Transforming into an Outcome-Driven Organization

Background

The client was a leading non-government organization (NGO) providing social services in Hong Kong for over twenty years. Facing the major funding reform, Lump Sum Grant initiative, driven by the Social Welfare Department of HKSAR in 2001, as well as fierce competitions for new service developments ahead, the client foresaw her leadership status diminishing if she was not able to rejuvenate her aging service performance management system.

The client believed that only through a robust service performance management system could it deliver quality services and maintain competitiveness. The system must be able to integrate customer needs, service design, and operational improvement. Outcome Management seemed to be the answer. High Impact Management Consulting Limited was engaged to facilitate the application of such concept.

The Action Framework

Although the Outcome management concept was established decades ago, it got NGOs' real attention and substantive applications only since late 1990's. The Outcome Management Model that the consultant introduced was adapted from the United Way of America, the leading NGO quality management advocate in the United States.
The model is composed of four basic elements, INPUTS, PROCESSES, OUTPUTS and OUTCOMES. Through the various processes and services activities, the NGO converted the input resources into her service outputs. The impacts of the outputs on the service recipients (customers) will turn into benefits in the form of changed living standards, behaviors, attitudes, etc. These benefits are called outcomes. On the other hand, these outcomes collectively contribute to the achievement of the NGO’s mission.

Once the consultant had facilitated the client to identify the desirable outcomes, the objectives of strategic planning, annual planning and program planning became very clear. Every strategy deployed, every program planned and every dollar spent would have to pass the acid test of whether it would contribute to achieving customers' outcomes. Outcome Management simply directed our client's resources to where they were needed.

The Journey

In April 2001, the client pulled together 30 Unit Heads and supervisory staff to commence on the project "Service Outcome Measurement". Through lengthy and in-depth discussions, and with consideration of customers' and other stakeholders' expectations, the project team translated the mission into the core outcomes to achieve. The project team further broke down the desirable outcomes into commonly understandable key elements, and extracted from those elements the measurable or observable behavior and facts, setting the platform for outcome measurement.

The project team then laid down a data collection plan and performed a pilot study at selected centres. By evaluating the data and feedback after the pilot, the project team fine-tuned the measurement tools and system before full deployment. A monitoring and refinement mechanism was also in place to assure continuous improvement of the system.

The Results

The client had just shifted to high gear on outcome measurement at the end of 2001, collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative outcomes for the very first time. Immediate results of implementing outcome management included better-optimized allocation of resources, and sharper focus for staff to deliver services that could contribute to customer outcomes. This would in turn lead to more satisfied customers and strengthened competitiveness of the organization.

Lessons Learned

From the experience of our clients, other NGO's and human services organizations should note that:

In human services, customer outcomes are the ultimate requirements. Transforming from an output-focused culture to an outcome-focused one is vital to NGOs as well as to the community.

There is no "standard outcome" for an organization. Only through consensus building among stakeholders could an organization derive its unique set of outcomes to pursue.

There is no fast lane to outcome management implementation. The journey for an outcome management implementation from outcome definition to first outcome performance data collection takes 6 to 9 months. And it will take at least three refinement cycles to get the system perfect.