analytics

Today’s senior managers are tempted to begin analytics programs before determining the mission-essential questions they are seeking data to answer.  Older data-based analytics efforts often grew out of the discoveries of line employees who made connections and saw patterns in data after receiving new software or hardware that helped them make sense of what they were studying.

Measuring program performance is relatively straightforward in many areas of government, such as social services, visa processing, and air traffic control.  But there are instances where assessing performance and success is much harder.  One particularly difficult area involves law enforcement, where a key goal is to prevent or deter bad outcomes – which can often happen without the knowledge of law enforcement officials.

In our 2011 report on analytics use in the federal government, "From Data to Decisions: The Power of Analytics," we wrote about the tremendous budget pressures federal agencies face at a time when there is great public demand for government to be more effective and efficient. This report’s release sparked an overwhelmingly positive response from agency leaders and federal performance management practitioners who asked, “Where do we go from here?

Our aim is to produce research and analysis that helps government leaders more effectively respond to their mission and management challenges.

The IBM Center is named "The Business of Government" because its focus is the management and operation of government, not the policies of government. Public sector leaders and managers need the best, most practical advice available when it comes to delivering the business of government. We seek to “bridge the gap” between research and practice by helping to stimulate and accelerate the production of actionable research.

Batting average isn’t the best way to determine the effectiveness of a hitter. The Oakland Athletics learned that while doing statistical analyses of players and trying to build a winning team during their 2002 season. “They took everything that happened on the baseball field and sliced it and diced it to its most elemental parts,” Michael Lewis, author of the book, “Moneyball,” said in a radio interview.  The A’s surprised just about everyone with their new-found success on the field, besting teams that had millions more to spend on recruiting top players.

Government leaders are deluged with thousands of streams of data about the performance of their agencies and programs.

One approach the Obama administration has latched onto to make sense out of the deluge of data is the use of on-line “dashboards” of performance data that track the key performance metrics of various federal agencies and programs.  The administration has touted the benefits of dashboards as a way of organizing and filtering performance data so it makes sense to decision makers so they can understand and act on it.