It is often said that government agencies either do not have the discipline or are too easily distracted by operational issues to concentrate on measuring how well they execute their strategy. Agency heads pay lip service to strategy execution and never attend strategy review meetings, so "why should we care?" managers ask.

Well, I listened to a webinar the other day at which Peter Grace, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Management, discussed HUDStat, the Department's performance measurement and accountability process. HUDstat helps HUD comply with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act requirement that each agency conduct senior-led progress reviews on their priority goals.

I came away impressed with the way HUD approached managing its performance to its goals, the involvement of leadership at strategy review meetings, and some of their lessons learned.

Be Smart About Data

At HUD, they understand the problems inherent in gathering data, especially from across a large government agency. However, they understood that it was better for them to get some data on the things that matter rather than perfect data on things that don't, and their leadership was good with that.

Grace also said that a byproduct of their gathering the incomplete data at the start of HUDstat and the desire to make data-driven decisions was that the data began to improve.

Strategy Review Meetings

HUD conducts their strategy review meetings monthly, for two hours, and the secretary and his deputy attend them all. These meetings are scheduled one year in advance and on "no travel" Tuesdays to ensure the Secretary and the CXOs, including the politically appointed chief strategy officer, attend. Total attendance varies between 30 and 50 people, with about 20 actively participating. In addition, meeting attendees aren't always the same as it depends on the goal being discussed.

The department has four High Priority Performance Goals: (1) Foreclosure prevention and mitigation; (2) Rental Assistance; (3) Mitigating Veteran's Homelessness; and (4) Energy and Green Retrofits. A different goal is reviewed at each monthly meeting, allowing each to be reviewed three times per year.

Lessons Learned

So, what did Grace say HUD had learned thus far through their implementation of HUDstat? Primarily, that starting the performance management and reporting process is the most important thing because it sends the message that leadership is serious about it.

As stated earlier, he also believed that using whatever data you have, regardless how imperfect it may be, on the important performance issues, leads to improved data down the road.

Finally, Grace said that they acknowledge that meetings with 30 to 50 people may be too large, but for the moment they prefer to err on the side of transparency to ensure that people get to see how the process works.

For more information about HUDstat, the webinar is available for viewing at http://event.on24.com/r.htm?e=311256&s=1&k=89F3CD0A16102F7568074BC5D2FE9F81