| I. Introduction | | | | federal government level. It is embodied in a system |
| First of all I would like to highlight that this article is | | | | called: Adaa (i.e. "Performance" in Arabic). The system |
| intended for Strategy consultants who would like to | | | | was launched by His Highness the Prime Minister |
| have an idea about the Performance Management | | | | Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum during |
| initiatives in the UAE government. Why UAE? Simply | | | | Gitex 2008. The system made a big noise in the media |
| because the UAE has established itself as an | | | | when it was launched, as it was announced as a new |
| undisputed leader in this domain among its neighbors at | | | | era for the governmental performance in the UAE. |
| least. There is a lot to be learned from the initiatives | | | | Adaa was owned and managed by the Prime Minster |
| pursued by the leaders of the UAE, which clearly | | | | Office. Its main task is to provide UAE officials with |
| demonstrate a vision which accepts nothing less than | | | | visibility into the performance of Federal ministries and |
| governmental excellence. | | | | authorities. |
| | | | All federal entities have secure access to Adaa in |
| Throughout my reading in the domain I have not | | | | order to upload their plans and results. ON an annual |
| encountered the term "Government Performance | | | | basis, and towards the end of the year, all federal |
| Management" as is. The term is totally derived from | | | | entities are requested to upload their operational plans |
| the concept of "Corporate Performance Management | | | | for the following year. They include the initiatives and |
| (CPM)". However due to the differences in the goals | | | | KPI's that should be achieved. All these initiatives are |
| and vision of corporate entities versus Governmental | | | | linked to higher level initiatives set at the strategic level. |
| institutions, I decided to use almost the same | | | | For the UAE, this strategic level consists of 3-year |
| terminology and switching "Corporate" to | | | | periods. Therefore each strategic plan should |
| "Government", thus coming up with the acronym | | | | eventually include three operational plans. |
| "GPM". | | | | On a quarterly basis, federal entities are requested to |
| CPM consists mainly of three stages: Crafting/Planning | | | | upload their quarterly achievement for the previous |
| à Execution à Monitoring and Analysis | | | | quarter. At the moment this is done manually, i.e. the |
| (some prefer to define the phases as Planning | | | | actual performance percentages are logged manually. |
| à Monitoring à Analysis. However, the | | | | In future phases this shall be automated via integration |
| first phasing seems to be more logical to me). GPM | | | | with other systems (more info about Adaa phases in |
| also consists of pretty much the same phases. | | | | future articles). Now that actual are logged in Adaa, the |
| However the main difference lies in the Planning stage, | | | | prime minister and other authorized officials have |
| and mainly in the strategic planning stage (later I will hit | | | | access to end-to-end reports about the performance |
| on Strategic vs. Operational planning). When any | | | | of the federal government entities. Best performing |
| organization "crafts" a plan, it does so based on its | | | | entities are then announced and honored in public. |
| vision and mission. As per the Balanced Scorecards | | | | IV. Adaa - Technical Overview |
| concepts, in order to measure the organization's | | | | Adaa was a one of the main systems implemented |
| performance, the various objectives should be | | | | by Microsoft Consulting Services. The technology used |
| classified under 4 main categories: | | | | was mainly Microsoft PerformancePoint Server (PPS). |
| 1- Financial | | | | At the time of the implementation, PerformancePoint |
| 2- Customer | | | | was still a stand-alone product, whereas now it's called |
| 3- Learning & Growth | | | | PerformancePoint "Services", which is part of the |
| 4- Business Process | | | | leading Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 |
| For Norton and Kaplan not only it was a sin to change | | | | (MOSS). Different modules of PPS were used to build: |
| the names or the classifications, but initially it was also | | | | · the Data Models and the Dimensions on one |
| another sin to change the order of these quadrants. | | | | side |
| This is the core difference between CPM and GPM. | | | | · and the dashboards, including the scorecards, |
| For GPM, the Customer (who is actually the "Citizen") | | | | reports, and strategy maps. Analytical capabilities such |
| lies on top of all the quadrants, while the financials | | | | as filtering and drill-down are provided as well. |
| quadrant lie in the bottom, as it's purely a means, not | | | | Since Arabic is the official language of the country, the |
| an end for Governments (obviously the opposite is | | | | system had to support full Arabic dashboards. This |
| totally true for corporate organizations). Therefore the | | | | was also taken care of by Microsoft and the team |
| quadrants under GPM are: | | | | who developed the solution. |
| 1- Citizens | | | | At the moment all federal entities fill their plans and |
| 2- Processes | | | | actual via uploading documents or sheets with |
| 3- Learning & Growth | | | | pre-defined format. This will be definitely enhanced in |
| 4- Financials | | | | future phases of Adaa, which are already being |
| III. GPM in the UAE | | | | planned. As I mentioned earlier I will hit more on the |
| As I mentioned earlier, in this article I will focus on the | | | | future phases of Adaa in future articles. |
| GPM experience in the UAE. In future articles I hope I | | | | V. GPM in the UAE - Conclusion |
| will be able to get into the GPM in general, mostly from | | | | This article was a very brief introduction about GPM in |
| a technical perspective (many strategy experts - | | | | the UAE. Maybe it is intended to entice other |
| which I'm not - have discussed the Performance | | | | government officials' curiosity about the concept of |
| Management concepts from pure business angles). | | | | GPM. Future articles will constitute a roadmap for |
| The goal of my articles will be to assists Heads of | | | | government organizations who are considering GPM |
| Strategy Divisions, or IT manager, in government | | | | platforms. I will try to discuss how to investigate a |
| entities to form a general idea about the technical | | | | GPM platform, and what other factors are to be taken |
| solution that will assist them in all the phases of the | | | | into consideration, what other challenges that should be |
| GPM lfecycle. | | | | tackled by a GPM solution, and how to phase such an |
| The United Arab Emirates is a gulf country that consist | | | | implementation. In all these articles I will be basing my |
| of seven emirates. Each emirate has its own internal | | | | discussions on previous experiences in this domain, |
| rules and policies, which are all governed by the federal | | | | given that the company I'm working for - Netways - is |
| government of the UAE. Therefore when we talk | | | | establishing itself as a leader in GPM implementations |
| about GPM in the UAE, we should be considering two | | | | based on Microsoft platforms. This is demonstrated |
| levels: Federal and Local. | | | | through some major implementations which I will also |
| The first GPM initiative was implemented on the | | | | discuss in future articles. |