Driving Transparency & Innovation: Inside Fort Lauderdale's Strategy Playbook

All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. The topic for today's webinar is Driving Transparency and Innovation Inside Fort Lauderdale's Strategy Playbook. I'm excited to introduce Erica Johnson, Structural Innovation Manager for the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Ted Jackson, Clearpoint Strategy co founder. The audience will be muted for the duration of the webinar, but we encourage you to submit any questions in the Q and A tab without further delay. Let's get started, Ted.

Thanks, Megan. And thank you, Erica, for joining me. Tell me a little bit about Fort Lauderdale and about your role there.

So Fort Lauderdale is a really exciting city. It's going through a really big growth period right now. We're seeing lots of new businesses come to Fort Lauderdale. What was once a sleepy retirement community is now turning into a mecca for marine and tourism. We have about 190,000 residents, but we also see that number double every day with commuters. I've been with the city for about eight and a half years now, so I've gotten to see a lot of this exciting growth happen over time, which is always really exciting. For those of you that don't have a structural Innovation Manager in your city, and I think a unique title, so probably not too many. My work is really focused on strategic planning, quality management, innovation, performance management. Really everything that's kind of in that planning data wheelhouse.

That's great. So where are you? Where is Fort Lauderdale in your strategic planning journey?

So we are just coming off the cusp. Last October, our third five year strategic plan went live. So it's really exciting, you know, to have a new plan, work on implementing it, start thinking about how do you communicate this plan and track it going forward. And so one of the exciting ways that we did that is, is we went and we relaunched, rebranded, re, updated, re, everything. Our strategic plan dashboard. And the intent behind our strategic plan dashboard is really to promote transparency and accountability, not only internally, but externally. We know that once we start putting things out into the universe for the public to look at, analyze, scrutinize, we really want to make sure that we are comfortable with that information, but it also makes sure that we're moving the needle forward and all of the different goals that we have. Our current strategic plan is divided into six goals, and then we have five, what we call guiding principles. And so these are areas that used to be internal service goals. So think things like fiscal responsibility, innovation, customer service. But as we were developing this new strategic plan, we realized, you know, these really shouldn't be standalone goals. These are really things that we should be doing as a part of every action we have, whether we're focusing on, you know, resilience and infrastructure, public safety, customer service and fiscal responsibility. We can't separate those out. They have to be done together. So that's really kind of at a really high level where we're at in our strategic plan journey. A little bit of new, but also, like I said, this is our third five year plan. So we've been doing this for about 15 years.

Awesome. Can you show us what that plan looks like? I think you've put it already into a public facing dashboard.

So I'm sharing with you all and it'll probably take just a moment to load up. But this is our public facing strategic plan dashboard. So I mentioned we have six goals and if you are good at counting, you'll notice you only see five icons below. And these are what we call focus areas. They're really kind of broad categories that define, you know, the different goals that we have. We have one in every focus goal. We have a goal in every focus area with the exception of infrastructure and resilience, which we have two goals under that focus area. One focused on, you know, pipes in the ground or your traditional infrastructure. But then we also have roadway infrastructure. So that one's divided into two. But let me give you an example of what our dashboard really looks like. So if you click on public safety, you'll see our strategic plan goal. We want to, by 2029, 2029, to be a safe community that is proactive and responsive to risk. We've identified three performance indicators so that we have an objective way to say, have we reached success or not? And this is really important. I think when you're giving a narrative, while that's really important to providing the context of the work being done, you need to have an objective way to say, yes, we've reached our goal or no, we have not. And so we do that as a part of our strategic plan development. We set what those indicators are and we stick with them for the duration of the plan. And so you can see Here we have 3 crime rate, which is primarily targeted at our police, public safety, fire, rescue response times, and then police response times. And they're color coded. So this is a good example. We have one in every category for 2024. We have one performance indicator that's performing at or above where we had targeted. We have one that's below target overall.

I mean, if I looked at one of those and saw there were three KPIs and said, okay, do you have 10 or 15 KPIs overall? You must have many more measures that you're using across the city. So you've just chosen a few key ones to share with residents. How did you, you go through that process?

So that process was really more of a collaborative effort. So again we had the benefit of this is our third five year iteration. So it was obviously easier this time around than it was the first time. But we looked at, you know, what performance indicators our departments typically reporting on. Some of our departments, you know, when they were going to HOA meetings, they were sharing some standard indicators. So we met with department leaders and said, hey, what are you already tracking? What are you hearing from our residents? What's important to share? And so we built off of that and so we were went from there. We already have a fairly robust performance management program in place, so we were able to really link the two together and said, hey, this is what we're already reporting on. How does this fit in with our current strategic plan? We had a few new goals that we had to come up with new performance measures on, but really it was what is our community already interested in? Do we have access to and how can we promote that information?

Yeah. Awesome. One of the benefits of having your third five year strategic plan under your.

Belt, but you have to start somewhere.

No, for sure, for sure. So there are a few things that you said that I wanted to call out and ask you a little bit about, even in just your last statements. Let's. One, I'm curious about how this plan is different than your other plans. And you said you were, you were listening in HOA meetings and in other community outreach, how much does community play a role in helping you build those plans? So for your 2024 plan, 2024-2029 plan, like tell me about community involvement and tell me about how these plans are different than what you, what you've done in the past.

So I think I can answer both of those questions at once. And so you asked what's been different about the different plans that the city has had? And what's been the same has been our development process. Now we've some years added more detail into it. Other years we've been able to move a little bit more quickly. But community engagement and resident feedback has one been one of the pieces that we've always considered as we put our strategic plan together. And the primary way that we've done that is we have an annual resident survey that we send out to our residents. It's statistically valid and representative of our community. So it's information data that we really rely on. And so we ask questions on how satisfied are you at the city's infrastructure? How satisfied are you with education within the city? How important is it? So we're really trying to, you know, capture what is the areas where residents aren't satisfied, but it's also really important to them. And that indicates to us as we go through a strategic planning effort that these are the areas where the city really needs to focus on over the next five years. On the flip side of the token, there were areas where the city was doing really well, and those were areas that maybe we had been working on over the last 10 years. And we say, hey, we, we've reached success, let's not forget what we're doing, but we're can move on to a new area of focus. And so that's been really how we've been doing our strategic planning effort and considering community engagement. We also have really involved residents in our advisory board. We have a very involved budget advisory board. And so as we're meeting with directors and kind of fleshing out what the different goals are, those conversations always come to light as well. Now, in terms of what's different. So one thing that I already mentioned was that this year we had are guiding principles. And so the five guiding principles, I kind of alluded to them, but I'll just tell you what they are. They are customer service, fiscal responsibility, innovation, technology adaptation, and inclusivity. And so these are the things that we look to as a city and say, hey, these are really important areas that we want to focus on over the next five years, but they really have to be considered through all of the different efforts that we're doing. If we're trying to improve public safety, we can't just throw innovation or customer service aside. We have to do it together. You know, as we're looking to improve our infrastructure system, we have to be fiscally responsible. Those are very expensive things to do. And so that's been one change that we made this year. It seems to be very well received by our staff and how they're implementing and improving it going forward. So that's something that we're really excited about.

Probably also easier to manage some of those internal things on a project or focus area, rather than trying to say, how are we doing on customer service across the hundreds of services that we provide as a city?

Right.

So thanks for that. So let's break down this strategic plan. Right. So you have pieces of it in the public Dashboard. But then how frequently do you report on the plan?

So our. All of our performance indicators in our strategic plan, all of the goals, those are available in our dashboard. We really look to update that data at least one time per year. And so publicly and to our city commission, we provide a report, an annual report, one time per year after the end of the fiscal year. And this report is really. We try to present it as a story. It's a narrative on all of the different projects that we've done, the major awards that we've won, you know, how we're moving the needle. But coupled with that, we also include all of this performance data to support the narrative. Right. As someone who is deeply involved in performance management, we want everything to be data driven that we're doing. And so we really work to make sure that when we present that, it's not just numbers. Some people are numbers people, but some people also need a story, they need a picture to go along with it. And so we really try to do that together. So we do that one time per year. However, on a quarterly basis. Internally, we report on our performance measures. And so we're looking at, you know, for the fiscal year to date, how are we performing? You know, if Your target is 100 and you're 3/4 of the way through the year and you're only at 10, how are you going to reach your target in the last three months of the year? And so these are the conversations that we're having. You know, sometimes it's things that are out of our control. You know, did we have a hurricane, a pandemic? Sometimes that happens, but then other times, you know, it's a process that needs refined or we need to improve how we're doing public engagement. And so we have all of those conversations internally on a quarterly basis.

Okay, great. I love the idea of making sure you have the right qualitative information to support those stories. And I think about this podcast I listen to that celebrates what they call the Beige Book, which is like a federal government. Like, these are the stories behind the economic statistics that, that we provide, and I think they're important. So, so we did get a question from our, our audience about kind of the, the red, yellow, green status indicators. And, you know, I'm just going to phrase it around your, your annual reporting, but Sherry asked, in my experience, you know, these stoplights can generate political pressure and pushback from owners and in any organization. And so transparency is hard when you're not doing well. So how do you manage the pushback and how do you, how do you, how do you get the support or the buy in to produce, you know, a report like you showed with some red in it and some yellow and some green? When a lot of people really just want to talk about green.

Right. One of the things that we do is how we presented the red, yellow and green. And we've refined this a little bit over the years. But, you know, instead of just saying we're both above target, below target, you know, we're in trouble, we're, we're doing well. We've really tried to phrase this around the idea of continual improvement. And so if you're green, yes, that's good, but that's, we're proceeding as planned. We had a plan and we're doing what we said we needed to do. So that's thumbs up. You know, if we're underperforming, we're calling that reviewing for improvement. And so we recognize that we're not where we need to be. But it also puts an action onto the data owner or the process owner to say, hey, we need to review this and figure out what's going on so that we can improve it. And then likewise with that caution, what we typically say is within 10% of, of meeting our target, you're monitoring your progress. We used to, I think, just call it caution, underperforming above performing, but now we really want to put it with an action on, hey, there's something that you need to do. The other thing that I will mention is, you know, we've been using this type of system since 2016, so nearly 10 years, a decade. And so this type of reporting, doing it on a quarterly cadence, requiring data owners to, to report their data by the end of the month. All of this was really challenging when we started, but now that we've done it for a while, it's starting to get integrated into the culture of our organization where it's expected, oh, I have to report my data now. People still need a reminder, but it's not unexpected. It's just the way that we do business. And so I think if you have a few champions on board that are willing to get behind that over time, it just does become a part of your practice.

That's great. That's a very nice way of saying you've trained people over time that red, yellow and green are completely okay. And this is like the way that we have transparency in our organization.

And one other thing I'll add to that is we also, and this is part of our public sharing, we also allow People an opportunity to explain the data. So if there is a specific reason on why we're underperforming it, it allows data owners to feel more in control of the process, but it also provides more context to the public on what is actually going on.

Yeah, tree canopy is down for a hurricane, not for massive development that's ripping up all of our public parks.

Exactly right.

Okay, so back to our strategic plan. You have the big annual plan that you report internally on a quarterly basis to make sure you're on track. Does that mean that each department also has a strategic plan or how does it work? How does this plan get translated down through the organization?

Yeah, so that's a really good question. We have a citywide plan, however, on an annual basis. So in January, every department puts together a business plan. And what this does is it connects their operations to the strategic goals and the strategic plan. We actually call this the first step in our budget process as well as. And then at the same time that departments are doing that. And our business plans include everything from a SWOT analysis. They're looking at their strengths, their weaknesses, their opportunities, their threats, how they're going to handle that. They dig into performance measures, setting their targets for the next year, explaining why they're either over performing or underperforming, and then also identifying strategic initiatives and saying, hey, if I'm going to do this strategic initiative, I might need funding for it. I don't have any now. So it allows for a decision point as we move into budget development. At the same time that we're doing our business plans, we have our annual commission prioritization workshop, which is where we meet with our elected officials and say, here's our strategic plan for the next five years. Give us a little bit more direction. Where should we provide more focus. So as an example, we have a strategic goal to, you know, and bolster housing in the city. However, a commission priority underneath that strategic goal might be to look at sheltering options for homeless. And so it allows just a little bit more direction, clarity, narrow scope for the next year to focus on departments. Then as they finish up, their business plans, will build in those commission priorities. And then we go right into budget development.

That sounds awesome. It sounds like it's a. It's a really smooth process. Are there any hiccups in it or how have you gotten it to run nicely?

Anytime you're doing anything important, there is going to be a hiccup because people care about what they're doing and they're passionate, which is going to automatically lead to, you know, differing opinions and ideas. One example I have on just how this process, we've refined it over time. We actually used to hold our commission prioritization workshop at the beginning of summer right in the middle of our budget development process. And it was a nightmare for everybody. It was very challenging to after the fact build all of these priorities into the budget. And it really wasn't a strategic process because you're just trying to fit things in after the fact. And so we changed it up. We said, how about instead of doing this in June, we're going to do it in January, we're going to try it out and see how it goes. And then this is one case where it worked great and it worked so much better. And you know, we've done a few things over the years that hey, that didn't work out quite the way we wanted it to. But I think you need to have honest conversations about what's working and what's not working and then being willing to try something and then admit if it doesn't work.

No, that's great. And, and it leads to another question we got from our, our audience, which is how far back this will be like a test for you, Erica, of how far back can you remember is, can you speak about like the first strategic plan and how did the city get started? How did you get buy in community input, et cetera, like, and maybe even contrast it a little bit with, with kind of a third plan in the process?

Yes. So I joined the city while we were on the tail end of implementing the first plan. However, the first plan was a really robust effort. And so what the city did was before we even moved into a five year strategic plan, they had a community board and they did tons of workshops, meetings, outreach to identify and establish a long term vision plan. So that'll go through 2035. It was adopted in 2013, so you know, almost 20 years long range plan that was really driven by the community about what do you envision Fort Lauderdale looking like in 2035? It was very aspirational in nature, by design. From there the city went and said, how do we actually make this vision plan a reality? Well, we have to do it in bite sized chunks. And so that's where they developed the first five year strategic plan. And so that plan was very detailed. Of course, it had to be. It was our first strategic plan and outlined I think at the time, 12 goals, each with very specific projects, initiatives, performance measures. And so we kept with that general process. Of course we, in my opinion, 12 goals is a little bit much to wrap your hands around in any five year period. So we've condensed it down a little bit. We've brought in some areas, we've specified some other areas to really say, hey, what's a reasonable chunk of work that we can do in five years? A lot of the goals are very similar to what they were 10, 12 years ago. When you're talking about, you know, water and wastewater infrastructure, that's not something that you're going to be able to totally revamp in five years. In 20 years, that's probably going to be challenging to do. But then on the other side, you know, education has been a goal that's been in our strategic plan and we've made a few operational changes. You know, the city of Fort Lauderdale doesn't control the public education system, but we've brought on a chief Education officer to help liaise between us and the school board. And so some of those things that were once goals, we've now counted wins and we're moving on. So I think starting really robust was a good starting spot for us, but we've really kind of streamlined and centralized what we're working on into more manageable chunks.

Yeah, awesome. I remember, I was wondering if I have more experience in Fort Lauderdale than you, because I remember like 12 years ago the, the city was doing, was trying to do the community listening and they did, what do they call it, like strategy meeting in a box where you could. Yeah, yes. So you could pick up a box and take it to your home and meet with your community and your residence or have it wherever you play bridge or something like that. And it would facilitate getting feedback from your community without the limitations of the few staff at the city that, you know, obviously had their, their limits in reach. So it was a, it was really nice to be able to, to think about that and then, you know, now to listen to you. Ten years later, we have this survey. We have citizens or residents on there, on different councils, whether it's a budget or priority council. And now there's like a, a really nicely integrated process. All right, before we run out, I have a couple more questions. What would you say to someone who's just getting started? This is kind of related, right? What would you say to someone who's just getting started with strategy reporting?

I would say just get started, start small and be willing to evolve it over time and be willing to change. We've changed our performance reporting several times over and every time we think this is, we're doing great work and we were, but now, 10 years later, looking back, we're doing even better. And we wouldn't have been able to do that unless we had the hard conversation. So start small and then, you know, keep, keep building it, keep maturing your system and over time it will turn into something great. I'm looking forward to the next 10 years to look back and say we thought we had it then. Remember when I talked on that webinar and we're even better now.

Yeah, that's great. And how is, how's clearpoint played a role in your, your process over the years?

So clearpoint's been really helpful because it allows us to keep and store all of our performance related data in one place. Our city, as I'm sure every other city, you know, has several different data repositor, but clearpoint allows us to put it all in one place and to easily report on it. So for us that's clicking a button and the data uploads into our online facing dashboard. We don't have to go and try to be web developers to make that happen. It's pretty seamless. The other thing is that we've taken advantage of some of the automated reporting features. And so we used to putting together our performance reports would take a day or two collecting data, putting it in Excel, printing it out, and now we've automated that and so we still take some time to dig into it, but it's pushing a button and it's automatically generated in a matter of minutes. So some of those things, I think clearpoint has really allowed us to spend our time more wisely rather than just putting reports together.

And do you get resistant? This is probably even less of a, of a clear point question, but do you get resistance to the strategy reporting process or like how is it after 10 years, like, you know, how's it working?

I mean initially, yeah, it was a little bit challenging reaching out for updates and you know, having people report back. But I think at this point it's because we've done it for so long and this is really, I think, to start small but evolve. My message on that is, you know, it does get integrated into your system as new employees have joined the city. And I see that a lot of like the data reporting is kind of a stepping stone for a lot of individual's career. So as they join the city, this is sometimes the first task that they get assigned and it's just the way that we do business and then you know, they'll, they'll be promoted up and new people will come in. And it's just we're, we're really cultivating an organization where accountability and transparency are critical.

That's great. Well, Erica, thank you so much for your time today. I mean, sharing this, listening to kind of the long term journey. I know some people feel like it's pretty intimidated to get started with strategy reporting, but, but you have to start somewhere. And you're still doing great work. 13, 15, 15 years. And I look forward. Maybe we won't do our next webinar in 10 years. We'll do it like every few years to check in and, and get the updates in Fort Lauderdale.

Thank you, Ted.

All right, bye.