A Practitioner’s Framework for Measuring Results: Using “C-Stat” at the Colorado Department of Human Services

This report is intended to help leaders of large, complex organizations learn from State-based experiences in measuring performance in pursuit of better results. It is a first-person account based on the author’s experiences over the past 10 years in several different state agencies.

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By

Melissa Wavelet

Melissawavelet0@gmail.com

While this report is a framework for measuring performance in state agencies, it has relevance to performance measurement in other large public sector organizations as well. The author describes the evolution of C-Stat as a management framework for over a seven-year period, and offers concrete and actionable advice on the dynamics of using such an approach. She also describes how practitioners might leverage this type of measurement framework to bridge performance management and program evaluation disciplines in a way that can create greater insights for agencies — providing agency leaders with more data to focus on near-term performance issues and longer-term program outcomes. The report contains a number of hotlinks to additional resources that provide granular details of how to construct such a framework.

Read our blog on the report.

Read the article on the Governing website.

A Practitioner's Framework for Measuring Results