NZ Government Use

How the New Zealand Government Can Use DoView Boards

Quick Overview

The NZ Parliament recently undertook a review of public sector performance reporting and public accountability. The review report called for changes to the current documentation produced by the NZ government regarding performance and impact reporting.

A Whole-of-Government NZ DoView Board Collection could be used to provide a very accessible visual gateway that sits above such documentation.

Below is a proof of concept for such a collection, a version of which was presented by Dr Paul Duignan to the NZ Parliamentary Select Committee reviewing government reporting.

DoView Boards are an open-source project that any developer can include in any app, platform or system, and anyone can consult on or train others in using (simply with acknowledgment).

"It can be unclear what outcomes the Government wants to achieve, how it intends to achieve them, and what progress is being made."

NZ Finance and Expenditure Select Committee, Inquiry into Performance Reporting and Public Accountability,

A DoView Board shows exactly those three things: the outcomes, the steps expected to reach them, and progress against them — in one visual anyone can follow. It sits on top of the existing accountability documents, not in place of them, turning material like the 2,000-page Estimates into something you can see at a glance.

"I hope that by the end of the process we can end up with something as straightforward as [this]… if anyone could follow the pathway, that would be most helpful."

Ryan Hamilton MP, member of the committee that produced this report, on seeing a DoView Board at the inquiry hearing

The committee recommended three shifts. A DoView Board delivers all three:

  • Whole-of-government reporting — priorities, the plan beneath them, and progress, in one drill-down.

  • Areas of public interest — spending mapped to the outcomes that matter to people.

  • Public entities' reporting — each entity's objectives, value for money, and contribution to outcomes, shown in context.

"You wouldn't build a building without a blueprint. Don't run a government without a map of what it's trying to do."

See the 20 key questions that a DoView Board answers for those running or overseeing any organization or initiative. Use the free AI prompt to build a DoView Board about anything.

Recommendations of the Inquiry Into Performance Reporting and Public Accountability

The Finance and Expenditure Committee has conducted an inquiry into performance reporting and public accountability, and makes the following recommendations:

Our overarching recommendation

1. We recommend that the Government develop and implement the proposals set out in Chapter 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 of this report to improve the systems for performance reporting and public accountability, focused on three key shifts:

• Whole-of-government reporting—improving clarity about what governments want to achieve, how they intend to go about it, and what progress is being made.
A DoView Board Collection provides very accessible visual whole-of-government reporting, sitting above and providing a gateway to the detailed documentation produced by government. For more information, see: 1. What outcomes, for whom? 2. How will change happen? 15. How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)?‍16. How are answers to evaluation questions being shown? How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)?

Question 18, and many of the other questions.

• Reporting on areas of interest to the public—strengthening the focus of reporting on how the Executive’s work and spending contributes to outcomes in areas that are important to the public.
A DoView Board Collection enables quick, comprehensive, at-scale modelling of the outcomes and the steps leading to them in any area of public interest. In addition, it enables anyone to rapidly navigate and drill down into the visual outcomes model. Question 1 · Question 2 · Question 18.

• Public entities’ reporting—providing a more integrated view of the performance of entities, with a greater focus on value for money and how they are contributing to outcomes.

DoView Boards provide a novel visual approach to providing an integrated view of entities’ performance and checking that there is alignment between priorities and what is being done so government can show how it believes its work is contributing to outcomes. · Question 8· Question 10· Question 16· Question 18.

Whole-of-government reporting

2. To improve whole-of-government reporting, we recommend that the Government develop and implement the following proposals, which would require each Government to:

• state its priority objectives near the start of the parliamentary term

A DoView Board Collection provides the most efficient, accessible and transparent way of doing this by the government at the start of the parliamentary term, simply marking up with its priorities the boxes in the relevant level within the DoView Boards. · Question 6.

• provide a high-level plan, with costings, to outline major initiatives it will carry out to achieve its priority objectives. The amount being spent in different priority objective areas can be marked up onto the boxes within the relevant DoView Boards. In the interim, URLs from the DoView Board could then drill down to costing mappings such as those suggested by the review. Or such mapping and DoView Board could be easily be integrated into government reporting IT infrastructure. · Question 6 · Question 7 · Question 8 · Question 10.

• report on progress towards achieving the priority objectives.

DoView Boards are designed to enable reporting of both performance measures (indicators, KPIs, targets etc.) and the results of implementation, process and impact evaluation findings. · Question 15 · Question 16 · Question 18.

Reporting on areas of interest to the public

3. To improve reporting on areas of interest to the public, we recommend that the Government develop and implement the following proposals:

• establish a set of enduring outcomes for key areas of public interest

DoView Boards provide a totally flexible approach to the specification of enduring outcomes. The rules for drawing DoView Boards encourage the This-Then pages within DoView Boards to be drawn in a way that provides sufficient breadth for different government administrations to then prioritize onto such an enduring set of outcomes. This is in contrast to approaches where the underlying outcomes model has to change every time there is a different government administration. Governments can easily change the underlying outcomes model, but most of the time may find that they can clearly specify their priorities against an existing DoView Board’s set of outcomes.

• require the Government of the day to set out its priority objectives related to each key area of public interest

As just discussed governments setting priorities is done in the most efficient manner when using a DoView Board Collection with Minister just going through the DoView Boards they are responsible for an marking up their priorities onto the boxes in the relevant DoView Board. This is much more efficient that just relying on separate documentation in Ministerial Letters of Intent. It also is much a much more strategically agile approach. When the strategy envrionment changes, Ministers just need to go through the DoView Board, change the priority of boxes that they want to change and get the relevant government agency(s) to use DoView Board visual alignment to show what they are going to do differently to ensure that they activity is now aligned to the new priorities.

• require the Executive to set out information about how spending is related to the enduring outcomes and the Government’s priority objectives

The DoView Board Collection enables information about how much is being spent on which outcomes to be presented within the board. It also enables a Minister of anyone using the Board to immediately drill-down to see more detailed information about which projects and activities (which can also include the amount being spent on them) are focused on achieving the outcomes in question.

• require the Executive to report its progress on outcomes across each key area of interest.

A DoView Board Collection provides the visualization (e.g. traffic lighting) for both performance measures and the findings in regard to evalaution questions with which the Executive can rapidly communicate its progress on outcomes across each key area of interest. In the interim URLS can the link out from the relevant DoView Board to the relevant more detailed documents (e.g. evaluation reports). In addition because DoView Boards are an open-source project any developer can easily put them into an integrated government IT infrastructure.

3I.3Z INQUIRY INTO PERFORMANCE REPORTING AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

Public entities’ reporting

4. To improve public entities’ reporting, we recommend that the Government develop and implement the following proposals:

• replace current requirements related to entities preparing strategic documents with a new requirement for public entities to produce a four-year plan

Entities four-year plans can be turned into a fully functional DoView Board within minutes using the free DoView Board Prompt. The reality is that only a tiny number of people read such plans. Complementing their production by turning them into a very accessible DoView Board means that a far wider audience can quickly access the information within such plans. They can get both a helicopter view and drill down for additional information. The boards visualize how each of the projects or activities within the plans are aligned with priority outcomes. They also would show the performance measures the entity is going to use and the implementation, process and impact evaluation questions it is going to answer regarding its work.

• require public entities to provide targeted information on their performance, including value for money, how they are contributing to outcomes, and findings from evaluations and reviews

All of this information can be captured within the relevant DoView Board, complementing all of the detailed information provided in documentation produced by entities. It is then immediately available in a visual drill-down format for anyone to quickly get a picture of exactly what an entity is attempting to do and the progress that it is making at any point in time.

• remove existing requirements for entities to report on performance at an appropriations level; entities would continue to report on spending against appropriations.

Consistent with this recommendation, DoView Boards provide a visual approach to providing a much more fine-grained reporting of performance than that which was previously done at the appropriations level.

Additional proposals

5. We recommend that the Government further consider the merits of each of the additional proposals set out in Chapter 3.4 of this report and choose whether to develop and implement them, as appropriate.

These additional proposals included the following:

  • Requiring a statement of enduring long-term outcomes for New Zealand that sits above outcomes for key areas and endures beyond parliamentary cycles
    In addition to whatever other documentation that is produced, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection.

  • Establishing long-term objectives that can endure across governments for issues that need sustained focus
    In addition to whatever other documentation is produced, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection.

  • Requiring a state-of-the-nation report that provides a comprehensive picture of progress towards long-term outcomes
    In addition to whatever other documentation is produced to do this, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection.

  • requiring briefings on long-term trends, challenges, and opportunities in key areas of interest
    In addition to whatever other documentation is produced to do this, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection. The rules for drawing This-Then pages within a DoView Board are such that they can capture trends, challenges, risks and opportunities within the set of This-Then pages in a DoView Board.

  • Requiring the Government to provide a high-level plan of major initiatives related to key areas of interest.
    Because DoView Boards take a generic approach to modeling outcomes, steps and the projects/actions it is believed will lead to them, they can be used (and have been used in earlier iterations of DoView Planning with the NZ public service) to model a wide variety of different types of iniatives an areas of interest at the departmental unit level, the departmental level, the provider level, the sector level and at the national level.

Next steps

6. We recommend that the Government consider how best to phase implementation of any reforms to the systems for performance reporting and public accountability.

7. We recommend that the Government update and involve the Finance and Expenditure Committee regarding any potential policy process resulting from our recommendations, continuing the collaborative approach that we have taken during this inquiry.

The Finance and Expenditure Committee has conducted an inquiry into performance reporting and public accountability, and makes the following recommendations:

Our overarching recommendation

1. We recommend that the Government develop and implement the proposals set out in Chapter 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 of this report to improve the systems for performance reporting and public accountability, focused on three key shifts:

  • Whole-of-government reporting—improving clarity about what governments want to achieve, how they intend to go about it, and what progress is being made.
    A DoView Board Collection could provide a very accessible visual whole-of-government approach to reporting. It would sit above the more detailed documentation recommended by the review and provide a visual drill-down interactive gateway to what government wants to achieve, how it intends to go about it, and what progress is being made. DoView Boards, because they have been designed to answer the 20 key questions that need to be answered regarding any organization or initiative can provide a helicopter and drill-down view of all of this. In particular, see:

    1. What outcomes, for whom? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question1

    2. How will change happen? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question2
    18. How are results being reported? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question18

  • Reporting on areas of interest to the public—strengthening the focus of reporting on how the Executive's work and spending contributes to outcomes in areas that are important to the public.
    A DoView Board Collection enables quick, comprehensive, large-scale modelling of the outcomes and the steps leading to them in any area of public interest. In addition, it enables anyone to rapidly navigate and drill down into the visual outcomes model. In particular see:
    1. What outcomes, for whom? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question1
    2. How will change happen? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question2
    18. How are results being reported? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question18

  • Public entities' reporting—providing a more integrated view of the performance of entities, with a greater focus on value for money and how they are contributing to outcomes.

    DoView Boards provide a novel visual approach to providing an integrated view of entities' performance and checking that there is alignment between priorities and what is being done, so government can show how it believes its work is value for money and contributing to outcomes. In particular see:
    1. Is the action aligned with priority outcomes? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question8
    2. How are results being reported? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question18

Whole-of-government reporting

2. To improve whole-of-government reporting, we recommend that the Government develop and implement the following proposals, which would require each Government to:

  • state its priority objectives near the start of the parliamentary term
    A DoView Board Collection provides the most efficient, accessible and transparent way of doing this by the government at the start of the parliamentary term. Ministers simply need to mark up with the government’s priorities onto the boxes on the appropriate level within the relevant DoView Boards. In particular see:
    1. Which priorities matter most next? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question6

  • provide a high-level plan, with costings, to outline major initiatives it will carry out to achieve its priority objectives
    The amount being spent in different priority objective areas can be marked up onto the boxes within the relevant DoView Boards. In the interim, URLs from the DoView Board could then drill down to more detailed costing mappings, such as those suggested by the review. Or give that DoView Boards are an open-source project such mapping and DoView Board could be easily integrated into a single NZ government planning and reporting IT infrastructure. In particular see:
    7. What specific action will be taken? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question7
    10. How will budget/funding be used? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question10

  • report on progress towards achieving the priority objectives. DoView Boards are specifically designed to enable reporting of both performance measures (indicators, KPIs, targets etc.) and the results of implementation, process and impact evaluation findings. In the interim, URLs from the DoView Board could then drill down to more detailed indicators graphs and visualizations. Or give that DoView Boards are an open-source project, such visualizations and DoView Board could be easily integrated into a single NZ government planning and reporting IT infrastructure. In particular see:
    15. How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question15
    16. How are answers to evaluation questions being shown? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question16

Reporting on areas of interest to the public

3. To improve reporting on areas of interest to the public, we recommend that the Government develop and implement the following proposals:

  • establish a set of enduring outcomes for key areas of public interest
    DoView Boards provide a totally flexible approach to the specification of enduring outcomes. The rules for drawing DoView Boards encourage the This-Then pages within DoView Boards to be drawn in a way that provides sufficient breadth for different government administrations to then prioritize onto such an enduring set of outcomes. This is in contrast to approaches where the underlying outcomes model has to change every time there is a different government administration. Governments can easily change the underlying outcomes model, but most of the time may find that they can clearly specify their priorities against an existing DoView Board's set of outcomes.

  1. What outcomes, for whom? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question1

  2. How will change happen? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question2

  • require the Government of the day to set out its priority objectives related to each key area of public interest As just discussed governments setting priorities is done in the most efficient manner when using a DoView Board Collection with Minister just going through the DoView Boards they are responsible for an marking up their priorities onto the boxes in the relevant DoView Board. This is much more efficient that just relying on separate documentation in Ministerial Letters of Intent. It also is much a much more strategically agile approach. When the strategy envrionment changes, Ministers just need to go through the DoView Board, change the priority of boxes that they want to change and get the relevant government agency(s) to use DoView Board visual alignment to show what they are going to do differently to ensure that they activity is now aligned to the new priorities.

  1. Which priorities matter most next? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question6

  2. Is the action aligned with priority outcomes? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question8

  • require the Executive to set out information about how spending is related to the enduring outcomes and the Government's priority objectives The DoView Board Collection enables information about how much is being spent on which outcomes to be presented within the board. It also enables a Minister of anyone using the Board to immediately drill-down to see more detailed information about which projects and activities (which can also include the amount being spent on them) are focused on achieving the outcomes in question.

  1. Is the action aligned with priority outcomes? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question8

  2. How will budget/funding be used? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question10

  • require the Executive to report its progress on outcomes across each key area of interest. A DoView Board Collection provides the visualization (e.g. traffic lighting) for both performance measures and the findings in regard to evalaution questions with which the Executive can rapidly communicate its progress on outcomes across each key area of interest. In the interim URLS can the link out from the relevant DoView Board to the relevant more detailed documents (e.g. evaluation reports). In addition because DoView Boards are an open-source project any developer can easily put them into an integrated government IT infrastructure.

  1. How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question15

  2. How are answers to evaluation questions being shown? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question16

  3. How are results being reported? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question18

Public entities' reporting

  • replace current requirements related to entities preparing strategic documents with a new requirement for public entities to produce a four-year plan Entities four-year plans can be turned into a fully functional DoView Board within minutes using the free DoView Board Prompt. The reality is that only a tiny number of people read such plans. Complementing their production by turning them into a very accessible DoView Board means that a far wider audience can quickly access the information within such plans. They can get both a helicopter view and drill down for additional information. The boards visualize how each of the projects or activities within the plans are aligned with priority outcomes. They also would show the performance measures the entity is going to use and the implementation, process and impact evaluation questions it is going to answer regarding its work.

  1. What outcomes, for whom? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question1

  2. How will change happen? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question2

  3. What specific action will be taken? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question7

  4. Is the action aligned with priority outcomes? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question8

  5. How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question15

  6. How are answers to evaluation questions being shown? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question16

  • require public entities to provide targeted information on their performance, including value for money, how they are contributing to outcomes, and findings from evaluations and reviews All of this information can be captured within the relevant DoView Board, complementing all of the detailed information provided in documentation produced by entities. It is then immediately available in a visual drill-down format for anyone to quickly get a picture of exactly what an entity is attempting to do and the progress that it is making at any point in time.

  1. Is the action aligned with priority outcomes? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question8

  2. How will budget/funding be used? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question10

  3. How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question15

  4. How are answers to evaluation questions being shown? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question16

  • remove existing requirements for entities to report on performance at an appropriations level; entities would continue to report on spending against appropriations. Consistent with this recommendation, DoView Boards provide a visual approach to providing a much more fine-grained reporting of performance than that which was previously done at the appropriations level.

  1. How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question15

  2. How are results being reported? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question18

Additional proposals

Requiring a statement of enduring long-term outcomes for New Zealand that sits above outcomes for key areas and endures beyond parliamentary cycles In addition to whatever other documentation that is produced, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection.

  1. What outcomes, for whom? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question1

  2. How will change happen? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question2

Establishing long-term objectives that can endure across governments for issues that need sustained focus In addition to whatever other documentation is produced, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection.

  1. What outcomes, for whom? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question1

  2. Which priorities matter most next? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question6

Requiring a state-of-the-nation report that provides a comprehensive picture of progress towards long-term outcomes In addition to whatever other documentation is produced to do this, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection.

  1. How is progress on measures being shown (e.g. indicators, KPIs, OKRs)? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question15

  2. How are results being reported? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question18

requiring briefings on long-term trends, challenges, and opportunities in key areas of interest In addition to whatever other documentation is produced to do this, this can be easily modeled in an accessible visual format within a DoView Board Collection. The rules for drawing This-Then pages within a DoView Board are such that they can capture trends, challenges, risks and opportunities within the set of This-Then pages in a DoView Board.

  1. How will change happen? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question2

  2. What could affect success? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question4

Requiring the Government to provide a high-level plan of major initiatives related to key areas of interest. Because DoView Boards take a generic approach to modeling outcomes, steps and the projects/actions it is believed will lead to them, they can be used (and have been used in earlier iterations of DoView Planning with the NZ public service) to model a wide variety of different types of iniatives an areas of interest at the departmental unit level, the departmental level, the provider level, the sector level and at the national level.

  1. What outcomes, for whom? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question1

  2. How will change happen? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question2

  3. What specific action will be taken? https://doviewplanning.org/20questions#question7

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