Farmers Branch, TX, Creates a Data-Driven Culture with Spider Impact

The city of Farmers Branch, Texas uses Spider Impact for performance management.

34K

Population

Parks

250

Corporate Headquarters

About City of Farmers Branch, TX

industry

Government

solution

Balanced Scorecard Software

website

farmersbranchtx.gov

Farmers Branch has earned its reputation for excellence. It's an oasis of small-town life in the heart of big-city bustle. World-class service, amenities, and great schools, plus a big-development boom and lower tax rates are just a few of the features that make Farmers Branch the ideal place to live, work, and play.

Learn how the city of Farmers Branch, TX, uses balanced scorecard software from Spider Strategies to create a data-driven culture.

Intro

In 2017, Farmers Branch began its journey to become a city that uses data to show how it creates value for its residents, businesses, and visitors. Prior to 2017, data was an exercise in routine—collected for the sake of collecting data without an overarching theme or purpose—culminating in a foot-tall stack of performance data paperwork. The journey started with a conversation with every department to identify service excellence, and then progressed into a discussion about how to communicate the city’s unique story to its residents.

Data needs to be strategically aligned to the overarching goals of the organization to be used successfully. Farmers Branch aligned to the balanced scorecard methodology and began developing the structural components that were missing, including the adoption of the City’s first official vision statement. Once the structural components were built, the city began its search for a tool to aggregate data and reflect the results to the City’s website for everyone to review. The City needed a common format for collecting and viewing data that would enable intelligent action within the community, including where and why to deploy resources. A thorough internet search led the City to Spider Impact, a balanced scorecard automation solution.

Water park in the city of Farmers Branch, Texas.

Old shed in the city of Farmers Branch, Texas.

Solution

The City received a demo of Spider Impact, and then signed up for a 30-day trial. They found it very easy to use, and started to test out the system with city data. All past data in that foot-tall stack was forgiven, and the City started fresh. Using the Quick Start process and “how to” videos made the implementation easy. Spider Impact was implemented in every city department in alignment with International City/County Management Association (ICMA) standards. Since the City is committed to providing its citizens with exceptional services, a lot of its metrics were created by “listening to the questions our residents are asking”.

Department managers have a goal of dedicating only 15 minutes per month to managing their data, which is a vast improvement from accumulating—but, never using—their data. Now they use data to make resource allocation decisions, answer questions from constituents, and more. What’s more, their decision-making data and reporting is publicly available. Farmers Branch is steadfast in using Spider Impact to create transparency for its citizens. A quick visit to the City’s website will let citizens view data and gather all of the information that they need—from any department—through public-facing performance dashboards.

KPI speedometers showing example key performance indicators.

Noticeable results after solution

The City also makes use of Spider Strategies support and services. During a presentation about the performance and business case for outsourcing library operations at the 2019 ICMA Conference, the City’s dashboards would not load on mobile devices as attendees tried to access the dashboards that were being presented. The City called Spider Strategies and the issue was resolved the same day. “There is a constant theme of Spider Strategies responding to our needs and requests quickly. Beyond solving any issues we run into, Spider Strategies continues to listen to our ideas about improving the product,” said Assistant City Manager Ben Williamson.

Benefits

The City of Farmers Branch has become data-driven, and truly uses data and trends to make decisions. “Spider Impact removes emotion and assumptions from our discussions about community concerns, and lets us just look at the facts to tell an accurate story,” says Ben Williamson. “It has eliminated the background noise. Data is what it is. And our data is telling a complete story.”

Data is what it is. And our data is telling a complete story.

Ben Williamson Assistant City Manager

The City of Farmers Branch has earned accolades for its performance management system that utilizes Spider Impact. ICMA is the leading organization of local government professionals and is dedicated to the advancement of professional local government through leadership, management, innovation, and ethics. Its performance management program has extremely stringent standards. Farmers Branch is one of three cities in Texas—and of 27 nationally—to receive the top tier “Excellence” rank in performance management. ICMA uses Farmers Branch as an example of what a city’s performance should look like, providing excellent third-party validation for Spider Impact’s use in city governments and municipalities.

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