Monitoring Performance
Tracking performance against established targets will be very important. Performance management allows stakeholders to demonstrate successes and also to learn from failures and make improvements. Not only does this result in a stronger and more successful program, but it also allows other communities to learn from these experiences to replicate successes and avoid failures.
Identify Measures of Performance
- Leaders should define measures of success very early in the process. These measures will be the quantitative indicators of the changes that the program seeks to produce. Available Internet speeds and rates of adoption among community members are some of the more direct measures associated with broadband access initiatives. Much of this information is already collected by the FCC, and local communities can access this information with relative ease to track progress over time.
- Communities may also be interested in broader community measures related to specific priorities. High school graduation rates, unemployment rates, and rates of juvenile offenses within the community as a whole or in target areas are just a few possible examples.
- While many of the measures needed will be available through existing information resources, some measures may require the local government or a partnering organization to collect performance data. As an example, the city of Austin, TX, launched a digital literacy survey to understand the level of need in the community. The information collected through this process also serves as a baseline against which future progress can be measured.
Useful Resources
- Data compiled by the FCC in its Broadband Progress Report can be very useful for monitoring the progress of local initiatives.
- NTIA announced its Community Connectivity Initiative in 2016. This initiative will define a common framework through which different communities can assess their progress in expanding broadband access and promoting digital inclusion.