Water Resource Division Metrics - Updated 1/26/2012
Contact: Laura Smith
The Water Resources Division is pleased to provide the entire set of metrics used by our division to track and report on our work. These metrics are organized by Environmental Stewardship, Internal Business Processes, Financial, and Learning and Growth.
These metrics represent our efforts to develop these as of today. We anticipate that these metrics will change as we get better at defining and measuring them.
The Environmental Stewardship metrics correspond with our Measures of Success. We invite you to examine that document for further details on those metrics.
The use of goals and measurements serves to focus efforts, motivate staff, communicate progress, improve environmental health and compliance conditions, increase our accountability, and foster collaboration. We intend to use these goals and measurements to enlist external assistance, encourage cooperation across organizational boundaries, and encourage discussion about strategic adjustments and priority trade-offs. We also intend to use these goals and measurements to align our work processes and activities in order to attain the outcome focused goals. The goals and outcomes set here are expected to be reviewed and modified as appropriate.
The use of measurements associated with the goals is essential. Measurements provide insights in many areas, including informed priority setting and daily decisions; finding problems and assessing their relative importance; identifying preventable causal factors; and communicating progress and problems. Measurement reinforces the importance of a goal and managerial priorities, and helps us gauge how well prior actions worked and when adjustments are needed.
The goals we are identifying will, on occasion, require us to stretch to meet them. While attainment of these goals is ideal, the immediate objective is the development of cogent strategies to meet them. These strategies will guide the Water Resources Division in measuring progress toward the goals; regular use of the data to make informed decisions; and regular reporting on goals, progress, and strategies, including reporting to the public.
Limited interpretation of the results is provided. The scale used to portray progress toward meeting the outcomes ranges from Excellent to Poor (Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor) with a blank category included for where we do not yet have measurements to interpret.
Progress is also indicated with a "+" as a positive trend, "0" being neutral, and "-" as a negative trend.
If you have any questions or comments on the Water Resources Division's metrics, please contact Laura Smith at smithl16@michigan.gov. We are especially interested in comments regarding appropriate metrics and measures.
