a performance scorecard for parks and recreation...a top box score is the sum of percentages for the...

From the — Summer 2017Email: [email protected]

P arks and Recreation agencies play an important role

in the quality of lives of the communities they serve. In that regard, every park and recreation agency should be concerned with the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations. Strategic planning and operational performance plans help agencies organize for success. Developing objective measures, targets, and initiatives can help agencies be more accountable to their constituents and provide a perspective on the performance of the organization.

The Balanced Scorecard Approach

In recent years, many parks and recreation agencies have begun to adopt a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) approach to accurately measure the full scope of their operations. The Balanced Scorecard was originally

developed by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton of Harvard University as a framework for measuring organizational performance using a more BALANCED set of performance measures.

Traditionally, public and private companies used financial performance as their measure of success. But in the public sector, financial considerations can have an “enabling or restraining role,” and are not the only criterion for assessing strategic outcomes. There is no “bottom line” for most government agencies. Outcomes are more difficult to validate, because government agencies are not driven by profit and traditional measures like Return on Investment. The “balanced scorecard” adds additional, non-financial strategic measures to the mix, which enables agencies to align outputs with outcomes and strategy. It can provide evidence of progress toward goals and can validate policy.

According to Kaplan and Norton, the Balanced Scorecard is a management system that organizations use to:• Communicate what they are

trying to accomplish.• Align the day-to-day work that

everyone is doing with strategic targets.

• Prioritize projects, products, and services.

• Measure and monitor progress towards strategic targets.

The system enables an organization to link big picture, strategic elements such as mission and vision with operational elements such as strategic objectives, performance measures, targets, and initiatives. From its introduction in the 1990s, BCS has been used extensively in business, government, and nonprofit organizations worldwide, and is now considered one of the top five management tools in use today.

© 2017 GreenPlay LLC. All rights reserved.

A Performance Scorecard for Parks and RecreationBy John Rainey and Donald L. Jones, PhD

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Applying the Scorecard

Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives, and develop strategic objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives (actions) relative to each of these points of view:• Financial: Often renamed Stew-

ardship or other more appropriate name in the public sector, this perspective views organizational financial performance and the use of financial resources.

• Customer/Stakeholder: This perspective views organizational performance from the point of view of the customer or other key stakeholders that the organization is designed to serve.

• Internal Process: Views organiza-tional performance through the lenses of the quality and efficiency related to products or services or other key business processes.

• Organizational Capacity (original-ly called Learning and Growth): Views organizational performance through the lenses of human capi-

tal, infrastructure, technology, cul-ture, and other capacities that are key to breakthrough performance.

The Balanced Scorecard is proving to

be a great tool for aligning employees, programs, projects and services with the organization’s vision, mission and strategies, and it helps improve program and service outcomes at all levels of the organization.

Scott Bangle, CPRP, General Manager of the Riverside County Park and Open-Space District in California, uses the BSC tool to help answer the question, “How are we doing? Are we ready for the future?” In 2011, he implemented a variation of the BSC for his agency to measure performance in a variety of critical areas of his system. Scott tells us, “We wanted a tool to measure progress, and the Balanced Scorecard helped us get there. We’ve been using it for five years now. It’s updated every month, it’s available to all our staff, and it’s included in all our publications including our Work Plan and Annual Report.” Scott has


Balanced ScorecardAdapted from Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, “Using the Balanced Scorecard as a Strategic Manage-ment System,” Harvard Business Review (January-February 1996):76.

Vision and

Strategy

Customer/Stakeholder“Satisfaction”

Internal Business Process

“Efficiency”

Organizational Capacity

“Knowledge & Innovation”

Financial Stewardship

“Financial Performance”

Stra

tegi

c O

bjectives Strategic M

ap

Performance Meas

ures

& T

arge

ts

Strategic Initiatives


Vision and

Strategy



“Efficiency”





Stra

tegi

c O


ap

Performance Meas

ures

& T

arge

ts

Strategic Initiatives


Vision and

Strategy



“Efficiency”





Stra

tegi

c O


ap

Performance Meas

ures

& T

arge

ts

Strategic Initiatives ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE

Non-Property Tax revenue

CIP Met

Operations Reserve

Expenditure Budget Target

Volunteer Hours

CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE

Customer Satisfaction Rating

Marketing Touchpoints

INTERNAL BUSINESS SUPPORT PERSPECTIVE

Active Partnership Agreements

Acres Under Management

Regional Trails Miles

Plan Check Review Time Frame

CAPRA Standards Current

Tactics Completed

Recognition Events

Staff Readiness Index

LEARNING & GROWTH PERSPECTIVE

Preventable Employee Accidents

Performance Evaluations on Time

Training Hours

FY16-17

TARGET

$10,000,000.00

90%

25%

100%

100,000

98%

3,000,000

5

73,000

169

8

145

20

4

75%

10

100%

6,000

FY17-18

TARGET

$8,000,000.00

90%

25%

100%

80,000

98%

2,500,000

5

74,000

172

10

145

20

3

80%

5

100%

2,000

FY18-19

TARGET

$9,000,000.00

90%

25%

100%

85,000

98%

3,000,000

4

76,000

180

10

145

20

3

85%

5

100%

2,000

FY19-20

TARGET

$10,000,000.00

90%

25%

100%

90,000

98%

3,500,000

4

80,000

185

10

145

20

3

90%

5

100%

2,000

BALANCED SCORECARD

"VISION IS THE ART OF SEEING THE INVISIBLE"

ZUMBA DEMONSTRATION AT HEALTHY LIVING EXTRAVAGANZA EVENT, JURUPA VALLEY, CA

BOARD OF DIRECTORS:Kevin Jeffries, Chair, 1st District

John F. Tavaglione, 2nd District

Chuck Washington, 3rd District

Marion Ashley, 4th District Steward

Marion Ashley, 5th District

COUNTY EXECUTIVE TEAM:Jay Orr, County Executive Officer (CEO)

George Johnson, Chief Assistant CEO

EXECUTIVE TEAM:Scott Bangle, General Manager/Parks Director

Kyla Brown, Chief – Parks and Recreation

Keith Herron, Chief – Resources

Brande Hune, Chief – Business Operations

DISTRICT ADVISORY COMMISSION: Mark Balys, Chair, 1st District

Amie Kinne, 1st District

Daniel Hake, 2nd District

Jon Christensen, 2nd District

Cois Byrd, 3rd District

Anthony Migliore, 3rd District

Bob Grady, 4th District

Ryan Stendell, 4th District

Daniel (Hugh) Van Horn, Vice Chair, 4th District

Martin Rosen, 5th District

Bill Zimmerman, 5th District

HISTORICAL COMMISSION:

Ruth Atkins, 1st District

Joyce Hohenadl, 1st District

Steve Lech, Chair, 2nd District

Don Williamson, Vice Chair, 2nd District

Darell Farnbach, 3rd District

Marc Hendon, Member at Large

Nicolette Wenzell-Lauhead, 4th District

Priscilla Porter, 4th District

Bernard (Bernie) Howlett, 5th District

Vacancies: District 3 & 5

TRAILS COMMITTEE:

Philip Bremenstuhl, 1st District

Patricia Anderson, 1st District

Rod Holland, Vice Chair, 2nd District

Amie Kinne, 2nd District

Robin Reid, 3rd District

Richard Croy, 5th District

Dean Benson, 5th District

Gerald Jolliffe, Chair, Member at Large

Vacancies: District 3 & 4

FRIENDS GATHERED AT THE ANNUAL BALLOON & WINE FESTIVAL AT LAKE SKINNER, WINCHESTER, CA

Special thank you to former County

Supervisor John J. Benoit for his past

leadership and vision which has helped

shape the Park District's future.

06

2020

ST

RA

TE

GIC

PL

AN

- R

IVC

OPA

RK

S

07

3

changed the scorecard over time. For instance, at first he was measuring Employee Engagement (a popular term five years ago), but found that their results were trending down rather than improving. (There are some recent studies that show if you keep asking employees how they feel about their job, eventually you train them to feel that there’s something wrong.) Now he does a staff readiness index, which measures resource capacity and that’s been very useful for them. Another factor being tracked is preventable employee accidents, because the District saw an increase, and that has proven to be very helpful. But the most important metric for the District is the Customer Satisfaction Rating – “that’s one we measure, and we’re really honest about it, and we’ve maintained a 98% rating, which is kind of unheard of. That’s the one we keep our eye on — that, and our non-property tax revenue, because we don’t get any general fund subsidy.”

GreenPlay consultant, Don Jones, PhD, likes to add a Top Box Score as an important measure of customer satisfaction. A top box score is the sum of percentages for the top one, two, or three highest points on a satisfaction survey. The score refers to the number of fives (on a scale of 1 to 5) that an organization gets on a series of qualitative questions like, “How would you rate your overall experience?” or “How likely are you to refer your family and friends to the XYZ Center?” The number of fives given to the questions are then divided by the number of surveys answered for the Top Box Score. The goal is to score five on at least 75% of the answers. This is a key indicator of the satisfaction level of participants.

Designing the Scorecard

Design of a balanced scorecard entails the identification of a small number of financial and non-financial measures and attaching targets to them, so that when they are reviewed, it is possible to determine whether current performance “meets expectations.” By alerting managers to areas where performance deviates from expectations, they will know to focus their attention on these areas, and hopefully, trigger improved performance within the part of the organization that they lead.

Ideally, a balanced scorecard should be focused on information relating to a strategic plan. Kaplan & Norton identified four steps they thought were needed to design a balanced scorecard:

1. Translating the vision into operational goals (strategic objectives).

2. Communicating the vision and linking it to individual performance.

3. Business planning and index setting.

4. Feedback and learning, and adjusting the strategy accordingly.

Since the mid-1960s, the Walt Disney Company has operated its theme parks around one original vision: “We Create Happiness.” No matter what an employee’s role is in a park, their job is to make the Guests happy. To “operationalize” this mission, Disney established four key values to help keep all of its “cast members” working toward the same goals. (Disney calls all employees “Cast Members.”) The goals are: Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency. Disney refers to them as the Disney Service Basics, but, in essence, they could be referred to as a BSC system.

Another variation on the Balanced Scorecard approach is one developed


worked for seven years with Cirque du Soleil – talk

about variety!

This luncheon brought everyone closer together and

clearly made everyone feel more comfortable with their

subsequent referrals as they now knew everyone’s specialty

and area of interest.The result is that over the past six months, we have

exceeded our goal of 10 referrals per month by at leastfive per month.

Our success with ‘‘Outpatient Conversion to

Membership’’ clearly illustrates the success you can have

using a Balanced Scorecard. Moreover, it also shows how,

as an organization, we have gotten away from being so

‘‘bottom line’’ focused and are now looking for ‘‘balance’’

in our metrics.

� Market : As would be expected, we measure NewMemberships and Attrition of Members. This area has takena different twist as time has gone by as we have nowadded Temporary Memberships to the mix. This reflectsthe trend towards month-to-month membershipsin our industry.

Attrition is worth measuring simply because weneed to understand the causes of why people leave

our operation. The old adage of ‘‘Expect WhatYou Inspect’’ holds true for this and all other parameterswe measure.

� Finance : We choose to measure Salaries andWages, Supply Costs, EBDIT, EBDIT %, OtherRevenue, and Other Revenue % (as a percent of TotalRevenue).

30 ACSM’S HEALTH & FITNESS JOURNALA MARCH/APRIL 2006 VOL. 10, NO. 2

BALANCED SCORECARDS

Copyr ight © Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.

by GreenPlay consultant, Don Jones, PhD. When he was Executive Director of The Fitness Center & Day Spa connected with Florida Hospital Celebration Health, Dr. Jones developed his variation of the Balanced Scorecard (which he called a Report Card) and based it on five key elements (or performance measures), which coincided with the organization’s parent hospital. These elements are: Team, Service, Clinical, Market, and Finance. To each of these, he identified specific goals and measures that he used to score his organization (see his report card). Every element is linked to the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program Criteria, to which many government agencies and NGOs adhere (particularly Criteria #4: Measurement, Analysis, and Knowledge Management). Dr. Jones also incorporated a dashboard (like a traffic signal or meter) that gave him a clear indication of areas that were doing well, and meeting expectations (green light), and areas that needed more attention (red light).

Dr. Jones’ Performance Scorecard could be adapted to parks and recreation agencies to measure Team, Service, Health, Market, and Finance, for example. Many agencies are adopting Health and Livability Initiatives into their strategic objectives, and a balanced scorecard

with this element is a perspective worthy of focus.

Another GreenPlay consultant, John Drew, MS, is working with the Florida Department of Health in Collier County to design a performance scorecard based on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program Criteria. The key elements in this scorecard include Products/Services, Customers/Stakeholders, Workforce, Leadership, Financial/Market. Choosing a few key measures within each of these elements aligns the department’s strategic goals with its mission, vision, and values while creating a snapshot of overall performance that is monitored monthly.

Some organizations use the BSC method on a quarterly or annual basis. Others use it as a monthly gauge to monitor progress and make mid-course corrections where necessary. It is important that the whole organization understands the purpose behind the system, and that supervisors and elected officials not just understand it, but participate in its creation as well. A balanced scorecard with buy-in from all organizational levels can set the stage for identifying areas where improvement efforts are needed and foster a culture of pride and excellence within the organization.

How is your organization doing?

Is your organization doing as well as it could? How do you know? What changes might be made to make it better? The answer to these and other key performance issues usually come from strategic planning and analysis of your whole organization.

GreenPlay uses a systems approach employing evidence-based methodologies to help Parks and Recreation agencies measure, analyze, and expand their knowledge. We utilize a proven set of tools to develop strategic and comprehensive plans, master plans, feasibility studies, funding and cost recovery analysis, partnering and sponsorship opportunities, programs evaluation, pricing studies, community outreach, management consulting, and staffing evaluations. The Balanced Scorecard can be an important element of an agency’s overall Strategic Plan. If your agency doesn’t have one, or if you need to update an existing plan that doesn’t include a BSC, then call GreenPlay, LLC or contact us through our website.

Keep in mind the advice of famous management consultant, Peter Drucker, who said,

“What gets measured gets done.” ❝

❝


4


5

References:

Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, National Institute of Science and Technology. https://www.nist.gov/baldrige

Balanced Scorecard Wiki. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_scorecard

Balanced Scorecard Institute. http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSC-Basics/About-the-Balanced-Scorecard

Disney’s Four Keys to a Great Guest Experience – World Class Benchmarking. (2016)http://greenplayllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Disney’s-Four-Keys-to-a-Great-Guest-Experience-–-World-Class-Benchmarking.pdf

Freebalance. http://freebalance.com/public-financial-management/why-use-the-balanced-scorecard-in-government/

Jones, D.L.. (2006). Balanced Scorecards: Improving Your Outcomes Measures ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal, March/April , Vol. 10, No. 2: 28-31.

Kaplan, R. S. & Norton, D. P. (1992). The Balanced Scorecard – Measures That Drive Performance. Harvard Business Review (January–February): 71–79.

Riverside County Park and Open-Space District, California. (2013)http://www.rivcoparks.org/wp-content/uploads/Agenda-Item-13.5-Balanced-Scorecard-Staff-Report-9-12-13.pdf

Riverside County Park and Open-Space District, California. (2017)http://www.rivcoparks.org/wp-content/uploads/SP-2020.pdf

Mackie B. (2008). Organisational Performance Management in a Government Context: A Literature Review. Mackie Public Management. http://www.focusintl.com/RBM064-0064768.pdf

NRPA CAPRA Standards. http://www.nrpa.org/certification/accreditation/CAPRA/capra-standards/

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