City KPIs: Williamsburg Shows Which Efforts Are Moving the Needle

Every couple of years, the Williamsburg City Council set their significant goal areas such as Community Care, Economic Equality, and Citizen Engagement. These mandates set the KPIs for all major projects. Each project was then managed separately by the appropriate department head. Not surprisingly, information was siloed and often out-of-date. 

Adding to the confusion was the fact that Williamsburg had years worth of backlogged data since they completed a National Citizen Survey (NCS) every two years. But no one had the time or resources to build tedious manual reports or track down hundreds of datasets to benchmark their performance. Also, there was no real way to publish that data, other than putting together a 150-page PDF on the website, which of course, no one would ever read. 

The result was that Williamsburg struggled to calculate the return on their efforts. When residents or city council members had a question, they scrambled to find the right department head, and get a project status. The city's Executive Team knew they wanted a better way to measure City Council Strategic Plan progress, but they couldn’t find a solution that fit the bill. 

"It was literally an aha moment for the entire senior staff, the department heads, and our city manager. 

“Not only was the speed at which you could build these reports impressive, but more importantly, we didn’t know we had this data. We were instantly sold. We realized mySidewalk would allow us to compare against a plethora of data sets, adding significantly more context and meaning than if we were analyzing our data on its own.”

Both the skill and complexity of the data analysis were significant factors for Williamsburg in changing its data management tool to mySidewalk. But the deciding factor was the ability to tie their key initiatives to their KPIs. As Barham put it: 

“Our previous government data platform allowed us to build all kinds of charts and graphs, we could make it look really good, but we couldn’t close the loop by tying it to resident satisfaction. 

“Partnering with mySidewalk allows us to say, this is what our council asked us to do, here is where the budget is coming from, and here’s what we’re doing with the funds. Even more importantly, we can now say this is why it matters, and this is how the residents – who are ultimately in charge – feel about our efforts. Being able to tie key initiatives back to resident satisfaction was a game-changer for us."

Another critical consideration in switching to mySidewalk was the amount of preloaded information and the ability to measure against other communities. As Barham said: 

“One of the big reasons we chose mySidewalk were all of these incredible datasets that they provide. The federal and state-level demographic information is so helpful. Our previous tool didn’t offer that kind of out-of-the-box data; we wouldn’t have known where to find it, even if we’d had the time to look – which we didn’t. We love that mySidewalk has it built-in, and it’s automatically updated. 

“We also love being able to benchmark our city to other localities at the state and national level. mySidewalk allows us to do that without having to ask neighboring jurisdictions for comparison data. Our previous system couldn’t provide this kind of depth."

Ultimately, Williamsburg realized to tell the story of their work, it wouldn’t be enough to keep giving stakeholders disjoining charts and reports. They had to close the loop. They needed to communicate why they were doing what they were doing and show how their efforts were moving the needle. They knew that a mySidewalk City Performance dashboard was the right answer. 

“I don’t have to track down project updates anymore, which makes everyone happier, plus it saves time. You can see every initiative, every goal, and the individual steps that it takes to complete that project. You can also easily find a project’s status and its start and end dates. That’s my favorite part. The ability to gain and glean insights from this dashboard is probably the most impressive thing about it. 

“mySidewalk shows us where we’re doing well and where we need to concentrate our efforts and add staff. This level of insight wasn’t even on my radar, because I just didn’t know we could do something like this. I’m beyond thrilled with how our dashboard has turned out. It’s far beyond the realm of what we were initially thinking. We just couldn’t have imagined it.”

However, for Williamsburg, finding the right tool was only half the equation. The other piece was getting the support they needed to implement their new platform. 

“mySidewalk has worked alongside us from the start. I always get a quick response, and every time I talk to the Customer Success team, they’re so genuinely excited to work with me. They haven’t just helped me build a compelling dashboard. They’ve helped us really tell our story.

"That kind of help just goes to show how much time and thought mySidewalk gives its product and its customers. The support has been absolutely phenomenal. I’ve been blown away.” 

Below is a quick video showcasing how the Williamsburg City Council responded to their new dashboard.

mySidewalk is honored to help innovative cities like Williamsburg tell the story of how they’re making their community better. See Williamsburg's dashboard for yourself. Schedule a free consultation to talk to someone about how we can help your city