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Deliverology
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/ Canadian Government Executive
// December 2016
suring and achieving success.
All the speakers at the summit provided
some key advice on how to make deliver-
ology work. Their techniques never bore
the British moniker, but they certainly
were similar to them in their drive to de-
liver results for political masters and for
the general public.
Ross Pattee, the Executive Director of the
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada,
demonstrated how principles derived from
deliverology, such as a hard fixation on
key performance goals, helped the board
cut down a significant backlog of cases. He
noted how a committed leadership was
key in making the objectives “real” for all
employees. Deliverology, he argued, could
be a rallying cry to motivate staff to realize
“stretch” objectives.
Craig Szelestowski, a government trans-
formation specialist and president of Lean
Agility, illustrated some techniques inmak-
ing Deliverology goals a reality. He ham-
mered the importance of having a clear
direction and focus in order for deliverol-
ogy to succeed. He identified several key
deliverology hurdles, including the dan-
gers of low buy-in from staff, the competi-
tion of priorities, and focusing too much on
particular metrics instead of the general
goals of any program. He said managers
and employees alike should “own” their
deliverology project so that everyone will
work towards its success.
Lou Di Gironimo, the General Manager
of Toronto Water for the City of Toronto,
also gave a tangible demonstration of how
Deliverology could be delivered. Indeed,
for about a decade now, Di Geronimo has
been using a management method with
strong similarities to deliverology. This
has been very instrumental in Toronto
Water being able to improve the deliv-
ery of vital services to its customers of 3.4
million residents and businesses. It’s not
easy. Toronto’s aging water distribution
infrastructure makes the “deliverology of
water” challenging. It requires massive
infusions of capital investments and,
truth be told, greater sources of revenue
in order to pay for it. He argued that
only by delivering on results—and driv-
ing that message convincingly through
unimpeachable data—could the invest-
ments necessary by the city be secured.
He described Toronto Water’s exten-
sive efforts in detailing its performance
measurements and benchmark goals. He
described the various dashboard used
to illustrate progress and the provision
of “open data” to further enlist people
in the drive to meet objectives, not least
in dealing with the backlog of deferred
maintenance. He emphasized the need
for “routine”—one of Sir Michael Barber’s
key tools to ensure steady progress in
meeting goals.
Very often, he said, delivery approaches
focus on “managing toward results” rather
than intent. This leads to managers being
fixated in meeting targets that have little
to do with the organization’s real goals.
In that context, it is vitally important for
department executives to convince their
staffs about their mandates. “Managers
and supervisors need to know that deliv-
erology doesn’t mean they could lose their
jobs,” he said. “They need to be able to op-
erate in a safe environment so that they
are not afraid to offer new ideas.” Indeed,
the success of deliverology depends on it
at Toronto Water.
Ian Williams, the business intelligence
and analytics unit manager for the To-
ronto Police Service, offered his take on
how his organization has put the Barber
priority of “stock taking” to heart. He
spoke on the importance of reporting
and data visualization in communicating
results and progress-on-priorities.
From 2008 to 2014, he had been lead-
ing the Toronto Police Service Intelli-
gence Division’s team of researchers and
analysts that support crime investigators.
The team has been instrumental and help-
ing the service make sense of information
from crime statistics so that leaders can
make more informed and faster decisions.
Williams reminded the audience that data
should not only be accurate and relevant,
but it should also be digestible. He de-
scribed how the Toronto Police Services
achieve this is through the use of comput-
er-based, visual dashboards that “tell a sto-
ry” rather than just a jumble or numbers.
For example, colour-coded maps can
easily show which areas of the city are ex-
periencing heavy incidence or particular
crimes, during certain times of the year.
Such a map would not only be useful for
the police force in planning their patrol
deployments but could also be helpful
for city planners or government officials
thinking of public services and programs.
Tom Rosser, executive deputy minister
for strategic policy at Fisheries and Oceans
Canada (DFO), said that very often organi-
zations make the mistake of laying out far
too many goals. He observed that such an
approach could have easily bogged down
DFO which has a mandate that encom-
passes literally an ocean of responsibilities
from tides and currents to marine naviga-
tion, fisheries management, scientific re-
search and protection of aquatic species,
to Coast Guard operations, Aboriginal fish-
ing and more.
In the end, DFO, like the other carefully
selected presenters at this path-breaking
conference, demonstrated how Deliver-
ology methods have already been estab-
lished. They helped the DFO better focus
its organizational goals and was instru-
mental in making sure efforts and resourc-
es where directed on projects that were
aligned with the government’s strategy.
What’s left now in Ottawa is the challenge
of connecting excellent practices to the po-
litical needs of the government. Not easy,
the presenters would agree, but definitely
possible.
The carefully selected presenters at this path-breaking conference
demonstrated how Deliverology methods have already been estab-
lished. They help organizations better focus their goals and ensure that
efforts and resources are directed on projects that are aligned with the
government’s objectives.