# Presentation: 145842

## Performance Measurement for the Mail Center

- Derrick Miliner
- Program Manager,
- Mail Management Policy
- US General Services Administration
- 202 273 3564

**Notes:**
As the slide says, I’m the acting director of mail management policy for the General Services Administration.  This makes me the mail manager for all of the federal agencies.  I’ve been in this job about 6 years, and one of the things that we are pushing the federal agencies to do is use performance measures in managing their mail operations.

Let me mention a couple of other things that I have done previously that relate to performance measurement.  I was the Balanced Scorecard coordinator for the GSA Office of Governmentwide Policy, an organization at the time of almost 300 people.  Prior to that, I was the “survey guru” and coordinator of a performance measurement program for GSA’s Federal Supply Service, an organization of about 3500 people.  All of which is to say that I have been involved in performance measurement for nearly 15 years, and I’ve had a lot of formal and OJT training during that time in this area.

Cell phones off, please – show and tell.

## Objectives for this Workshop

- Help mail center managers develop or refine their performance measurement systems
- Provide critical strategies for establishing and using performance measures
- Provide a list of suggested measures

**Notes:**
This slide sets out three objectives for this workshop.  In the first part, I’m going to walk you through the process of developing measures.  We going to do this in less than half an hour.  In reality, it takes months, but I want you to come away with an outline.

In the second and third parts, I’m going to talk about critical strategies and suggested measures.  Actually, much of the stuff on the slides in the second and third parts will come up as we do the walk-through, but we go through the slides and see what we missed.

I want this workshop to be an interactive effort.  So, please ask questions as they occur to you.

Let me start with a quotation:  A recent director of the Federal Office of Management and Budget, who is one of the most powerful people in the federal government, said this about performance measurement:  “If you aren’t keeping score, you’re just practicing.”  This is a cute way of saying that if you aren’t keeping track of how well you are doing, in an organized fashion, then you don’t know whether you are doing well or not, and you don’t know what things you need to do better.

Now, let me ask you a few questions:

How many of you work in a mail center?
Anybody handling strictly incoming mail?
Anybody strictly outgoing?
How may people work in your mail center?
Less than 5?
5 to 20?
More than 20?
>> If the answer to the first question leaves a lot of people out, find out what they do.

## Definitions

**Customers** – the people that you deliver your products and services to.  They are direct beneficiaries – depending on your business they may be inside or outside your company or agency.
**Stakeholders** – the people who tell you what to do.  Generally, stakeholders serve as alter egos of your customers; they fill a stewardship or regulatory role; and they influence budget, funding and resource allocations.
**Goal – **what you intend to accomplish over a long period of time and with sustained effort; usually stated as a verb phrase (for example, _Provide_ excellent customer service).
**Objective –** what you intend to accomplish as a result of a specific, short-term effort; also usually stated as a verb phrase (for example, _Sort_ incoming mail correctly the first time).

##  Definitions - Continued

**Performance Measure** – Something you can count (this is, a number) that will show how well you are doing in achieving an objective. Measures are written statements of what you will track and trend over time.
**Baseline** – the current or standard value for a measure, to which all future measurements will be compared (when we started keeping track, we were sorting 2.5 percent of incoming mail incorrectly).
**Target **- the timeframe and desired level of performance increase or decrease, or the rate of improvement for a measure (for example, in January, we will sort only 2 percent of incoming mail incorrectly).
**Benchmark** – someone else’s a target for a particular performance measure; alternatively, a comparison of your mail operation to a similar one.

## Please Write Short Answers to these Questions:

- Who are your customers?
- What do your customers want you to do?
- Who are your stakeholders?
- What do your stakeholders want you to do?

**Notes:**
	OK.  Now we put you to work.  On this page and the next one are eight questions.  Please take about 2 - 3 minutes to write down answers to these questions.  Write down the first couple of words that come into your head for each question.  If you aren’t sure, go on to the next question.  When you are ready, I’ll ask people to volunteer some of their answers, so you’ll be able to add to your answers from what other people offer.  I’ll write some of your answers on the flip chart.  You may need to go back and review the definitions that we just talked about to help you answer the questions.

*******************************PAUSE**************************

Possible answers:
1. Who are your customers?  People we deliver the mail to.  People whose mail we send out  People we send mail to.
2. What do your customers want you to do?  Moving incoming mail quickly and accurately.  Putting the right postage on the outgoing mail.  Making sure the outgoing mail gets where it is supposed to go.
3. Who are your stakeholders?  Chain of command.  Other important managers in the organization
4. What do your stakeholders want you to do?  Manage my budget efficiently.

## Questions, Continued

- Who else is important to you in your work?
- What do these other people want you to do?
- Is anything else important to you in your work?
- How do you know that you are doing these things well?

**Notes:**
5. Who else is important to you in your work?
Employees
Contractors
You?!
6. What do they want you to do?
Provide a good place to work
Pay bills on time
7. Is anything else important to you in your work?
??
8. How do you know that you are doing these things well?
Not sure what I will get here.  If I get some actual performance measures, that’s good.  If not, I will (nicely) challenge what they say.
Other versions of the same question:
How do you know if you are meeting your customers’ requirements?
How do you know if you are meeting your stakeholders’ requirements?
How do you know if you are meeting your employees’ needs?

The point here is to develop and write down a list of appropriate performance measures, based on the questions on this page.

## Measurement Profile

**Performance Measure:**
**Goal:  **
**Objective:**
**Measurement Definition:**
**Frequency:**
**Data Source:**
**Baseline:**
**Target(s):**
**Source For Target(s):**
**Person Responsible for Collecting and Reporting Data:**
**Status Of Data Collection:**
**Next Steps:**
**Assumptions and Notes:**

**Notes:**
	So now we have identified a few things that you say are important to your customers, your stakeholders, your employees, and/or you as a manager.  Now, we need to figure out how you are going to know that your mail center is doing these things well.
	The next three slides are blank measurement profiles.  I have not said anywhere today that performance measurement is easy.  We’ve done the easy part – now it gets hard.
	For every measure that you are going to use, you need to have an answer for just about every item in this profile.  So, let’s do two.  We’ll leave the third page blank so that you can take it home, copy it, and work on your own measures.
	As before, please take about 2 - 3 minutes to write down your first thoughts for each item on this first page.  We’ll start with one of the measures we came up with.  If you aren’t sure what the things on this page mean, most of them are defined on pages 3 and 4.  We will talk about the definitions some more after you have written down your thoughts.

***********************************PAUSE***********************
>>	Ask people what they wrote down, get the group to comment on what they came up with, and then perhaps offer comments of my own.
>>	Then, ask people to do a second measure from the ones we identified.
>>	Again, ask them what they wrote down, and get the group to comment on what they came up with.

## Measurement Profile

**Performance Measure:**
**Goal:  **
**Objective:**
**Measurement Definition:**
**Frequency:**
**Data Source:**
**Baseline:**
**Target(s):**
**Source For Targets(s):**
**Person Responsible for Collecting and Reporting Data:**
**Status Of Data Collection:**
**Next Steps:**
**Assumptions and Notes:**

**Notes:**
Notes on parts of the Measurement Profile.
	Goal vs. Objective – I think of a goal as much bigger and longer-term than an objective.  For example, our goal here today is to help you become better managers, and we laid out three specific objectives at the beginning of the workshop.
	Measurement Definition – This is perhaps the hardest of all.  You need to come up with a very clear definition of exactly what you are going to measure.

Depending on how much time is left, walk through one or both measurement profiles, or ask the group to identify which elements on the Measurement Profile they need to discuss.

Examples of Next Steps:

Refine the definition of this new measure
Establish the baseline
Set targets
Analyze results from the first week/month/year
Identify behavioral changes identified in analysis

## Example of a Completed Measurement Profile

- Performance Measure:  Cost per piece by class of mail
- Goal:  Optimize/reduce the cost of outgoing mail
- Objective: Accurately track the cost of outgoing mail.
- Measurement Definition:  Postage expense divided by number of pieces, by class, for metered mail and permit mail
- Frequency:  Weekly reports
- Data Source(s):  Digital postage meter and permit manifests.
- Baseline:  Four weeks, beginning June 12, 2006
- Target(s): By September 30, 2006, the costs will be:
- 	First class/meter, under one ounce:
- 	First class/meter, under two ounces:
- 	Flats/meter:
- 	First class/permit, under one ounce:
- 	Standard mail/permit, under one ounce:
- Source For Targets(s):  Analysis of baseline data.
- Person Responsible for Collecting and Reporting Data:  Joe
- Status Of Data Collection:  Talking with meter supplier about what reports the meter can produce.  Examining permit manifests to see what data can be extracted.
- Next Steps: Talking with printing and programs to make sure that copies of all manifests come to the mail manager.
- Assumptions and Notes:  We assume that we don’t need to track permit mail over one ounce because almost all of it is under one ounce.

**Notes:**
OK.

So far, we have asked three basic questions:

Who is important to you in your work?
What do they want and need from you?
How do you know that you are accomplishing what they want and need?

Then, we looked at how to measure a couple of these these important things.

I said earlier that this process will take you months if you are starting from scratch, and I meant it.  Asking your customers, your employees, and your stakeholders what’s important, refining their answers into a tentative set of measures, then going back to them and working out all of the details that make up the measurement profile takes time.  I do think you will find it to be time well spent.

The rest of this presentation is really a set of resources.
First, two pages of what I call critical success factors.
Then, four pages of suggested performance measures.

## Critical Success Factors

- Make sure your measures are easy to understand.
- Get everyone involved in establishing measures and setting targets.
- Make sure your targets are attainable – they should push improved performance but not make anyone paranoid.
- Use results to improve performance, not to evaluate people – don’t use performance measurement results to punish people.
- Hold teams accountable for managing for results – reward them when they succeed, and analyze why when they fail.

**Notes:**
If I have time, ask the group who they think “everyone” might include in the second bullet

Also, ask the group what is an example of an attainable target for them.

The last time I did this, someone came up afterwards and asked about the fourth bullet.  Apparently, they had one or more employees who simply are not good enough.  I suggested that the manager needed first to see if there are environmental factors that are preventing the employee(s) from performing – health, family, drugs, bad work habits like tardiness – because the manager has a responsibility to try to help the employee work out issues like these.  In the end, however, sometimes you have to fire someone.  That’s different from punishing someone – so I say you should not use measurement results to punish someone, but some times you do need to use them to fire someone.

## Critical Success Factors - Continued

- Targets need milestone dates.
- Refine your measures and targets as you work with them, but don’t fall into the trap of changing your targets just because you are not getting there when you expected to.
- Discuss results with your employees routinely.
- Post your measures and results in the mail center for employees (and customers?).
- Communicate results to stakeholders – it’s vital for their continuing support.
- Integrate measurement into your management processes.

**Notes:**
What results should you publish where your customers will see them?

What does “Integrate measurement into your management processes” mean – among other things it means:

Spend some focused time with the results every time you get new data, which may be daily for some of your measures.
Think about how well you are doing, and what changes you may need to make, to meet your targets.
Use data when you talk with your employees, managers, customers, and stakeholders.
Use data when you prepare budget requests.

## Do the RUMBA!

- Make your performance measures:
- 			**R**easonable
- 			**U**nderstandable
- 			**M**easurable
- 			**B**elievable
- 			**A**chievable

## Suggested Performance Measures for Mail Centers

**For Incoming Mail: **
- Sort rate (pieces per hour)
- Pieces of mail handled per Full Time Equivalent (FTE)
- Percent of internal mail delivered on time
- Percent of incoming USPS mail delivered on time
- Percent of accountable mail delivered on time
- Percent of internal and USPS mail sorted correctly
- Customer satisfaction

**Notes:**
If there is enough time left, ask the group who is using any of these, and then ask a few of them to talk about what their targets are and what they use the data for.

## For Outgoing Mail:
Cost per piece by class
Worksharing savings
Express mail expense divided by total postage
Percent of meter postage and stamps that are spoiled
Percent of outgoing mail that is moved to the USPS on the same day it is received in the mail center
Percent of outgoing mail that is returned as undeliverable as addressed

- Cost per piece by class
- Worksharing savings
- Express mail expense divided by total postage
- Percent of meter postage and stamps that are spoiled
- Percent of outgoing mail that is moved to the USPS on the same day it is received in the mail center
- Percent of outgoing mail that is returned as undeliverable as addressed

- Suggested Measures - Continued

**Notes:**
If there is enough time left, ask the group who is using any of these, and then ask a few of them to talk about what their targets are and what they use the data for.

## Suggested Measures - Continued

**Management Measures:**
- Ratio of production staff to administrative and supervisory staff
- Results of employee satisfaction surveys
- Workplace safety (e.g., work hours lost to accidents)
- Annual hours of training per FTE
- Frequency of customer complaints
- Results of customer satisfaction surveys

**Notes:**
If there is enough time left, ask the group who is using any of these, and then ask a few of them to talk about what their targets are and what they use the data for.

## For Contracts and Service Level Agreements:

Equipment:
Processing speed
Downtime
Response time for service calls

Outsourcing – use the same measures listed above for incoming and outgoing mail.

- Equipment:
- Processing speed
- Downtime
- Response time for service calls
- Outsourcing – use the same measures listed above for incoming and outgoing mail.

- Suggested Measures - Continued

## Contact Information

- Derrick Miliner
- 202-273-3564
- Derrick.miliner@gsa.gov
- www.gsa.gov/mailpolicy

**Notes:**
You all are taxpayers, so I work for you.  Please don’t hesitate to send me a message with a question or comment.

Thank you very much for your participation this morning in this workshop.  Don’t forget to fill out the evaluation forms – they tell the Forum managers who the effective speakers are.  I hope you will be able to take this presentation back to your mail operation and put some part of it into use.