In Results Teams

Results Teams Roles

Results teams play a key role in the Budgeting for Outcomes process. First and foremost, it is the responsibility of results teams to represent the citizens of Stoughton and the outcomes – or results – they need and expect the City of Stoughton to produce within six priority areas. Each results team will have 5 or more members and will be expected to, over time, gain a deep understanding of one of the major citywide Priorities that will be established by the City's leadership. Results team members must not be advocates for any specific service or department; they represent the best interests of the public.

Responsibilities of Reasults Teams
Cause and Effect Mapping Process
Training Presentations

The responsibilities of each results team include

Establishing indicators for the assigned Priority. For example, if a Priority were to be "Promote a sustainable and self-contained economy for the City," the results team for that Priority would identify a small number of indicators for understanding, over time, the progress the City makes in achieving Priority.
Developing a "Request for Results" for the assigned Priority, that will include five basic elements:

A description of the Priority
Indicators for the Priority, as described above
A Cause and Effect Map that shows primary and secondary factors that drive results for the Priority
Purchasing Strategies that will explain, based on the primary and secondary factors, where the results team believes the City will have the most leverage in producing results in the Priority area.
Ranking criteria, which will let departments know more specifically how their proposals will be evaluated.

Ranking proposals from departments according to the criteria the team has provided in the Request for Results. The ranking process typically has two rounds.
Providing updates to the leadership team and the City Council over the course of the budget process.

Each Results Team will meet several times over a period of months to develop the Request for Results and conduct rankings. Each team member may have assignments outside team meetings and will be expected to individually review all proposals submitted to the Results Team. We expect that there will be from 10 to 25 proposals submitted to each Results Team.

Cause and Effect Mapping Process

Deliverables

By the end of the meeting you should have:

Developed three indicators that taken together will enable stakeholders to gauge the City's progress in achieving the Priority outcome
Created a cause and effect map showing 5-7 primary factors that influence reaching your Priority outcome and 2-4 secondary factors for each primary factor
Ranked the primary factors in terms of what has the highest leverage to achieve the outcome.

Indicator Development

Review the Priority statement
Think individually about ways you would know if the City were getting better or worse in relationship to the statement.
Write down your thoughts. You should have thought of 5 to 10 possible indicators, at least. These indicators typically relate to community condition, not program results.
Brainstorm as a team the indicators that would show progress toward achieving the Priority outcome. These are "marquee" indicators that taken together would indicate to the Council and public that the outcome is being achieved.
As a team, group the indicators. Choose the clearest indicator statements and remember that they must be quantifiable.
Prioritize the indicator statements and keep discussing until the team agrees on the top three or decides to defer a final decision (if there is a time limit on the discussion.)
Refine the final 3 indicators, keeping in mind that
- Indicators must be measureable
- Data on the indicator must be available in a timely way
- The indicator must be clearly and closely related to the priority and show whether things are improving or getting worse
Assign someone on the team to prepare a brief description of each of your three indicators and why it was chosen.

Cause and Effect Map Preparation

Put the outcome statement in the middle of the wall or white board, along with your final 3 indicators
Each person brainstorms as many factors as they can come up with that impact achieving the outcome and writes them on post-its (one idea per post-it). Don't limit factors to what the city does or could do. The idea is to have a map that shows all the factors that influence the outcome. Later when you do purchasing strategies you will narrow down to what the city does or could influence.
Each team member should then put his or her post-its on the wall as they name them aloud. As a group, sort them into groupings until you are satisfied you have5-7 solid, important factors. Each grouping is given a title that describes the factor. Some of the post-its will end up as secondary factors.
Using the leftover post-its and generating new ones, identify 2-3 secondary factors for each primary factor.

Ranking the Factors

Rank the primary factors in terms of which ones have the highest leverage. 1 has the least leverage and 5 has the most leverage or impact.
Assign someone to turn the work into a document using a graphics program or Power Point and to bring copies for everyone for the day two session on RFRs.
Either in this meeting, if time, or in the day two session, discuss and decide where to go for evidence to check your factors and prioritizations.