{"id":375416,"date":"2026-06-26T04:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T04:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375416\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T04:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T04:35:10","slug":"learning-in-public-why-san-jose-rebuilt-its-performance-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/375416\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning in Public: Why San Jose Rebuilt Its Performance System"},"content":{"rendered":"

Across the country, residents are watching their local governments struggle to keep up with the pace and complexity of everyday problems. Trust in government is near historic lows \u2014 and that has to change. In San Jose, we rebuilt how we measure performance across city government and focused on five of our toughest challenges: homelessness, affordable housing, economic development, community safety and clean neighborhoods. And we\u2019ve kept the public informed with dashboards tracking our progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That public reporting matters, but that is not the headline. The bigger story is what we changed behind the scenes: We moved from static data collection to a learning-driven system that helps leaders work across departments, reflect on real-time insights and continuously adapt based on what is actually working so we can deliver better results for our residents. And perhaps the best result of all: We\u2019ve seen trust in City Hall rise by nearly 38 percent<\/a> over three years.<\/p>\n

Our earlier effort, known internally as Focus Areas 1.0, helped us highlight priorities, but it lacked the strategic infrastructure needed to drive sustained progress. Teams were working hard, yet efforts could be fragmented and not consistently aligned to long-term outcomes that residents could actually feel.<\/p>\n

If that sounds familiar, it is because it is a common trap in public management: We get very good at counting what we do but less consistent at proving whether what we do is changing the underlying conditions or improving quality of life in our communities.<\/p>\n

We needed a system that did more than measure. We needed a system that helps us learn, adjust and ultimately govern more effectively.<\/p>\n

In advance of a review with my office and the City Council last September, our city manager\u2019s Office of Administration, Policy and Intergovernmental Relations, then led by Sarah Z\u00e1rate, initiated an eight-week sprint to improve how we set goals, measure progress and learn along the way. We partnered with Shannon Arvizu<\/a>, a senior fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and principal at Civic Wisdom<\/a>, to help us rethink the operating framework itself. The result was not another layer of compliance. It was a disciplined way to connect strategy to execution.<\/p>\n

We built an operating framework that starts with long-term, resident-centered goals; sets SMART<\/a> (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) medium-term targets; uses logic models to make our assumptions explicit about how change happens; and relies on dashboards designed to show not just activity but what teams are learning as they execute.<\/p>\n

That last point is critical. A dashboard should not just be a mirror. It should be a steering wheel \u2014 a tool that helps us make better decisions and course-correct faster.<\/p>\n

The most important shift has been cultural. We are building routines that treat performance management as a learning practice: transparent, iterative and grounded in real work. Each focus-area team runs monthly and quarterly retrospectives to surface what is working, where assumptions need to be revisited and which projects are making the greatest difference. More than 30 strategic projects are now using this system as they move from design to delivery.<\/p>\n

We also paired those routines with training for project leads that emphasizes reflective practice, data storytelling and problem-solving. In plain terms, we are investing in the people who do the work so they can learn faster, communicate more clearly and adjust sooner.<\/p>\n

This is also where trust comes in. I have said publicly that residents deserve to see not only what we are doing but how we are improving along the way. Learning in public means we do not hide the hard parts. We cannot be afraid to try new ideas or acknowledge when they are not working. We name them, measure them and fix them.<\/p>\n

\u2018Wicked Problems\u2019
Homelessness, housing affordability, economic opportunity, community safety and clean neighborhoods are not problems you \u201csolve\u201d once. They are dynamic, interconnected and shaped by forces far beyond any single department or even city government. Our framing describes these as \u201cwicked problems<\/a>,\u201d and I think that term is apt: They require ongoing learning, collaboration and a willingness to make government thinking transparent.<\/p>\n

When problems are complex, the biggest risk is pretending certainty. The second biggest risk is treating a problem as fixed when in reality it is not. Our redesigned system is meant to make our logic and learning visible while creating a regular, quarterly cadence of structured feedback loops with the City Council to ask: What are we seeing? What did we expect? What did we learn? What needs to change?<\/p>\n

Under our new system, staff provide regular updates to city committees and the council. The reports include early insights from the first months of using the redesigned performance system, plus emerging lessons that will shape upcoming decisions for year two of the new framework, including ensuring that our learnings inform annual city budget decisions.<\/p>\n

That is the heart of the shift. When government shares learning, residents can better understand tradeoffs and budget investments. Council members can ask better questions, departments can coordinate with greater clarity and the public can be part of the conversation.<\/p>\n

Government should never be an opaque black box. We want residents to see our work, understand our reasoning and hold us accountable for results.<\/p>\n

Practical Principles
San Jose is not unique in the challenges we face, of course, but I believe our approach offers a practical model for other local governments that want to improve results while rebuilding trust. Here are a few principles that are translating well for us:
Make strategy visible. Logic models and clear targets are not bureaucracy if they help teams align daily work to resident outcomes.Treat reporting as a learning loop. Retrospectives and regular public check-ins turn performance management into a habit of improvement.Invest in the craft, not just the tools. Dashboards do not create insight by themselves. Training in reflective practice and data storytelling helps teams use information strategically.Reward candor. If teams fear punishment for learning, they will stop learning in public. Leadership must protect the space for experimentation and honest course correction.In the end, our goal is not perfection: It is a government that delivers real results that residents can see and feel. We know trust in government is essential to a functioning democracy, and believe that delivering results is key to building that trust. By strengthening our performance systems and making learning public, we intend to continue building on the progress we\u2019re making.<\/p>\n

Matt Mahan, a Democrat, has been mayor of San Jose, Calif., since January 2023 after serving on the City Council for two years. He was the co-founder and CEO of Brigade Media, a technology company focused on civic engagement.<\/p>\n

Governing’s opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing’s editors or management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Across the country, residents are watching their local governments struggle to keep up with the pace and complexity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":["post-375416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}