Our pursuit of innovation
Big snowstorms have serious implications for city operations, with one lesser-known impact being that the Syracuse Fire Department (SFD) has to shovel all of the roughly 5,700 fire hydrants in the city. The Fire Department recognized an opportunity to track the status of hydrant shoveling in real time and, consequently, to better allocate their resources during a storm. So, SFD approached our Office of Analytics, Performance, and Innovation (API).
Listen to Mayor Walsh articulate his vision for the City, and you will hear him describe his goal to transform Syracuse into a more data-driven city. But that process is not something that just happens on its own; it takes work and a data-driven culture needs to be nurtured. When the Federal Government passed the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) to provide funding to state and local governments around the United States in response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the City of Syracuse received $123 million and the Mayor saw this as an opportunity to foster and promote better data practices throughout the City.
We are excited to announce that the City of Syracuse is launching a new Performance Management Program. This is a program that allows the entire organization to create alignment and work together to achieve shared goals. We call these goals objectives and key results, and the Performance Management Program utilizes an agile approach to monitor our progress towards them.
