Made2Measure

My colleagues and I have long sought what is for us the Holy Grail of performance measurement -- a simple, easy to grasp index of the performance of courts and the justice system that could be used by both insiders and outsiders. Such an index recently was brought back into sight by two prominent proponents, legal scholar and law professor Laurence H. Tribe, and journalist and author Amy Bach. Tribe is a scholar of constitutional law and former Harvard Law School professor whose students include Barack Obama, John Roberts and Elena Kagan. Tribe took the position of Senior Counselor for Access to Justice, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier this year. In that position, he will lead an initiative aimed at improving access to civil and criminal legal services and will work with federal, state, and tribal judiciaries in strengthening fair, impartial, and independent adjudication. He will also exchange information with foreign ministries of justice and judicial systems regarding eff...

You’ve got to give people at all level of your organization the opportunity to find solutions to problems. You’ve got to mobilize everyone to generate improvement strategies, not just the people at the top. A court that depends solely on its senior management to address its challenges risks failure. That is the advice of Ronald Heifetz, Alexander Grashow and Marty Linsky give to managers and leaders in their article “Leadership in a (Permanent) Crisis” in a recent issue of Harvard Business Review . The three are partners of Cambridge Leadership Associates and authors of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership (Harvard Business Press, 2009). Their advice for adaptive leadership is reason enough to give all court employees all of the court's performance data on demand, whenever they need it, in real time -- not just once a year or once a month. But there’s an even more compelling reason that should strike at the heart managers who aspire to leadership: You don’t have a monopoly on g...

The British Royal Navy in the age of Admiral Lord Nelson (1758-1805) knew a thing or two about incentivizing employees. According to John Steele Gordon writing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (“Incentives vs. Government Waste,” May 14, 2010, A19), the British Royal Navy was extremely good at capturing enemy warships and sweeping enemy commerce from the seas. And there was a good reason why. The Royal Navy’s success, says Gordon, was due to the enormous incentives that it offered its officers and men. The entire value of the spoils was shared by the Navy officers and their men according to a rule of eights. One-eight went to admiral; two-eights went to the captain of the ship; one-eighth each to the commissioned officers, senior warrant officers, petty officers, and midshipmen; and two-eights to the crew. These were not insignificant amounts of loot. They could make captains rich by the standards of the mid-18th century. The crew could receive many times a year’s pay. Gordon asserts...

As a social scientist who has spent the last several years in developing countries learning empathy -- mostly to shut up and to listen carefully to what my counterparts have to say, something I was trained to do but often have failed to do -- I was heartened by Joshua A. Dijksman’s deep bow (Views, International Herald Tribune , April 23) to the “rights and duties to science and society” that serious researchers bear. Like Dr. Dijksman, I too believe that the scientific method – careful observation, objectivity, patience, modesty, replication, and only drawing conclusions based on very reliable data – can be the very “epitome of humanity” that can lift us all above the prejudices, slander, downright lies and rumors and the kind of “disingenuous, small-minded social keelhauling” that serves as public discourse and much of policy these days.

We’re making good progress! This declaration suggests motivation, optimism, dedication, and commitment. When employees sense that they’re making headway toward a clearly defined goal, their drive to excel is at its peak. Understanding the power of the perception of progress is one of the ten breakthrough ideas for 2010 compiled by Harvard Business Review in cooperation with the World Economic Forum. “Ask leaders and managers what they think makes employees enthusiastic about work, and they’ll tell you in no uncertain terms …[r]ecognition for good work,” write Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer in the January – February 2010 issue of HBR. Trouble is that they’re wrong. Amabile and Kramer surveyed more than 600 managers in dozens of companies about five factors commonly considered to be instrumental in motivation and positive feeling about work: recognition for good work, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals. Recognition for good work...

We’ve all been in situations where we get agitated because someone we admire, and with whom we generally agree, goes too far in pushing his or her agenda. This situation occurred to me as I read Henry Mintzberg’s new book, Managing (Berrett-Koehler, 2009), which updates his thinking in his first book, The Nature of Management (Harper & Row; reprinted by Prentice-Hall, 1973) based on his doctoral dissertation more than 35 years ago. Mintzberg all but dismisses the value of using performance outcome data in favor of an “information diet” of gossip, hearsay, and speculation.” Such “informal information” he writes, “can be much richer, even if less reliable.” I could not believe what I was reading. It goes counter to what I’ve been advocating to court managers for years, i.e., effective performance measurement and management can transform your court; it shows you where you are and gets you to where you want to be. Performance monitoring, analysis and management are no longer an optio...

The launch this month of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7, marks the end of one era of information technology and the start of another, says the Economist (“Briefing Cloud Computing,” October 17, 2009). Windows is not going to disappear but it will be much less important in the future. Cloud Computing Much of the computing we do today on our computers in our homes and offices will soon be – so to speak - in the “clouds,” and not on our personal computers, where Windows resides today. Instead, desktop computing on personal computers – featuring full-featured database and spreadsheet capabilities – is being replaced by IT architectures that call for the heavy lifting to be performed by external data centers accessible to us over the Internet. Cloud computing is attracting an enormous amount of attention. The term “cloud computing” is a metaphor that originated with IT architects who routinely used cloud shapes to depict the flow of data from unknown external sources inste...

Today's Wall Street Journal printed my letter to the Editor on the value of rankings focused on outcomes, a topic that has occupied this space often: Most “number guys” can criticize performance measures, especially rankings, in their sleep because most measures are imperfect. Carl Bialik (“Ill-Conceived Ranking Makes for Unhealthy Debate,” The Numbers Guy, Oct. 21) takes the easy route for a cheap shot at the dated and flawed World Health Care low 37th ranking of the U.S. in the world in health care. He suggests that the “unhealthy debate” caused by the U.S. ranking would be cured by more methodological rigor and that, in any event, we shouldn’t rank everything, especially health care. I wonder if Mr. Bialik thinks that our debate about health care would be healthier if the U.S. ranked let’s say 12th in the world using methods that pass muster with the scientific community. I suspect that most of us would like to see the U.S. in first place and that even 12th place would not c...

Court systems have concentrated too much authority for continuous improvement at the top where there are good intentions, but relatively few resources and little capacity. Court performance data are delivered too little and too late, if at all. When performance is presented to staff, it is often done so in endless documents stuffed with indecipherable figures and statistics, to make much of a difference. Performance data is a virtual temple secret that only the priests (designated top-management and analysts) can read and interpret. Courts should seek to give all court employees all the performance measurement information they need to make improvements themselves. Courts should tap into the capacities of all court employees to track and analyze performance data and to devise solutions to problems. A similar strategy, referred to as “radical transparency,” was advocated as a road map for economic recovery in a “manifesto” written by Daniel Roth in Wired March 2009: “Instead of assign...

State court leaders and managers take heart! Things could be worse. Much worse! In a widely circulated story last week, Sam Dolnick of the Associated Press (AP) reported that, according to Chief Justice A.P.Shah, the High Court in New Delhi is so behind that it could take up to 466 years (not days or even months, years) to clear its backlog of cases. In a vast understatement, retired Supreme Court Justice J.S. Verma, who is critic of the system, is quoted as saying “I don’t think you would have to wait four centuries to have a case decided.” Reasons cited for the backlog in India include the usual suspects: lack of accountability for results, corruption, inefficiency, and an uneven application of the rule of law favoring the wealthy and well-connected. Another is that India does not have enough sitting judges. "It’s a completely collapsed system,” Prashant Brushan, a well known lawyer in New Delhi, is quoted as saying. “This country only lives under the illusion that there is a ...

State courts are facing severe budget cuts in the current economic crisis. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, at least 44 states are facing shortfalls in their FY 2009 and/or FY 2010 budgets. By most accounts, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. Some of my more optimistic colleagues (who -- I might add -- are fortunate enough to have solid jobs) subscribe to the “necessity is the mother of invention” school of thought on the deepening recession. They have a point. While they do not wish ill toward their court friends on the receiving end of drastic budget cuts, they see a bright spot in the months and years ahead. They welcome the sense of urgency. They're hoping it will give birth to clarity of focus and innovation. They see courts and state court systems today forced to confront issues and questions that they believe should be asked all the time, not just now: What are our fundamental obligations? What is expected of us? Which pr...

The 2009 U .S. News & World Report second annual rankings of America’s best public high schools came out this week. The rankings were done by School Evaluation Services, a K – 12 education data research firm run by Standard & Poor’s, based on an analysis of the performances of 21,069 public high schools in the 2006 -2007 school year (see www.usnews.com/highschools ). The annual rankings of high schools hold two important lessons for judges and court managers, especially those who bristle at the idea of comparative performance measurement. (See “Ten Reasons Not to Measure Court Performance,” Made2Measure , November 19, 2008) The first lesson is that performance matters to citizens. The U.S. News & World Report rankings are based on the key principle that a great high school must be able to produce measurable academic outcomes to show that it successfully educates all of its students across a range – a balanced scorecard – of performance indicators. Little else matte...

This post is based on a December 9, 2008, presentation to a seminar of Michigan Chief Judges and Court Administrators sponsored by the Michigan Judicial Institute, at the Michigan Hall of Justice Conference Center in Lansing, Michigan. It is an updated and expanded version of the Made2Measure post, Eight Reasons Not to Measure Court Performance , April 5, 2006. It is not sufficient simply to proclaim the benefits of court performance measurement – accountability, transparency, focus, attention, understanding, control, predictability, influence, and strategy development -- and expect acceptance and effective implementation. Performance measurement, like any tool, has shortcomings and introduces disruptions of the status quo that should not be dismissed or ignored. These shortcomings and disruptions can be minimized and even eliminated, however, when they are identified, clearly understood, thoroughly and candidly explored, and addressed in specific terms. Unfortunately, they are o...

Micromanage , v.t., - to manage or control with excessive attention to minor details. The October 21 Made2Measure post ( Employee Engagement: Managing the Millennial Generation in the Workforce ), explored how the employee engagement survey developed by the National Center for State Courts and CourtMetrics, for both trial courts (see CourTools Measure 9 ) and for appellate courts (see Measure 7 at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddc3k4gt_14cpvjn2c2 ), can help court managers engage “millennials” – a new crop of young people in the work force who were born between 1980 and 2001. This post explores how the survey may help to reverse the negative effects of micromanagement. The survey uses a self-administered questionnaire to assess the engagement of the court's workforce and the quality of the relationships among its employees, especially those between managers and subordinates. It asks respondents to rate their agreement with each of 20 statements on a five-point scale from “strong...

Effective performance measures drive success. They are clear, focused, and actionable. They serve both as incentives and practical tools for improvement. Not uncommonly, the act of measurement itself will trigger positive actions. The 20-item court Employee Engagement survey developed by the National Center for State Courts for both trial courts (see Measure 8 of the CourTools ) and for appellate courts (see Measure 7 at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddc3k4gt_14cpvjn2c2 ) is a measure that fits this bill. Employee engagement is a constant challenge for court managers. This challenge is even more daunting for “millennials” – a new crop of young people in the work force who were born between 1980 and 2001. Court managers will need them for succession planning as retiring baby boomers leave their positions. Trouble is that the general perception of the millennial generation seems to be that it has great – and sometimes unreasonable -- expectations. These young workers tend to be more op...

The Montana Supreme Court last month became the first high court and only the second state appellate court (see the Oregon Court of Appeal’s 2007 Bench and Bar Survey ) to survey members of the state’s appellate bar and trial bench about how well they believe the state high court is performing. In the spirit of transparency and accountability, it made a summary of the survey results public almost immediately. As explained by Montana Chief Justice Karla M. Gray in a cover letter posted on the Supreme Court’s website yesterday ( see Montana Bar and Bench Survey Results ), the Court asked nearly 1,000 appellate lawyers, as well as all of Montana’s District Court Judges and the University of Montana Law School teaching faculty, for their thoughts on the Court’s performance. Respondents rated the Court’s performance in areas central to its primary obligations, including whether the Court’s decisions are based on facts and applicable law, whether the Court’s published opinions...