Check out Palo Alto's new "See-It" site for tracking progress on achieving the 2009 Council Priorities! We have set many goals for the City organization in support of community values and to deliver on this year's Council priorities.
We encourage you to click around this new, interactive site and explore how we're doing in reaching our goals. Also, this site is a work in progress. It is set up to receive feedback from its users, which will help us to continually update and improve it. Please tell us what you think and ask questions using the Feedback tabs.
The new Palo Alto See-It site, specifically designed to track progress made towards achieving Council-set priorities, will initiate stronger performance management and transform how staff communicates effectively with the community. The capability and opportunity for the site is vast. It will not only be a repository of valuable quantitative information on City operations, but will also serve as a forward looking plan that charts the course for the long-term vision of the City.
This is a new project for the City. While the goals depicted are targeted specifically to City Council priorities for 2009, the See-It site will grow and change as the City and community become more familiar with its functionality.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
On January 10, 2009, during the annual Council Retreat, the Council identified these priorities for 2009: Environmental Protection, Civic Engagement for the Common Good and Economic Health.
After the priorities were determined, staff began creating a work plan of goals and actions to address them. Through a series of meetings, including a Council Study Session on Monday, April 6, a framework for accomplishing the 2009 Priorities was developed, which included 18 strategies and 82 actions that each correspond to a specific priority.
Taking into consideration the feedback from previous methods of tracking progress towards priorities, staff elected to utilize a new and innovative system to enhance accountability and transparency. Staff chose to work with Visible Strategies Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and use its interactive See-It software tool. The See-It software creates a simple, clear, connected picture of goals, strategies, actions, targets and performance data necessary to achieve them.
A work plan for the 2009 Council Priorities has been developed within the new interactive Palo Alto See-It web-based tool to track progress on the priorities and communicate effectively with the community about progress made through simple, interrelated content, graphics and data maintained on the new Palo Alto See-It site.
The 18 strategies and 82 actions compiled in support of the Council priorities have been entered into the City's new Palo Alto See-It site. Every action has a tracking scorecard which provides detailed information on the goal of the action, timeline for implementation, current status, relevant additional information, and supporting documentation. Additionally, each scorecard offers the user the ability to directly contact someone for feedback and to obtain more information.
Creation of the Palo Alto See-It site provides a visual tool for the Council, community and staff that improves the transparency of City government, defines specific actions to support Council priorities, initiates stronger performance management and transforms how the City monitors progress on the Council priorities and communicates this progress effectively with the community.
