Finally, after six weeks, the preliminary key performance indicators (KPIs) for the ministers are ready. What are they and will they actually help our ministers perform their duties better? ANIZA DAMIS speaks to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, who is in charge of driving the ministers and their KPIs, and finds out that this is only the beginning
Q: Why is it that ministers are only having KPIs now? Does this mean the government had no focus?
A: That's not true. The government does have focus but it was done through the civil service. Every ministry has a mission statement, vision statement, objectives and, for each and every programme, they have a listing of what is to be achieved. Budgeting and implementing the budget is in itself a performance-management exercise. It's just that we have not used the methodology, KPIs and the balance-score card system in such a rigorous way. And we have not applied it to ministers and deputy ministers. For example, it used to take three weeks to get a new passport. And then, a year ago, you could get your passport within a day, and now you can get your passport within three hours. So, this is a very clear and obvious success of a KPI exercise.
Q: The ministers have submitted the preliminary KPIs to the prime minister. Have they done a good job of it?
A: This is only the first round. For many ministers, and even for me, there is a learning curve.
In the corporate world, the exercise of driving performance through KPIs usually takes a few cycles, around two to four years, to fine tune, to make sure the targets are correct. The KPIs make the targets very focused, very clear. But I think there's a sense of commitment. I was really impressed that every minister was dedicated to getting their preliminary KPIs done. It wasn't easy. There was concern over how to measure something that doesn't seem quantifiable. For example, take my own portfolio: How do you measure national unity? I'm still in the process of figuring it out. As a rough measure, we used to take what is called the index of inter-ethnic quarrels. Any quarrel between at least two individuals of different ethnic backgrounds may become a police case. So, we take that and track it. We look at how many quarrels there were, how serious they were and how they were resolved.
Q: So, what's your KPIs?
A: I just submitted what was being used as preliminary KPIs, the number of incidents that have been reported to and recorded by the police. I said this was all that we had (as a yardstick). But I have asked the Institute for Inter-Ethnic Relations of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, headed by Professor Shamsul Bahrin, and his researchers to help me find out whether there are already existing ones in other countries and new indices we can create to more effectively measure "national unity" and "social harmony". If we can come up with certain measures as an indicator, then we can come up with an implementation plan to enhance social harmony, national unity, inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony.
Q: Last year, the National Unity and Integration Department registered 364 demonstrations and street protests. Would you take a demonstration as a positive or negative indicator of unity?
A: That is debatable. In fact, I'm in the process of discussing this with my officers. If it's a peaceful gathering of 2,000 people at a town hall, they are very unhappy and demonstrating their anger, but if they sit down and discuss things, then that's positive, because there would be a fruitful exchange of ideas. But with street demonstrations, although some would say that's an avenue to vent their feelings, I would say that it would be less fruitful than a serious discussion, where there is real communication and dialogue. Whatever it is, we need to resolve the problem.
Q: If it takes a few cycles to fine-tune KPIs, how solid are these KPIs which were prepared in just six weeks?
A: Whatever that was submitted by the ministers are what we call preliminary KPIs. They are very preliminary, based on the KPIs for their own secretary-generals, but not solely based on them. The most important thing the minister has to look at is the impact and outcome for the people and public perception. That makes it challenging. We are trying to do something, that normally takes a very long time, in a very short span of time . Since my official appointment, I've been sleeping and eating KPIs. We have lunch meetings and dinner meetings. I have to do lots of reading and have discussions with people who have a lot of experience with KPIs.
Q: At what point will these preliminary KPIs translate to actual KPIs?
A: After the preliminaries, there will be a dialogue between my colleagues and I to fine-tune the KPIs with the help of experts. Then, the second round will be a discussion with the prime minister, to see whether the KPIs are realistic. Then, we will implement it. The prime minister has set another deadline in November, which is when they have the first assessment. After Nov-ember, we will be going into KPI Version 2.0.
Q: That means the first assessment in November is not going to be an assessment on the ministers, but rather it is an assessment on the effectiveness of the KPIs?
A: Yes. There is a wide range of quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance, and of a different nature, too, from ministry to ministry. The International Trade and Industry Ministry and the Domestic Trade Ministry, for instance, have more quantitative measures. But even then, you have to see what the relevant measures are. For example, if you take foreign direct investments as the absolute amount, how would you measure it? We must also have a relative measure, because in the context of a global economic crisis, you cannot expect Malaysia to have an increase in FDI when the whole global FDI is collapsing. So then, it has to be relative. This is what I mean by fine-tuning. The danger is, if you set your KPIs too high, you're going to be in trouble, because people will say, "You're boasting". You can be 100 per cent sure that there will be a shortfall and you'll end up punishing yourself. But if you set your KPIs too low, people will think it's ridiculous, because it doesn't make any difference. So, the setting of targets itself is extremely challenging.
Q: Besides setting a target for what is deemed to be a success, are ministries setting a target for what is deemed to be a failure?
A: I think there would a grading scale. For instance, if we set a target for getting a passport ready in three hours, would it be realistic to say that, if for some reason you deliver it within six hours instead, that it is a failure? No, I would still say that it is a success.
Q: How many hours would constitute failure?
A: That would depend on public perception. People want speed, but most are also reasonable. They ask for reasonable speed. If you tell people their documents will be ready the next day before 5pm, and you keep to that promise, they would be happy. But, for those who need their passports urgently, special efforts will be made to get the passports ready in time. If we set our target too unrealistically and invest in too many personnel, we can get the passport done in one hour, but then the law of diminishing returns would come in. For instance, if in the past it took three weeks and now it takes three days, that's a tremendous improvement. But, if it takes five times the resources to drive it to one day, then it may not be worth it. Because those resources are actually public resources, and could be used to drive other things. So, you have to have a very holistic view of the allocation of resources, and this is where some of us come in. Because, even if you have billions, it is still limited resources. So, part of it is setting expectations. People want speed, certainty and courtesy; that's the three most important factors in their perception of government service. We should drive our organisation so that it works to its maximum. But we should also not over-drive it so that it's humanly not possible.
Q: How are you going to measure public perception?
A: We would like our political leaders and civil servants to be sensitised, so that they can immediately detect public sentiments. They must be sensitive, yet positive to complaints. Secondly, we can conduct public opinion polls. Or we can even have certain devices for people to vote whether they are happy with the service of that particular officer. In some countries, there are certain buttons to push: green is for "very happy", amber is for "so-so", and red is for "very bad". We might adopt that for certain counter services. But this would only come in later, after we have assessed the situation.
Q: What are the KPIs for the home minister?
A: Each minister will probably have a few KPIs. But we would like the minister to identify what he thinks are the most important and relevant KPIs to the people. That can only be arrived at through the experience and acumen of the minister as a political leader and the head of the ministry; but more importantly, through some kind of feedback from our clients.
Q: At what are the KPIs targeted? Is it the satisfaction of the people or the well-running of the government and nation?
A: They are inter-related. There are KPIs that can be objectively measured -- in the delivery of certain services. But then there's also the qualitative aspect, which is perception and sentiment, which may not be completely related and determined by the objective and quantitative measure. For instance, I can give you your passport within a day. But if I give it to you with a sour face and with certain negative remarks, you're going to be very angry. Today, through technology, we will get much more feedback than 10 years ago. That in itself is a monitoring process and wake-up call. It's already there. And the final analysis is how people will vote.
Q: Keeping voters happy does not necessarily mean that the government is being run properly.
A: Yes. That's why we need objective measures.
You can be a populist and make people very happy over a period of time, and yet, misuse and abuse your resources. Or doing things that are not right, and yet keep people happy. For example, a very easy thing to do it is to give people money. Or to give a waiver on fines and summons; people can do what they like. But is it fair for other members of the public, if people park indiscriminately and they are not given a traffic summons? That's why we need objective measures.
Q: What is the role of Khazanah in all this?
A: Khazanah plays a very supportive role. But it's not Khazanah alone. We have within the civil service today the PSD (Public Service Department), Mampu (Malay-sian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit) and ICU (Implementation Coordination Unit). We are talking to everybody, because we would like to have a cross-fertilisation between the public and private sectors and what better group to turn to for experience?
Khazanah and Malaysia Airlines used KPIs to turn the airline around.
But I have not exhausted all the possibilities. I have yet to have a very deep conversation with Pemudah (task force to address bureaucracy issues in business-government dealings), for instance, which is a fine example of how you can get the public and private sector to work together to drive delivery.
Q: How much of the KPIs are the public going to be privy to?
A: We would like to have KPIs that are relevant, that have a direct impact and outcome on the people. There are many KPIs that are related to procedural, technical aspects, which even if you explained to the public, they won't be interested.
Q: Is a minister's performance going to be made public?
A: The public is going to be making their assessment anyway, with or without disclosure. But there are bound to be some headline KPIs. For example, if the Immigration Department had announced three years ago, before they embarked on this exercise of reducing the time it takes to make a passport, that would have been a very publicly-known, trackable KPI.
Q: KPIs are supposed to make ministers more answerable than in the past. But, like the report card system previously, no one knows what the report card reads. Surely we shouldn't have to wait five years for the elections?
A: We will make the KPIs public in less than a year. In fact, many of the KPIs will be determined by the public. For instance, the public will say it wants the crime rate to be reduced. So, what's the measure? What category of crimes are we talking about?
Q: How will you assure the people that their opinion matters outside of election time?
A: We can assure them, because the prime minister has repeatedly talked about it, we are driving it and within 30 days, we were even able to come up with the preliminary KPIs, when it would normally have taken half a year.
Q: If the public doesn't know what the preliminary KPIs are, how are they going to know whether six weeks' work is any good at all?
A: It will be judged by our final delivery. People will not want to wait for too long. So, we are putting a lot of pressure on ourselves.
Q: Everything I've heard so far are just promises. You are promising that you want to improve something. But you haven't told me what you want to improve, how it's going to be improved, and how I am supposed to know whether it's improved.
A: We would like you to tell us the five most important things that you would like us to improve.
Q: If the people want to give their feedback, how can they do that?
A: They can do that through the media.
Q: Is there a more formal channel?
A: We can do that through every ministry, if the matter is ministry-specific. They can write to the prime minister's 1Malaysia blog; they can write to me. And many of us are going to the ground, going on walkabouts.
Q: Is the feedback going to be collated properly?
A: We are setting up a system. Every ministry also has its own public clients' charter, and service information unit. We also have the Public Complaints Bureau. I can only start gauging things when we are in the thick of it. With the kind of commitment I see from the prime minister and my colleagues, the awareness, the consciousness and commitment, there will be a marked improvement in the next one to two years.
Q: Do your brother and sister ministers know what their goals are?
A: They know what the broader objectives are for their ministry. They know the programmes and the projects. But now what we are trying to do is to actually give a methodology for them to set a target within a timeframe. A target that, preferably, would be measurable and trackable and a methodology of implementation and a way of measuring it daily or weekly so that we stay focused. Every one of them is trying his best. But trying our best is not good enough. We must try our best within a certain framework, guidelines and methodology that have proven to be effective in corporate companies and even in governments. We want goals that the public can benefit from so that they can feel there is a difference. Part of driving KPIs is to look at the whole mechanism. It's not just tinkling with changes and procedure. It may involve changing the procedure itself! We are asking every minister to drive his own KPI exercise. I am only serving as a promoter and facilitator.
Q: Does every ministry have a specific section in its ministry or website that allows the public to send feedback?
A: Hopefully, within six months or so, every ministry will have a website that is interactive, that will be able to take more comments.
Q: When the exercise actually starts, what do you see your role as being?
A: The exercise has already started. I have to try to deliver this framework and guidelines, as well as supporting staff in order to drive other ministries. We will set up a new unit called Pemandu (Performance Management and Delivery Unit) which will draw upon existing units from Mampu, ICU, PSD, EPU, as well as Khazanah, to have a more focused group to support each minister and ministry in their drive. The whole KPI exercise is actually to get everybody focused and to get them to do a lot of things in their own area of responsibility, to contribute towards that goal.
A: That's not true. The government does have focus but it was done through the civil service. Every ministry has a mission statement, vision statement, objectives and, for each and every programme, they have a listing of what is to be achieved. Budgeting and implementing the budget is in itself a performance-management exercise. It's just that we have not used the methodology, KPIs and the balance-score card system in such a rigorous way. And we have not applied it to ministers and deputy ministers. For example, it used to take three weeks to get a new passport. And then, a year ago, you could get your passport within a day, and now you can get your passport within three hours. So, this is a very clear and obvious success of a KPI exercise.
Q: The ministers have submitted the preliminary KPIs to the prime minister. Have they done a good job of it?
A: This is only the first round. For many ministers, and even for me, there is a learning curve.
In the corporate world, the exercise of driving performance through KPIs usually takes a few cycles, around two to four years, to fine tune, to make sure the targets are correct. The KPIs make the targets very focused, very clear. But I think there's a sense of commitment. I was really impressed that every minister was dedicated to getting their preliminary KPIs done. It wasn't easy. There was concern over how to measure something that doesn't seem quantifiable. For example, take my own portfolio: How do you measure national unity? I'm still in the process of figuring it out. As a rough measure, we used to take what is called the index of inter-ethnic quarrels. Any quarrel between at least two individuals of different ethnic backgrounds may become a police case. So, we take that and track it. We look at how many quarrels there were, how serious they were and how they were resolved.
Q: So, what's your KPIs?
A: I just submitted what was being used as preliminary KPIs, the number of incidents that have been reported to and recorded by the police. I said this was all that we had (as a yardstick). But I have asked the Institute for Inter-Ethnic Relations of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, headed by Professor Shamsul Bahrin, and his researchers to help me find out whether there are already existing ones in other countries and new indices we can create to more effectively measure "national unity" and "social harmony". If we can come up with certain measures as an indicator, then we can come up with an implementation plan to enhance social harmony, national unity, inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony.
Q: Last year, the National Unity and Integration Department registered 364 demonstrations and street protests. Would you take a demonstration as a positive or negative indicator of unity?
A: That is debatable. In fact, I'm in the process of discussing this with my officers. If it's a peaceful gathering of 2,000 people at a town hall, they are very unhappy and demonstrating their anger, but if they sit down and discuss things, then that's positive, because there would be a fruitful exchange of ideas. But with street demonstrations, although some would say that's an avenue to vent their feelings, I would say that it would be less fruitful than a serious discussion, where there is real communication and dialogue. Whatever it is, we need to resolve the problem.
Q: If it takes a few cycles to fine-tune KPIs, how solid are these KPIs which were prepared in just six weeks?
A: Whatever that was submitted by the ministers are what we call preliminary KPIs. They are very preliminary, based on the KPIs for their own secretary-generals, but not solely based on them. The most important thing the minister has to look at is the impact and outcome for the people and public perception. That makes it challenging. We are trying to do something, that normally takes a very long time, in a very short span of time . Since my official appointment, I've been sleeping and eating KPIs. We have lunch meetings and dinner meetings. I have to do lots of reading and have discussions with people who have a lot of experience with KPIs.
Q: At what point will these preliminary KPIs translate to actual KPIs?
A: After the preliminaries, there will be a dialogue between my colleagues and I to fine-tune the KPIs with the help of experts. Then, the second round will be a discussion with the prime minister, to see whether the KPIs are realistic. Then, we will implement it. The prime minister has set another deadline in November, which is when they have the first assessment. After Nov-ember, we will be going into KPI Version 2.0.
Q: That means the first assessment in November is not going to be an assessment on the ministers, but rather it is an assessment on the effectiveness of the KPIs?
A: Yes. There is a wide range of quantitative and qualitative aspects of performance, and of a different nature, too, from ministry to ministry. The International Trade and Industry Ministry and the Domestic Trade Ministry, for instance, have more quantitative measures. But even then, you have to see what the relevant measures are. For example, if you take foreign direct investments as the absolute amount, how would you measure it? We must also have a relative measure, because in the context of a global economic crisis, you cannot expect Malaysia to have an increase in FDI when the whole global FDI is collapsing. So then, it has to be relative. This is what I mean by fine-tuning. The danger is, if you set your KPIs too high, you're going to be in trouble, because people will say, "You're boasting". You can be 100 per cent sure that there will be a shortfall and you'll end up punishing yourself. But if you set your KPIs too low, people will think it's ridiculous, because it doesn't make any difference. So, the setting of targets itself is extremely challenging.
Q: Besides setting a target for what is deemed to be a success, are ministries setting a target for what is deemed to be a failure?
A: I think there would a grading scale. For instance, if we set a target for getting a passport ready in three hours, would it be realistic to say that, if for some reason you deliver it within six hours instead, that it is a failure? No, I would still say that it is a success.
Q: How many hours would constitute failure?
A: That would depend on public perception. People want speed, but most are also reasonable. They ask for reasonable speed. If you tell people their documents will be ready the next day before 5pm, and you keep to that promise, they would be happy. But, for those who need their passports urgently, special efforts will be made to get the passports ready in time. If we set our target too unrealistically and invest in too many personnel, we can get the passport done in one hour, but then the law of diminishing returns would come in. For instance, if in the past it took three weeks and now it takes three days, that's a tremendous improvement. But, if it takes five times the resources to drive it to one day, then it may not be worth it. Because those resources are actually public resources, and could be used to drive other things. So, you have to have a very holistic view of the allocation of resources, and this is where some of us come in. Because, even if you have billions, it is still limited resources. So, part of it is setting expectations. People want speed, certainty and courtesy; that's the three most important factors in their perception of government service. We should drive our organisation so that it works to its maximum. But we should also not over-drive it so that it's humanly not possible.
Q: How are you going to measure public perception?
A: We would like our political leaders and civil servants to be sensitised, so that they can immediately detect public sentiments. They must be sensitive, yet positive to complaints. Secondly, we can conduct public opinion polls. Or we can even have certain devices for people to vote whether they are happy with the service of that particular officer. In some countries, there are certain buttons to push: green is for "very happy", amber is for "so-so", and red is for "very bad". We might adopt that for certain counter services. But this would only come in later, after we have assessed the situation.
Q: What are the KPIs for the home minister?
A: Each minister will probably have a few KPIs. But we would like the minister to identify what he thinks are the most important and relevant KPIs to the people. That can only be arrived at through the experience and acumen of the minister as a political leader and the head of the ministry; but more importantly, through some kind of feedback from our clients.
Q: At what are the KPIs targeted? Is it the satisfaction of the people or the well-running of the government and nation?
A: They are inter-related. There are KPIs that can be objectively measured -- in the delivery of certain services. But then there's also the qualitative aspect, which is perception and sentiment, which may not be completely related and determined by the objective and quantitative measure. For instance, I can give you your passport within a day. But if I give it to you with a sour face and with certain negative remarks, you're going to be very angry. Today, through technology, we will get much more feedback than 10 years ago. That in itself is a monitoring process and wake-up call. It's already there. And the final analysis is how people will vote.
Q: Keeping voters happy does not necessarily mean that the government is being run properly.
A: Yes. That's why we need objective measures.
You can be a populist and make people very happy over a period of time, and yet, misuse and abuse your resources. Or doing things that are not right, and yet keep people happy. For example, a very easy thing to do it is to give people money. Or to give a waiver on fines and summons; people can do what they like. But is it fair for other members of the public, if people park indiscriminately and they are not given a traffic summons? That's why we need objective measures.
Q: What is the role of Khazanah in all this?
A: Khazanah plays a very supportive role. But it's not Khazanah alone. We have within the civil service today the PSD (Public Service Department), Mampu (Malay-sian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit) and ICU (Implementation Coordination Unit). We are talking to everybody, because we would like to have a cross-fertilisation between the public and private sectors and what better group to turn to for experience?
Khazanah and Malaysia Airlines used KPIs to turn the airline around.
But I have not exhausted all the possibilities. I have yet to have a very deep conversation with Pemudah (task force to address bureaucracy issues in business-government dealings), for instance, which is a fine example of how you can get the public and private sector to work together to drive delivery.
Q: How much of the KPIs are the public going to be privy to?
A: We would like to have KPIs that are relevant, that have a direct impact and outcome on the people. There are many KPIs that are related to procedural, technical aspects, which even if you explained to the public, they won't be interested.
Q: Is a minister's performance going to be made public?
A: The public is going to be making their assessment anyway, with or without disclosure. But there are bound to be some headline KPIs. For example, if the Immigration Department had announced three years ago, before they embarked on this exercise of reducing the time it takes to make a passport, that would have been a very publicly-known, trackable KPI.
Q: KPIs are supposed to make ministers more answerable than in the past. But, like the report card system previously, no one knows what the report card reads. Surely we shouldn't have to wait five years for the elections?
A: We will make the KPIs public in less than a year. In fact, many of the KPIs will be determined by the public. For instance, the public will say it wants the crime rate to be reduced. So, what's the measure? What category of crimes are we talking about?
Q: How will you assure the people that their opinion matters outside of election time?
A: We can assure them, because the prime minister has repeatedly talked about it, we are driving it and within 30 days, we were even able to come up with the preliminary KPIs, when it would normally have taken half a year.
Q: If the public doesn't know what the preliminary KPIs are, how are they going to know whether six weeks' work is any good at all?
A: It will be judged by our final delivery. People will not want to wait for too long. So, we are putting a lot of pressure on ourselves.
Q: Everything I've heard so far are just promises. You are promising that you want to improve something. But you haven't told me what you want to improve, how it's going to be improved, and how I am supposed to know whether it's improved.
A: We would like you to tell us the five most important things that you would like us to improve.
Q: If the people want to give their feedback, how can they do that?
A: They can do that through the media.
Q: Is there a more formal channel?
A: We can do that through every ministry, if the matter is ministry-specific. They can write to the prime minister's 1Malaysia blog; they can write to me. And many of us are going to the ground, going on walkabouts.
Q: Is the feedback going to be collated properly?
A: We are setting up a system. Every ministry also has its own public clients' charter, and service information unit. We also have the Public Complaints Bureau. I can only start gauging things when we are in the thick of it. With the kind of commitment I see from the prime minister and my colleagues, the awareness, the consciousness and commitment, there will be a marked improvement in the next one to two years.
Q: Do your brother and sister ministers know what their goals are?
A: They know what the broader objectives are for their ministry. They know the programmes and the projects. But now what we are trying to do is to actually give a methodology for them to set a target within a timeframe. A target that, preferably, would be measurable and trackable and a methodology of implementation and a way of measuring it daily or weekly so that we stay focused. Every one of them is trying his best. But trying our best is not good enough. We must try our best within a certain framework, guidelines and methodology that have proven to be effective in corporate companies and even in governments. We want goals that the public can benefit from so that they can feel there is a difference. Part of driving KPIs is to look at the whole mechanism. It's not just tinkling with changes and procedure. It may involve changing the procedure itself! We are asking every minister to drive his own KPI exercise. I am only serving as a promoter and facilitator.
Q: Does every ministry have a specific section in its ministry or website that allows the public to send feedback?
A: Hopefully, within six months or so, every ministry will have a website that is interactive, that will be able to take more comments.
Q: When the exercise actually starts, what do you see your role as being?
A: The exercise has already started. I have to try to deliver this framework and guidelines, as well as supporting staff in order to drive other ministries. We will set up a new unit called Pemandu (Performance Management and Delivery Unit) which will draw upon existing units from Mampu, ICU, PSD, EPU, as well as Khazanah, to have a more focused group to support each minister and ministry in their drive. The whole KPI exercise is actually to get everybody focused and to get them to do a lot of things in their own area of responsibility, to contribute towards that goal.
