more families this year and we’re going to collective strive to achieve that goal.” -Lisa Danzig

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has 9,000 employees and a $46 billion budget. How does the agency focus its numerous staff and diverse programs on critical goals? It uses HUDStat, launched in 2010.

Each quarter, key staff related to each goal from various departments within HUD come to a HUDStat meeting, led by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, to review performance data and discuss ways to boost results. By having detailed data at hand, the participants can understand what’s working and what’s not. By having key staff all in one room, questions can get answered quickly. Each HUDStat meeting produces specific action items that are then reviewed in the next meeting.

HUD currently has seven priority goals, including ones related to homelessness, foreclosure, and energy efficiency. That means there are seven HUDStat meetings per quarter, each focusing on a different goal.

In some ways, HUDStat is similar to other “PerformanceStat” initiatives such as CitiStat in Baltimore. In other ways, it it relatively unique, including the fact that meetings focus on cross-agency goals (not specific departments) and that the agency Secretary leads the meetings rather than one of his deputies.

To learn more about HUDStat, we’re joined by Lisa Danzig, the Director of Strategic Planning and Management for HUD.

Interview questions

Q1: How would you describe HUDStat?
Q2: The agency secretary leads the meeting?
Q3: Who else is in HUDStat meetings?
Q4: How is HUDStat different from more traditional management check-in meetings?
Q5: HUDStat meetings focus on cross-agency goals, not individual agencies?
Q6: Tell us more about how HUDStat meetings are structured.

Web extras

Lisa Danzig provided additional information on HUDStat and the audio is posted here.

Advice to federal, state, or local agency leaders who are interested in adopting a HUDStat-like initiative:

A benefit of tabulating and sharing data through the HUDStat process: positive “peer pressure” to increase results:

The motivation behind the launch of HUDStat in 2010:

HUD’s current priority goals (recall that each HUDStat meeting focuses on a different goal, with every goal covered once per quarter):

She describes the staff work involved in preparing for HUDStat meetings and some upcoming advances in the model:

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Outcome budgeting in Baltimore: An interview with Andrew Kleine, budget director

April 23, 2012 By Andy Feldman

Basically, we’ve been able to shift resources from lower value to higher value programs…It takes a lot of commitment from the leadership of the jurisdiction, it’s a lot of work, and there’s a lot of lessons that you learn along the way and make adjustments. But it pays off.” -Andrew Kleine

A growing trend among cities and states in the U.S. is outcome budgeting. Baltimore began using outcome budgeting in Fiscal Year 2011 under the leadership of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and her budget director — and our guest on the Gov Innovator blog — Andrew Kleine. The results include more dollars to high-value programs, the reduction or elimination of low-value programs, and new thinking and innovation in the delivery of services to citizens.

Interview questions

Q1: How do you describe outcome budgeting?
Q2: Can you give us some more details about how things have changed because of outcome budgeting in Baltimore?
Q3: What about the broader effects?

Web extra

Andrew Kleine gives advice to jurisdictions that may be considering implementing outcome budgeting, including the use of consultants and also staffing issues.

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Results-focused city government through SomerStat: An interview with Joseph Curtatone, Mayor of Somerville, Massachusetts

April 21, 2012 By Andy Feldman

SomerStat is a management approach using data on a real-time basis to gauge the effectiveness of our policies, programs and managers … [It's about] taking the data at our hands and asking the basic question of why: Why are we performing so well? … Why are we underperforming? … Without it, I’d say, up until that point we were sort of driving a car blindfolded for many years.”  -Mayor Joseph Curtatone

At about 4 square miles large, with a population of about 80,000, Somerville shows other smaller jurisdictions that don’t need to be a big city to have a sophisticated performance improvement focus. For larger jurisdictions, including our biggest U.S. cities, Somerville’s experience presents a challenge: If it can develop such a robust data-driven management focus, then cities with much larger resources should be able to as well.

Among Somerville’s innovations, probably the best known is SomerStat. It has a staff of four who study financial, personnel, and operational data to understand what’s happening within city departments. Then, about every two months for bigger agencies (I mistakenly said weeks in the video intro), and less frequently for smaller agencies, each department leadership team comes to a SomerStat meeting to meet with the mayor’s staff—often including the mayor himself—to review detailed performance data and discuss ways to improve.

In the meetings, the department director stands behind a podium and presents a PowerPoint presentation on detailed aspects of department performance to the mayor and his staff. It’s not a one-sided presentation, but rather a lively and detailed discussion involving questions and direction for that department leader and his or her senior staff in the room.

To learn more about SomerStat, we’re joined by Joseph Curtatone (@JoeCurtatone), the mayor of Somerville, who launched SomerStat after being first elected in 2004. Today he is in his fifth term.

Interview questions

Q1: The changes you’ve implemented have been a long-term effort to build an organizational culture around performance improvement, not a quick implementation of new processes, is that a fair characterization?
Q2: Tell us how you describe SomerStat.
Q3: To what extent does SomerStat require a combative atmosphere that was embraced by CompStat run by the NYPD?
Q4: How is SomerStat different than a more typical management check-in meeting?
Q5: You see SomerStat as a leadership tool that helps you achieve your vision for the city. Tell us more.

Web extra

To better understand SomerStat, it helps to see examples of presentations in SomerStat meetings. Here are a few, from previous years, from the departments relating to capital projects, constituent services, fire, IT, police, and recreation.

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