The Causal Chain Linking Performance Measurement, Management and Development

In his 1993 book The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition, the social scientist and renowned management thinker Peter Drucker argued that there are no underdeveloped countries. The same thing can be said about a country’s justice system including courts and other justice institutions. 

There are only “undermanaged” countries and justice systems. Management creates social and economic development.  Wherever there are only capital and other resources (inputs), there can be no development.  Management is the process of getting people together for joint behavior to accomplish desired goals using available resources efficiently and effectively to produce desirable outputs and outcomes. Management is the driver; development is the consequence.  Economic and social development is a matter of human energies, Drucker writes, and the inspiration and mobilization of human energies is the job of management.  

The last link in the causal chain is performance measurement. The familiar saying “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” is the mantra of successful managers for good reason. Wherever there is no regular and continuous measurement of performance, there is no good management.  From an organizational management perspective, the difference between a successful and unsuccessful justice system is the ability to analyze performance data and act on the insights and the understanding in real time or near real time.  A high-performing court system has the ready capacity and political will to answer the question “How are we doing?” 

© Copyright CourtMetrics and the National Center for State Courts 2012. All rights reserved.

Popular posts from this blog

Top 10 Reasons for Performance Measurement

There is a growing demand of “show me the data” from citizens and taxpayers, legislators, executive agencies, oversight boards and communities – all of whom exchange money and other support (e.g., trust and confidence) for services -- that courts can ill afford to ignore. Courts need to measure their performance to meet the demand for public accountability. But the benefits of court performance extend beyond accountability including improved prediction, better understanding and control, influence, a sharpened focus on what is important, and discovery of better practices. Objective performance data is central to good management practices like strategic planning, performance-based budgeting, Balanced Scorecards, Total Quality Management (TQM), and Six Sigma. Performance measures allow court leaders and managers, policymakers, legislators and the public to evaluate court programs’ inputs (the resources allocated), outputs (direct results of program or service activities) and outcomes (bro...
Read more

Q & A: Outcome vs. Measure vs. Target vs. Standard

Q: Those of who write and speak about court performance measurement rely on their share of jargon -- and it's often confusing. What are the differences among the terms “outcome,” “measure,” “target” and “standard”? A: Socrates said that the beginning of wisdom is definition. We’ll see. Outcomes are the benefits or changes for the intended beneficiaries of a court’s programs and services. Outcomes may relate to knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, behavior, condition or status of the program participants or recipients of services. Examples include litigants' satisfaction with a court's courtesy and responsiveness, success of probation, time to case disposition, clarity of orders, integrity of case files, percent of mediation agreements, enforcement of orders, and perceived fairness of proceedings, as well as percent of expected expenditures and percent of revenues received. Outcomes should not be confused with the activities of those who run the court. (See the October 1...
Read more

Taming “Wild Problems”: Measure Everything That Matters

Every problem is not solvable, but every problem is measurable. This assertion is the key to tackling problems in public services including courts, business, and life in general. Surprising to me is that even astute scholars take exception to this, among them  is Russ Roberts, the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, the president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, and host of the award-winning podcast EconTalk: Conversation for the Curious. The belief that certain things, dubbed “wild problems” by Professor Roberts, cannot be measured does a disservice to courts and other public and private organizations. There are many benefits to measuring everything that matters. It allows organizations to   focus on and to operationalize the most important problems and issues facing them,   to track progress over time and identify areas of improvement,   to compare their performance to that of other organizations and learn from the d...
Read more