Two companion publications to the book Listening to the Public: Adding the Voices of the People to Government Performance Measurement and Reporting are available for download:

TIPS for Conducting FOCUS GROUPS to Develop Government Performance Measures and  Reports

TIPS for Conducting CITIZEN SURVEYS to Develop Government Performance Measures and Reports

These tips have been developed to provide a frame of reference, some guidelines and standards for governments starting the process of listening to their public for the purposes of creating measures and reports that reflect the public's perspective and engaging the public in the performance measurement process.
 
The recommendations in these publications are for governments that are interested in finding out what the members of their public are thinking about their government: how they come to assess the services and other aspects of government performance, what they want, need and expect from government including information, and how they would like government to communicate with them.

The tips emerged in part from the experiences of 24 local, county and state governments that were recipients in a three-year government performance reporting demonstration grant program run by the Center on Government Performance (CGP) of the National Center for Civic Innovation, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The tips also derive from the 12-year experience of CGP's work in Listening to the Public, as detailed in our book of the same name.

To download a free electronic version (.pdf) of the TIPS, click below.

TIPS for Conducting FOCUS GROUPS to Develop Government Performance Measures and Reports

TIPS for Conducting CITIZEN SURVEYS to Develop Government Performance Measures and Reports