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Management Case Study

Measuring and Managing Performance in

Local Government: Best Practice at Belfast

City Council

Case Study Sponsor:

© 2010 Advanced Performance Institute, BWMC Ltd. (All rights reserved) www.ap-institute.com

Measuring and Managing Performance in Local Government: Best Practice at Belfast City Council API Case Study

Measuring and Managing Performance in Local Government: Best

Practice at Belfast City Council

By

Bernard Marr

Abstract: This management case study illustrates the implementation of a strategic

performance management system at Belfast City Council. It outlines: how

politicians and public servants agreed on one strategy; how this strategy was then

mapped into a value creation map; how this map was then used to identify and

agree on priorities, how relevant and meaningful key performance indicators were

designed; and how processes were put in place to ensure performance information

is used to extract management insights and inform learning and future performance

improvements. It then describes how based on early leanings and benefits, Belfast

City Council evolved and automated their performance management system.

Version: 18 May 2010

Acknowledgement: The author would like to acknowledge the work and input of Peter McNaney, the Chief

Executive of Belfast City Council, Gerry Millar, Director of Property and Projects, Ronan Cregan, Head of

Finance and Performance, Emer Husbands, Strategic Performance Manager, the elected members, the chief

officers, the CIT project team as well as all other BCC employees who all have contributed to the successful

implementation outlined in this case study.

Bernard Marr is the Chief Executive and Director of Research at the Advanced Performance Institute.

E-mail: [email protected]

The Advanced Performance Institute (API) is a world-leading independent research and advisory

organisation specialising in organisational performance. It provides expert knowledge, research, consulting

and training to performance orientated companies, governments and not-for-profit organisations across the

globe. For more reading material or information on how the API might be able to help your organisation please

visit: www.ap-institute.com

How to reference this case study:

Marr, B. (2010) Masuring and Managing Performance in Local Government: Best Practice at Belfast City

Council, Management Case Study, The Advanced Performance Institute (www.ap-institute.com).

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.ap-institute.com/



Measuring and Managing Performance in Local Government: Best

Practice at Belfast City Council

Introduction

Belfast City Council (BCC) is the largest local

authority in Northern Ireland. BCC provides local

political leadership and a range of services such as

refuse collection and disposal, tourism and

economic development and employs more than

2,800 people serving a city population of about

269,000. Decisions on how the Council is run are

made by 51 elected Councillors, whose role is to

make sure the views of the people of Belfast are

reflected in the way services are provided.

This case study illustrates how BCC created,

implemented and deployed a strategic performance

management framework. It outlines how the

leaders of the organization clarified and agreed on

the corporate strategy, mapped this strategy into a

corporate Value Creation Map (VCM), designed

appropriate performance indicators and cascaded

the framework into all of its departments and service

units. Moreover, it explains how BCC‟s has evolved

the framework since the original VCM and

supporting indicators were developed in 2006.

Why Measure and Manage Performance?

The strategic performance management journey

within BCC can be traced back to 2005. In that year

The Chief Executive along with Councillors, Chief

Officers and Heads of Service agreed that the

Council needed to develop and improve if it was to

become a modern, 21st Century local authority.

The Chief Executive recommended the creation of a

dedicated resource to develop and implement an

Improvement Programme for the organisation: this

led to the establishment of a Core Improvement

Team (CIT) led by a Director of Improvement

reporting to an all-party Council Improvement

Board. The Board recognised that the organization

needed to: offer good service delivery; be the voice

of the citizen and an advocate for Belfast; and make

sure that others who deliver public services are held

to account.

In summary, Belfast City Council wanted to be in a

position to improve the quality of life in the city by

improving both service delivery and the Council‟s

civic leadership role. To make this happen it was

agreed that the Council should focus on the

following:

Governance - enabling more efficient and better

decision-making;

Performance Management – providing support

and resources to help get results;

Resource Allocation and Planning – matching

resources to priorities;

Customer Focus – putting people first:



People Management – building capacity across

the organisation.

The agreed process for taking this improvement

forward was a „strategic performance management‟

method1 which involved developing a Value

Creation Map (VCM)2 for the organisation as a

whole as well as individual maps for Services –

which would replace the traditional Service level

business plans.

Clarifying and Agreeing on the Strategy

The diverse political environment in Northern

Ireland means that there are six political parties in

Belfast City Council with no one single party in

overall control. At officer level there were six Chief

Officers, each within a functional Departmental

structure. This was an issue for the organisation as

it gave rise to fragmentation of culture and a „silo

effect‟. Therefore, to be successful, any process to

define a strategy for the organisation has to be

inclusive in order to get agreement on one strategy

for the city. Recognizing that the absence of an

agreed and clearly defined strategy would severely

jeopardise future management and decision making

processes, it was decided to create a corporate

VCM so to bring together the different views and to

clarify and visualise the strategy of the organisation.

The original VCM for Belfast City Council (and as

we shall explain later it has since evolved) was

designed in 2006 and was based on the input of

elected Councillors and senior officers as well as a

review of existing strategy and planning related

documents. The key steps taken in designing the

VCM are outlined below (see also Figure 1):

Figure 1: Steps in Developing the Value Creation Map



1. Scoping – firstly the project was scoped and

planned. As part of this it was decided who to

involve in the strategy development process. In

order to get a broad and balanced view across

the council it was decided to involve all chief

officers, heads of services, and elected

members from all parties.

2. Data Collection – an experienced external

interviewer from the Advanced Performance

Institute (API) conducted individual in-depth and

semi-structured interviews with all chief officers,

heads of services and elected members. In

addition observation data and document reviews

(e.g. business plans, strategy reports, etc.) were

collected and used to triangulate the interview

data.

3. VCM Creation – the interview data was

transcribed and coded in order to extract

themes, constructs and insights to design a draft

VCM. A feedback workshop was used to present

the draft VCM to senior officers and elected

members. Feedback was collected during the

workshop which led to minor amendments to the

map. Further feedback was collected in the

weeks following the workshop which led to the

final version of the VCM. In a subsequent

meeting the new strategy captured in VCM was

agreed to by both officers and members. For the

first time the council now had an agreed and

clearly defined strategy outlining its value

proposition, core competencies and enablers of

future performance.

4. Element Definitions and Narrative Creation -

once the VCM had been created a one or two

paragraph definition was created for each

element to provide further detail. This was

achieved in a series of meetings and workshops.

A smaller project team was used to take this part

forward and drafted the definitions in close

collaboration with the relevant senior officers.

Feedback loops were used to ensure chief

officers and members were informed about the

progress and were able to provide feedback and

suggestions.

Value Creation Map and Narrative

A VCM provides a single image of an organisation‟s

overall purpose, the key competencies it needs to

have to deliver its purpose and the key resources it

needs to support these competencies. With expert

external facilitation from API, The Council

Improvement Board, the Chief Officer Management

Team and the Heads of Service Forum, together

with the Core Improvement Team, built, refined and

finalised the corporate VCM. The Strategic Policy

and Resources Committee agreed the Map (the

strategy) in June 2006. Figure 2 depicts the original

corporate value creation map for Belfast City

Council and the following narrative describes it.

The main purpose of Belfast City Council is to help

improve quality of life for the people of Belfast now

and in the future by making the city a better place to

live and work in and to visit. To do this we must be

good at two things. The first is to provide strategic

leadership and direction and work with others to

shape, develop and manage a shared city. We will

also continue to meet the needs of local people by



providing a wide range of quality and accessible

services. As a Council we have identified a number

of key areas we will focus on to achieve our goals.

We have a wide range of key stakeholders including

European, central and local government, the

voluntary and private sector, public agencies,

citizens, funding bodies, neighbourhoods, media,

politicians, academia and professional bodies. We

recognise the need to work well with all of these

stakeholders if we are to improve the co-ordination

of service planning and delivery and assist with the

implementation of the Review of Public

Administration (RPA). To do this we will build public

confidence by promoting a more positive image of

the Council among the media and by supporting

Councillors in their work to represent the

organisation and the City. This will require

improving officer / Councillor relationships to build

trust and facilitating more two way dialogue among

employees and stakeholders. We will be clear about

what our priorities are and will effectively

communicate and listen in an open and transparent

way.

To achieve these improvements we will create an

open, performance driven culture built on trust,

where performance is discussed openly and used to

help the organisation learn and improve. Everyone

will know what we want to achieve and how they

contribute to this, in an environment where

performance counts, is valued and is at the heart of

everyone’s job.

We will also identify the skills and expertise

necessary to be a successful organisation and



Councillors and employees will work together to

develop skills and improve how knowledge is

shared across the organisation. BCC will be a

place where people are happy and motivated to do

a good job. All decision makers will have access to

the right information and expertise to allow them to

make informed decisions. This will involve

improving our structures to ensure all decisions are

transparent, made at the right level and are acted

on quickly.

All parts of the Council will work to bring about

innovative improvements in service delivery for the

benefit of our customers. To do this we will re-align

resources, make better use of technology, bring

about more joined-up working and encourage and

reward innovation and improvement at all levels.

Aligning Projects and Prioritising Initiatives

Once the strategy was defined and agreed, the

process began to align and prioritise supporting

organisational initiatives and programmes. To

inform this process a heat map (a colour-coded

VCM) was created. Each strategic element on the

VCM is colour coded using red, amber, yellow and

green – indicating poor performance, significant

performance problems, minor performance

problems and good performance. The colour codes

for the Belfast City Council heat map were originally

based on the interview data. Once the map was

operational colour coding was largely determined by

carefully selected key performance indicators.

All existing corporate initiatives, projects and

programmes were identified and mapped onto the

VCM. This proved a powerful process as it provided

insights such as:

Some elements of the new strategy had few or

no aligned initiatives, projects or programmes–

indicating that new initiatives would be needed

in order to deliver on the strategy.

Some projects couldn‟t be mapped against any

of the strategic elements on the map – indicating

that such projects would not contribute directly

to the implementation of the new strategy. The

implication of a mismatch between strategy and

projects can be twofold – either the strategy has

to be revised because important elements of the

organisations are missing, or – which is more

likely – a serious discussion needs to take place

about the reasons for doing these projects.

The balance of projects/initiatives was wrong. A

few of the strategic elements had the majority of

the projects linked to them, whereas others –

often the red or amber ones – had few aligned

projects, initiatives or programmes. This

triggered a discussion about readjusting the

balance.

This process of identifying, mapping and prioritising

initiatives, projects and programmes becomes the

basis for the business planning going forward.

Designing Key Performance Questions and Key

Performance Indicators

With the VCM in place the next step was to identify

a robust set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

with which to monitor progress toward its strategic

goals.



However, instead of just brainstorming possible

indicators for each element on the map, a vital link

was introduced between the VCM and the

performance indicators: Key Performance

Questions (KPQs)3. These are questions that

managers and employees in organisations would

like to have an answer to in relation to performance

of each of the strategic elements on the VCM. BCC

found the articulating of KPQs to be a powerful

process as it ensured that any subsequent KPIs

would help to answer these questions and by

default, would be relevant and meaningful.

KPQs were designed by a project team that was set

up within BCC‟s Core Improvement Team. In close

communication with relevant officers and members,

a set of KPQs was drafted. Once the questions

were finalised, the project team facilitated the

design of possible KPIs.

KPIs were designed using a customised version of

the generic API indicator design template (See

Figure 3). The template ensures that performance

indicators are well defined and their relevance and

limitations are understood.

When designing indicators it was emphasised that it

was about the generation of useful management

information. This required experimentation and

continuous refinement of the way information was

collected and performance measured. People were

encouraged to identify new ways of collecting

relevant information, drop indicators that were not

providing meaningful information, and change the

way performance was measured in order to provide

better information.

Creating an Enabled Learning Environment4

With the design and agreement of the indicators,

the traditional technical part of the strategic

performance management system design was

completed. Now it was important to ensure the

KPQs and KPIs were being used in the appropriate

manner to inform decision making, organisational

learning and performance improvement.

For that purpose Strategic Performance

Improvement Meetings (SPIMs)5 are being put in

place to formalise the regular review of

performance. From the outset it is emphasised that

the purpose of these meetings is not to look

backwards but to make forward-looking decisions

based on the learnings gleaned from the

performance information. Within a SPIM the

emphasis is on a facilitating a strategic dialogue

guided by the KPQs and informed by the KPIs.

These meetings are being introduced both for chief

officers and elected members.



That SPIMs are about learning is important.

Indeed, the senior team at BCC placed much

emphasis on the fact that performance information

derived from KPQs and KPIs must be used to

identify performance improvement opportunities on

an ongoing basis. At the very top of BCC, there was

a clear awareness that, and as with any

performance management initiative, there is a

danger that it is seen as a reporting tool only with a

focus on showing progress towards targets. If that

was the case then performance measurement

might seen as a non-value-adding administrative



burden rather than of strategic significance Another

identified danger was that the VCM and

accompanying KPQs and KPIs might be seen as a

command-and-control tool that is used to direct

subordinates and control their behaviour. BCC was

determined to avoid both of these negative

outcomes.

Therefore, a large number of communication

workshops and presentations were conducted to

ensure that heads of services, middle managers,

and front line staff were kept informed about the

process and, most importantly, about the aims of

the strategic performance management

implementation within Belfast City Council.

Cascading the approach into the Services

It was realised that many of the strategies and

actions in the corporate map would have to be

implemented and measured at Service level. At the

same time the corporate map would not represent

all of the strategies and work of individual Services

which is why the process also needed to be

cascaded throughout the organisation.

Each service was therefore asked to design its own

value creation map to:

Clarify what the service is about – i.e. ‘What is

our purpose?’

Establish what it is they need to do well to

achieve this – ‘What are our core

competencies?’

Agree the enablers – ‘What are our value

drivers?’

Crucially, the VCM cascading process was seen as

an opportunity to streamline the organisation‟s

entire planning process. Services used the

corporate VCM as guidance in order to ensure that

their planning was aligned with the corporate

objectives. The mapping process allowed every

service to make their strategy explicit and easy to

communicate which also encouraged Services to

integrate their strategy with operations at Unit and

Departmental level. At BCC the VCM process has

placed more of a performance management

framework around the corporate planning process.

Initially, two cascades were conducted for the Parks

Section and the Information Systems Belfast. These

maps were designed using the same approach as

the one described above for the corporate level:

senior officers and members were interviewed, the

data was analysed and a draft map was created,

the map was refined in a feedback workshop and a

final map was created. Once the map was

complete, project teams within the two services took

on the coordination role of defining the elements,

KPQs, and KPIs.

For the remaining 24 cascades, a more time and

resource efficient way of cascading was developed.

BCC created a workbook “How to create your

service level value creation map” which outlined and

explained the necessary steps involved in designing

local VCMs, KPQs and KPIs. This workbook

explained the aims of the entire initiative and

outlined the process step-by-step using examples

and illustrations from the corporate and the two

service level implementation (see Figure 4). The



workbook was widely distributed inside the

organisation and outlined the following six steps of

the cascading process: Establish your team, collate

and analyse all relevant information, agree your

initial VCM, define your strategic elements, develop

and expand your performance indicators, and agree

your ongoing review and reporting mechanisms.

Each Service established a team that was

responsible for coordinating and facilitating its own

cascade. This team then collated the necessary and

relevant information about the current strategy, such

as the business plan and other relevant documents.

Each Service created their own VCM within a

dedicated API-facilitated workshop, which was

attended by between 5 and 20 people - depending

on the size and requirements of the Service.

Once the maps were created, each Service level

cascade team took on the role of moving the

process forward and to co-ordinate and facilitate the

creation of definitions, KPQs, KPIs as well as future

reporting and review processes. However, in doing

this the team received dedicated support from

member of the corporate Core Improvement Team.

Such central support also enabled continuous

communication and reviews to take place and

ensured that everyone was learning from each

other. Most importantly, it ensured that the planning

process was coordinated so to achieve alignment

between corporate and Service level strategies, as

well as cross-Service alignment.



Benefits

Before discussing how the VCM and the supporting

strategic performance management framework

have recently evolved, it must be noted that the first

– or 2006 – iteration certainly delivered significant

benefits to Belfast City Council. Perhaps the most

important benefit being that deploying the VCM

forged a clear link between planning and

performance management processes. That the

VCM serves as the primary planning framework and

process within and across BCC has made a

significant difference in how staff develop and

collate performance information as part of their

planning activities. They now collect information

that is more evidently strategic in nature and

therefore more meaningful and relevant -

information that really does enable the driving of

step-change performance improvements.

A further benefit that should not be minimized is that

as the bulk of the work of the Services has to be

linked to the VCM it is now significantly easier to

view performance across BCC and to gain insights

into which departments, etc are contributing to the

delivery of strategic goals and to gauge which

interventions are making the greatest impact –

which can help shape further initiatives, etc or

trigger best practice sharing. As with just about all

local councils, BCC has a traditional structure

(parks, leisure, etc). Historically, therefore,

managers only reported on what their particular

departments did, which of course made it difficult to

get a proper cross-organization view of

performance. The VCM enables manager to look

across cross-cutting thematic issues to see how

BCC is performing as an organization.

Evolving the Strategy Map

Figure 2 shows BCC‟s original VCM, whereas the

current version is presented in Figure 5. As we can

see, BCC‟s vision has remained the same: “The

council takes a leading role in improving quality of

life now and for future generations for the people of

Belfast by making the city a better place to live in,

work in, invest in or visit,” and both maps highlights

the importance of leadership and service (although

their positions on the Map hierarchy have changed).

Where changes are more pronounced is that the

current map has also more broadly defined the

strategic resources that must be managed to deliver

to its ultimate vision. This is important because this

section now incorporates much of the objectives

that were originally housed in the third level of the

original map (the enablers). For instance, in the new

version “communication and engagement” is

captured in the resource section, whereas in the

original version it appeared within the “effective

communication,” enablers bubble.

Such a change is important, because whereas the

“enabler” section of the original map was more

internally focused, on the current map it is much

more externally focused. This evolution is perfectly

understandable because the first map was created

as part of a major internal change agenda, whereas

the new map is focused on how BCC better delivers

to a wider “city” agenda. As a consequence we see

enablers such as “cleaner and greener”, “stimulate



growth and competitiveness,” and “vibrant, shared

and diverse city.” Moreover, these enablers are

collocated according to three key themes: “Better

Care for Belfast‟s Environment,” “Better

Opportunities for Success Across the City,” and

“Better Support for People and Communities.”

Key Performance Indicators

Another important development has been in the

collection of KPIs. As is common to public sector

organization when BCC began its strategic

performance management program it had little

experience in collecting “strategic KPIs” being more

used to collecting indicators to satisfy external

regulatory requirements and to demonstrate

progress toward externally mandated targets. As

BCC became more comfortable with this new

strategic management process the KPIs gradually

became more relevant and specific to the

achievement of strategic objectives.

Also noteworthy is that through the deployment of

the VCM, people‟s mindsets regarding metrics

changed. Rather than just collecting KPIs as a “tick

box” requirement (not uncommon in the public

sector) individuals became more focused on

collecting meaningful performance information. Use

of KPIs will further evolve going forward. The

present corporate strategic plan runs to 2011, when

BCC begins work on the VCM and supporting

Figure 5: CorVu Screenshot – 2010 Corporate Value Creation Map – Belfast City Council



strategic performance management framework to

deliver to the next three year plan it will challenge

every single KPI within the organization to ensure

strategic relevance and fitness for purpose. To this

purpose, it is already making full use of the internal

audit department to ensure that KPIs and

performance information are robust and

appropriate.

As examples of how metrics are used within the

wider performance management framework to

demonstrate success to the present strategy

consider the following. The “theme” “Better Care for

Belfast‟s Environment,” is first more broadly defined

(what we mean by this), then it has a description of

desired achievements within the timeframe of the

plan and supporting KPIs. “What we mean by this,”

is defined this way: Better care for Belfast‟s

environment – a clean, green city now and for the

future in Belfast City Council is about:

Action – securing the long term viability of the city

and its environment

Improvement – creating a cleaner, greener and

healthier environment

Education – increasing knowledge and awareness

of environmental issues and promoting positive

behaviour

Protection – ensuring compliance with all current

and future statutory obligations

Over the course of the plan, BCC intends to

- be on course to achieve zero waste direct to

landfill by 2015

- have reduced the city‟s impact on climate

change and improved air quality

- have protected, promoted and enhanced the

city‟s natural and built heritage and open spaces

Metrics include:

City recycling rate

City wide cleanliness index

% of residents satisfied with street cleaning

service and refuse collection service

Household waste arisings per capita

Number of council vehicles emissions tested

As a further example, the theme “Better Support for

People and Communities,” is defined as (what we

mean by this): Better support for people and

communities in Belfast City Council is about:

- Engagement – finding ways to better connect

with local people

- Development – building capacity within the city

to influence and address local issues, tackling

inequalities and improving relationships

- Improvement - making the best use of council

and other local services and facilities to achieve

our objectives and address the issues facing the

city and its neighbourhoods

- Transformation – enhancing the city and local

neighbourhoods by making them safer,

healthier, more inclusive, welcoming and

enjoyable

Over the course of the plan BCC intends to have

led, supported and influenced others to ensure

that…



- people enjoy living in a vibrant, shared and

diverse city

- people feel safer

- people are healthier and more active

- health and social inequalities are reduced

- people have, and avail of, opportunities to

improve their well-being with a focus on children

and young people and older people

Metrics include:

% residents who agree people from different

backgrounds get on well in their areas

% usage of community centres

% of residents who feel safe in their areas

Number of incidents of anti-social behaviour

Number of leisure centre members

Executive Dashboards

A further performance management development

that has been introduced within BCC over the last

couple of years has been executive dashboards,

which are in place for all chief officers and service

heads. Whereas the VCM is a strategic

performance management framework that monitors

performance over the longer-term and therefore will

likely include metrics that are updated perhaps on a

quarterly or even annual basis, a dashboard

provides a more real-time snapshot of operational

performance: an example BCC dashboard, for the

Health and Services Department, is shown in Figure

6. This includes metrics such as “bins collected on

time” and “net expenditure”. In short, whereas the

VCM is more focused on the strategic elements the

dashboard is more KPI focused. Dashboards and

the VCM work well together in providing a full

overview of operational and strategic performance.

Automation

Both the VCM and dashboards are now fully

automated via the CorVu solution from the long-

established performance management software

provider Rocket Software. This means that Belfast

City Council‟s most important performance

management information is now consolidated in one

place, provides one source of the truth and is

accessible to anyone with access rights, which

presently are 200 BCC managers/staff - mainly all

of the senior managers and all of the business

planning officers. That said the numbers of users

will increase as the system is rolled out over time.

Within the CorVu system, information is updated

when and as required and it enables full slicing and

dicing of data for reporting purposes, whether for

VCM, dashboard of other purposes. BCC has found

that amongst the key benefits of the system is that

at the strategic level it forces a full understanding of

how indicators link to objectives and therefore

improves the overall planning process.

The benefits of automation are being realised and

the front-end (what the user sees) is intuitive, web-

based and easy to navigate. As part of its usage,

responsible managers will receive an Email to

update their indicators and commentary. As that‟s

basically all they have to do, it is not a burden on

their time.



Next Steps

Since 2006 Belfast City Council has made great

strides with its use of its strategic performance

management framework. But the story is still

unfolding.

Simply put, the VCM will further evolve in line with

the emerging challenges facing the organization.

The evolution will comprise both internal and

external focus areas. Internally members of the

planning and performance team have been trained

by API in the use of analytics to create evidence-

based decision-making. This will enable more

valuable insights to be gleaned from the information

gathered. Moreover, project management will be

better aligned to the strategic agenda. All projects

will be aligned to initiatives and KPIs rather than

being managed as a separate process, which BCC

has come to believe “just doesn‟t make sense.”

Externally, in the next couple of years further

evolutions will likely be around area and thematic

planning. Presently BCC plans at departmental or

service level. However, after working with themes

through the VCM, BCC will move on to looking at

using the VCM for area-based and city-wide

planning. The focus will be on bringing different

agencies across Belfast together to create and work

off the same plan. A VCM might become a “plan for

Belfast” rather than just for the city council.

Critical Success Factors

Finally, based on BCC‟s experience thus far in

using a strategic performance management

framework there are several critical success factors

that should be highlighted.

Firstly it is critical to involve everyone in the process

Figure 6: CorVu Screenshot - Performance Dashboard Example



and to reach the point where they can all see how

they contribute to delivering to the strategic

elements as described on the VCM. If people don‟t

see that link they might ignore the process or,

worse, actively resist it.

Buy-in from the top is a must – as with any change

program. Furthermore, it has to be properly

resourced. Within BCC full-time resources were

dedicated to the effort, but, crucially, people from

the Services were given the time to develop - and

as a result own – the Service level VCM. Proper

training was important here.

Finally, the importance of expert facilitation should

be highlighted. API had the expertise in building and

deploying the VCM and strategic performance

management frameworks. As well as the technical

knowledge API provided challenge and ensured

BCC went through the process properly and

rigorously. Although BCC could not have started

the process without this external facilitation, it was

equally important that as a core deliverable of the

facilitation project API transferred the knowledge

and expertise to an in-house team so that

employees within Belfast City Council could, quite

rightly, take full ownership of the VCM - as they own

the strategy it powers.

Endnotes, References & Further Reading

Marr, Bernard (2010), “The Intelligent Company: Five Steps to Success with Evidence-Based

Management”, Wiley, Oxford.

Marr, Bernard (2009), Managing and Delivering Performance: How Government, Public Sector

and Not-for-profit Organizations can Measure and Manage what Really Matters, Butterworth-

Heinemann, Oxford.

Marr, Bernard (2006), “Strategic Performance Management”, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford

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Our Resource Library offers a wide selection of relevant articles, white

papers and case studies. These have been selected as useful

information sources for further reading and to illustrate further best

practices and leading thinking.

1 For more information please see: Marr, Bernard (2006), “Strategic Performance Management”, Butterworth-Heinemann,

Oxford. 2 For more information on Value Creation Maps please see: Marr, Bernard (2006), “Strategic Performance Management”,

Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. 3 The term Key Performance Question was coined by Bernard Marr 4 For more information on Enabled Learning Environment please see: Marr, Bernard (2006), “Strategic Performance

Management”, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford 5 For more information on Strategic Performance Improvement Meetings please see: Marr, Bernard (2006), “Strategic

Performance Management”, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford.

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management case study measuring and managing · pdf file · 2014-05-22management...

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