Data-Driven Decision-Making

Scot Barker, Chief Innovation Officer, City of Burlington, Vermont

Through this article, Barker emphasizes the importance of embedding data-driven decision-making into municipal governance, highlighting Burlington’s achievement of the ‘What Works Cities Silver’ certification as a milestone rather than an endpoint.

Recently, the City of Burlington, Vermont, earned ‘What Works Cities Silver’ certification from Results4America and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Many people across the city worked together over several months to earn the certification. The City of Burlington joined more than 100 other municipalities across North, Central and Latin America, which have demonstrated their commitment to making data-driven decisions a part of their governance model. Earning this certification is no small feat for any municipality (let alone a city of 45,000), but it is not the end goal. Instead, certification is merely a mile marker on the ongoing journey toward smarter, more data-driven governance. While the City of Burlington is proud to be recognized for how far we’ve come, this certification really shows how much more work there is to do.

Data-driven decision-making is the basis for good governance and shouldn’t be done once for certification. Rather, it should be the framework around which municipalities can quantify the work, evaluate how well the work is performing against defined success criteria and ground the work in concrete, measurable ways. Leveraging data-driven decision-making helps municipalities ensure their programs and decisions are efficient, effective, transparent, accountable and equitable.

Rather than operating on subjective decisions and knee-jerk reactions, a data-driven approach improves operational efficiency. Instead of decisions based only on complaints and input from a few vocal stakeholders, data-driven decision-making can help prioritize projects based on data that supports equity and efficiency.

Establishing a strong foundation for data-driven decision-making is crucial to ensure municipal actions are guided by objective analysis rather than subjective input. The City of Burlington gained valuable insights through the What Works Cities certification process, which helped us move beyond ad hoc decision-making and toward a more structured, data-informed approach. Here are some key takeaways from our experience:

• Documentation: We definitely used data to make decisions, but often, we didn’t have excellent documentation. We didn’t always succinctly define and document the key performance indicators we wanted to track. We didn’t have documentation about what data was public facing or the criteria and expectations around the availability and structure of public data. The certification process forced us to create much of this documentation, most of which is or will quickly become mandated policy across the municipality.

• Defining Success: One of the biggest roadblocks to tracking and analyzing data is not truly knowing what success is. How does a municipality define success on a project or initiative? Even defining success at that level can be difficult. We learned that we need to be more intentional about this process. Now, we need to work on making this a part of every piece of work the city does.

• Governance: The Institute of Directors calls out the ‘Four P’s of Governance’ as purpose, people, process and performance. Good governance ensures that a municipality can define the project, why it needs to be done and what success means. It makes sure people will equitably benefit from the effort and that the process takes into account solid project management tactics, good internal and external communication, and adequate change and contingency management. And ultimately, it means substantial data collection and analysis to ensure the project both meets the success criteria and can point toward improvements for the next effort.

Like most big initiatives at a municipality, the work never seems to end. And really, the work of leveraging data to make better decisions doesn’t and shouldn’t ever end. Resources—time, money, people—always seem to be in short supply in a municipality. However, with our renewed focus on data-driven decision-making, we are already seeing the positive benefits. It is dovetailing nicely with our municipality’s efforts to modernize and improve the way we deliver services to the community.

The City of Burlington’s achievement of ‘What Works Cities Silver’ certification highlights the importance of embedding data-driven decision-making into municipal governance. This recognition serves as a milestone for Burlington and an example for any municipality striving to improve transparency, efficiency and equity in its operations. The journey doesn’t end with certification—it’s an ongoing commitment to using data to drive better outcomes for the community. By prioritizing strong data practices, municipalities of all sizes can make more informed decisions, allocate resources more effectively, and continuously improve how they deliver services.

Project Management