Key Performance Indicators - Holding Governments Accountable

[Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D.]

Key performance indicators, or KPI, are vital components of any leadership agreement or plan. Leaders must be clear about what their goals are, and the plans they have formulated to reach those goals. Vague promises of progress are little more than paper squirrels; empty promises whose mere existence should be a measure against the continuance of a government. The incoming government needs to adopt clear performance indicators to be reported on monthly, and publish real, objective goals, not only to inform strategic and action plans, but to provide transparency and assessment tools to the public.

First, we must agree what the KPI for our kingdom should be. Clearly the heart and soul of the Kingdom is the Wittenberg; at least for the foreseeable future. I think at minimum we should agree to these three basic KPI measures:

1.   the volume and growth of posting on the Wittenberg,
2.   the volume and growth of new topic creation on the Wittenberg,
3.   the volume and growth of new member accounts created on the Wittenberg.

As we can see from the three charts below the quarter over quarter progress of these three KPI have been nearly flat for some time. Is this reasonable? Is this a cause for concern? We can't really say as we need more baseline data, but we can use this information to set goals quarter to quarter for the current or any future government. These goals will allow, or rather require, a responsible government to develop a program for meeting these goals. I ask the incoming government to set clear, objective, number-based goals in these three categories and to work in coalition will all concerned parties to develop a plan to reach these goals.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Obviously, I strongly agree that we should be keeping track of this stuff.  I've been urging this Government to do so for years.  I'm not entirely in agreement on the metrics, though.

Threads Per Month - I agree, this is useful and probably easy to track.  The number of threads is at the bottom of Witt, so it's easy to just plug that into a spreadsheet each month.  It's a possible proxy for the breadth of citizen engagement.
Posts Per Month - This is a possible proxy for the intensity of citizen engagement.
New Citizen Rate - People who take the oath and become Talossans -- one of our most important indicators.  Until the past couple of months, it was a truly catastrophic flatline.  Hopefully we can keep the election-time surge going.
Application for Immigration Rate - Legitimate immigrants whose applications make it to the "post on Witt" stage.  It's a good proxy for our broad appeal and market reach, I think.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, SMC EiP]

New Citizen Rate - People who take the oath and become Talossans -- one of our most important indicators.  Until the past couple of months, it was a truly catastrophic flatline.  Hopefully we can keep the election-time surge going.
Application for Immigration Rate - Legitimate immigrants whose applications make it to the "post on Witt" stage.  It's a good proxy for our broad appeal and market reach, I think.

Regarding these last two, it would be interesting to keep track of the "success rate" of immigration -- that is, the percentage of applicants who actually earn citizenship. I don't know if it would necessarily be something to use as a performance metric for a government -- I think monitoring activity makes more sense there -- but if nothing else it might allow us to look at numbers and say "Oh, more applicants than usual actually got their citizenship in QX. Were we doing anything different around that time? Maybe it's something we should look into doing more regularly if it's something that catches people's interest."

[Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D.]

Essentially, it boils down to defining the ultimate goals of a government, objectively identifying the KPI that would indicate success, developing plans to achieve these goals and KPI benchmarks, and then reporting on and improving that plan in an intentional way.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

New Citizen Rate - People who take the oath and become Talossans -- one of our most important indicators.  Until the past couple of months, it was a truly catastrophic flatline.  Hopefully we can keep the election-time surge going.
Application for Immigration Rate - Legitimate immigrants whose applications make it to the "post on Witt" stage.  It's a good proxy for our broad appeal and market reach, I think.

Regarding these last two, it would be interesting to keep track of the "success rate" of immigration -- that is, the percentage of applicants who actually earn citizenship. I don't know if it would necessarily be something to use as a performance metric for a government -- I think monitoring activity makes more sense there -- but if nothing else it might allow us to look at numbers and say "Oh, more applicants than usual actually got their citizenship in QX. Were we doing anything different around that time? Maybe it's something we should look into doing more regularly if it's something that catches people's interest."

Yes, I agree.  I have been urging the Government to begin keeping track of these sorts of things for a long time, like in this speech from eight months ago.  It could easily just be a simple spreadsheet on Drive -- that would allow it to be transcluded onto the website or easily linked from anywhere for public accessibility.  It would represent maybe five minutes' effort each month.

[Ian Plätschisch]

The charts look great, I never realized just how much of an impact elections have on activity (although in hindsight it is obvious).

I have answered the Baron's request for immigration statistics in various other places, but to do so again:
-The list of citizens (along with date of citizenship) is available here: http://www.talossa.ca/files/citizens.php
-The Immigration board is essentially a list of immigration applications

I do not think that generating reports would provide much more insight. If anyone disagrees, all the data you would need to make the reports is above.

The incoming cabinet will take the use of KPIs under consideration. As an incoming Deputy Minister of Culture himself, S:reu Montagna will hopefully help us set them up.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

Essentially, it boils down to defining the ultimate goals of a government, objectively identifying the KPI that would indicate success, developing plans to achieve these goals and KPI benchmarks, and then reporting on and improving that plan in an intentional way.

@Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D. Dr. Montagnha, as a member of the incoming Government, I wanted to ask if you think specific reports on immigration would serve the purpose of providing objective standards to evaluate immigration? Just as you have proposed in this thread to hold governments accountable.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

A point of constitutional order. Only full members of Cabinet are "members of the incoming Government" and as such bear collective responsibility for our policy. Dr Montagnha is of course free to give his personal opinion, but he's not a "member of the Government", meaning his opinion (if any) will not reflect the Government's collective opinion.

The question of immigration statistics and their usefulness is correctly aimed at the Minister of Immigration, Senator Plätschisch. Myself, I agree with Ian.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

A point of constitutional order. Only full members of Cabinet are "members of the incoming Government" and as such bear collective responsibility for our policy. Dr Montagnha is of course free to give his personal opinion, but he's not a "member of the Government", meaning his opinion (if any) will not reflect the Government's collective opinion.

The question of immigration statistics and their usefulness is correctly aimed at the Minister of Immigration, Senator Plätschisch. Myself, I agree with Ian.

Interesting. Dr. Montagnha, my questions stands. Based on your significant experience outside of Talossa I am genuinely curious as to your learned opinion on reports as effective tools of measurement.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Oof.  Not a surprise to see these trends, but still really sad.  Hope we can turn this around.

I have answered the Baron's request for immigration statistics in various other places, but to do so again:
-The list of citizens (along with date of citizenship) is available here: http://www.talossa.ca/files/citizens.php
-The Immigration board is essentially a list of immigration applications

I do not think that generating reports would provide much more insight. If anyone disagrees, all the data you would need to make the reports is above.

Yeah, I didn't think the answer would change.  I still think these metrics are important and the Government should keep track of them, but I guess that will have to wait at least eight more months.  Thank you for answering the question, even if it was only to affirm your previous stance; though I disagree, it's important that we're all clear on where everyone stands.

[Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D.]

I am happy to help in any way that I can.

The charts look great, I never realized just how much of an impact elections have on activity (although in hindsight it is obvious).

I have answered the Baron's request for immigration statistics in various other places, but to do so again:
-The list of citizens (along with date of citizenship) is available here: http://www.talossa.ca/files/citizens.php
-The Immigration board is essentially a list of immigration applications

I do not think that generating reports would provide much more insight. If anyone disagrees, all the data you would need to make the reports is above.

The incoming cabinet will take the use of KPIs under consideration. As an incoming Deputy Minister of Culture himself, S:reu Montagna will hopefully help us set them up.