Analytics Fellowship

#Creating an Analytics Fellowship Everyone Wants Box Seats

Let’s face it. There is something alluring about box seats. Most people can’t afford to buy them, but we jump at the opportunity to use them if someone else is paying. Maybe it’s the chance to rub elbows with VIPs. Maybe it’s the bird’s-eye view, the controlled climate, the better food options, the private bathroom – it appeals to something very innate in human beings – even those who could care less about the game below.

In many ways, box seats are a metaphor for the qualities people crave in their jobs: a better view of the organization, more access to power and talent, and more control. This is especially true in government, where people feel buried within programs, under a pile of regulations and policies, and creeping so slowly up the government ladder they can barely see the top. Even though state and local government has the lowest separation rate of any industry, people are separating at roughly the same rate they are hired. So it’s no wonder government leaders feel constantly strapped for talent. The good news: they have box seats. It’s time to start inviting people inside.

Start Selling Your Tickets

A governor, mayor, or city manager’s office is government’s best box seat. Employees in these offices have a bird’s eye view of the entire government. They get to see how every program functions (or doesn’t function), and how the whole enterprise comes together (or stumbles trying). And they aren’t the only offices who have this view: budget, auditing, performance, and even IT divisions have a unique window into the entire enterprise. So why not pass out tickets to talented employees who want to take a turn in the box seats?

It’s not just the enterprise view that appeals to analytically minded employees, it’s also proximity to power and talent. Human beings, even those in public service, are self-interested. So if doing analysis for policy makers and decision makers in these executive offices can help them get a leg up in their own careers, expand their network, and expose them to a broader team of potential supporters, mentors, and champions, they will take that opportunity.

Perhaps most importantly, people want to be in the room where the buck stops, to see how their analysis gets used by the power players. Many government employees see their work and recommendations go into a black hole and rarely get feedback from decision makers up the food chain on how their recommendations were considered, if at all. Witnessing how senior executives make enterprise-level decisions can have a profound effect on employees’ understanding of the organization, its strategic direction, and where their contributions matter most. It also makes them feel empowered to see the results of their work get acted upon, because they are operating at a different part of the decision making process than their normal job allows.

So why aren’t more executive offices selling tickets to their box seats? Many feel constrained by a limited number of positions and funding, not wanting to become top-heavy while they lean out other government programs. However, no new resources are required. Any executive office can start attracting the most talented analysts in their organizations by launching a fellowship program. All it takes is time and patience.

What Is an Analytics Fellowship?

The analytics fellowship is an idea many people are already informally using. For example, the City of Baltimore promoted several analysts in its Citistat program into program management jobs when their tour with the Mayor’s office ended. Washington, DC’s former City Administrator made it a point to send analysts from his office out into line agencies, adding analytical capacity and performance focus in more parts of the organization. But as Bob Behn writes in his book The PerformanceStat Potential:

This kind of leadership thinking and behavior is unusual. Most government agencies - even some that claim to have created their own version of PerformanceStat - possess little analytical capacity at the operational level. To build this capacity, the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency created the FEMASTAT Fellowship, which brings in civil servants (general service grades 9 through 14) for six-month rotations in the FEMASTAT office. These fellows . . . take a high-level, but behind-the-scenes role on some of the most important issues facing FEMA.” The fellowship is open to all permanent, full-time employees of FEMA and the entire Department of Homeland Security, plus Presidential Management Fellows throughout the U.S. Government. The fellowship provides the FEMASTAT office with some extra staff. But it has a longer-term purpose: to help employees acquire the analytical skills and habits of mind that are necessary to ratchet up performance. Then FEMASTAT sends them back to help others develop the capacity to analyze and learn from data.

As you can see, a more formalized fellowship is a reciprocal model: Executive offices get to benefit from the temporary support of current analysts in other parts of the organization, and when they are finished, their home organization gets an infusion of refreshed talent based on the skills and experiences developed during the fellowship.

How Does It Work?

Analytical fellowships help build an agency’s, and indeed a city’s, capabilities through professional development. The basic idea is that a portion of the analytical workforce in an enterprise-level office (e.g., Stat program, Performance Management Office, Delivery Unit, etc.) should be staffed through employee rotations of approximately four to six months. This arrangement is designed to build a culture of analytics and data-infused decision making – and it benefits all participating programs, departments, and employees.

The fellowship staffing model provides insight, experience, and perspectives across the organization to analyze, present, and prepare solutions to government’s greatest strategic problems. For individual participants, the fellowship provides an unparalleled opportunity to enhance their analytical and communication skills while learning about the agency and observing government leadership in practice. For example, in Tacoma, WA, the fellowship program is explicit about how it provides its fellows an opportunity to have regularly scheduled private meetings with the city manager, assistant city manager, and assistant to the city manager. If you structure it well, each fellow takes the skills they have learned back to their home office; ready to apply them in his or her daily work and share the benefits.

However, a strong fellowship isn’t open to just anyone. Employees interested in participating must prove their analytical and communications chops before being selected.