Court Intelligence -- A Matter of Survival

“What if I were to tell you,” IBM’s Dean R. Spitzer asks in the first sentence of his 2007 book, Transforming Performance Measurement – Rethinking the Way We Measure and Drive Organizational Success (New York: American Management Association), “that one of the most important keys to your organization’s success can be found in a very unlikely place – a place many of you may consider to be complicated, inaccessible, and perhaps even boring? … The key to success is MEASUREMENT,” he tells us (emphasis in the original).

Effective performance measurement and management can transform your organization, writes Spitzer. It shows you where you are and gets your organization where it wants to be.

I, of course, agree with Spitzer. But I would go even further.

Performance Measurement No Longer Optional

How is your court or court system performing in meeting its fundamental obligations to those it serves -- access to justice, fairness and equality, efficiency and effectiveness, professionalism, honesty and integrity, public trust and confidence, as well as accountability? How would you answer this question? Would you even bother?

Court leaders and managers today no longer have the problem (or luxury) of not knowing? Instead, they face the burden of whether they want to know. And if they believe they are better off not knowing, they still will face the demands of those that want to know, including the public, legislators, government executives, the court system’s own employees, and other stakeholders whose calls for accountability for performance are getting louder and more persistent. Not knowing the answer or refusing to answer no longer are viable options for court executives.

We Have the Keys

Identifying the right measures, getting them into hands of the right people, at the right time, and in the right way, and ensuring that performance measurement and management are integrated into the leadership and everyday management of the courts are no longer mysteries. The business and technology architecture to meet these key requirements exists. We have the tools. They are in place, in at least rudimentary but recognizable form, in courts in Oregon, Florida, Utah, Texas, California, Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, and several countries outside of the United States.

Business intelligence (BI) is a matter of survival for private companies. I predict that effective performance measurement and management – court intelligence – will soon be a requirement, if not a matter of survival, for court leaders and managers. Decisions and actions will need to be based on valid and replicable performance data – not on hunches or conjecture.

Sure, there will be courts and court systems that will resist developing court intelligence systems, just as there are those that have resisted automated court management systems. But they will be out of the mainstream.

Hallmark of Success

Today, performance measurement and management, and court intelligence -- hard-wired into the DNA of the very fabric of court leadership and management – is the hallmark of a successful court or court system. “A science is as mature as its measurement tools,” writes Dean Spitzer quoting Lois Pasteur. The same can be said about high-performing organizations.

In early cultures, the position of the sun in the sky was sufficient to measure time. Today, the tools for precise time measurement in fractions of seconds are all around us (and, literally, on us in the form of watches, cell phones, and PDAs). At least at work, our survival depends on our ability to measure time.

In the near future, court intelligence, in the form of performance measurement and management, is likely to be the defining attribute of a high-performing court or court system.

For the latest posts and archives of Made2Measure click here.

© Copyright CourtMetrics 2007. All rights reserved

Comments

Post a Comment

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

The “What Ifs” Along the Road in the Quest of a Justice Index

What if we could draw an indicator of the “health” of the justice systems throughout the United States – a Justice Index - from readily available public data that is impartial, reliable, objective and comparable, let’s say the amount of time that criminal defendants spend in custody without a trial, or even without any access to legal or justice services? Or the bail amounts imposed on misdemeanor defendants?   This kind of a measure would not be perfect – no measure is – but it would be something, better than nothing. It would address questions of fairness and efficient use of public resources. That is, a criminal defendant languishing in jail awaiting trial suffers, at the least, a delay in justice. He or she is also occupying a jail bed and spending taxpayers’ money. What if we then join this measure with another meaningful indicator of the health of our justice systems in counties and states, let’s say the degree to which jurisdictions prosecute domestic violence cases.
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