VRSA’s Insight Application
VRSA’s Insight application: Bridging the gap between your strategic plan and everyday decisions
Public bodies make important decisions each day as they serve their communities. Decisions may involve daily operations – utilities, public safety, refuse parks – or may be responses to new challenges and uncertainties – like COVID-19. Often these decisions not only impact the lives of citizens, but staff as well.
How do public bodies ensure they make optimal decisions that support their communities and strategic objectives?
Welcome to Insight from VRSA on Vimeo.
The Virginia Risk Sharing Association (VRSA), in partnership with City/County Insurance Services (CIS), an insurance pool for Oregon cities and counties, created and designed Insight: A Strategic Decision Support Application.
The application is designed to bridge the gap between the strategic objectives of an organization and its significant decisions. The application can help organizations set priorities based on financial impacts, as well as meet increasing expectations for transparency by providing point-in-time documentation of the considerations taken leading up to significant decisions.
Let’s walk through a scenario:
A member community’s recreation center remains closed in response to COVID-19. It’s now November, and the community is contemplating whether to reopen the center for gatherings.
Before beginning the decision-making process, the community completes its organizational profile in Insight. This one-time step involves entering the organization’s annual operating budget, financial thresholds for enlisting management and governing board approval, and the organization’s strategic objectives. This information is used throughout the Insight application and the reports generated.
As the community starts working through this decision, it first identifies which strategic objectives are supported by reopening the recreation center.
Through a sequence of steps, the community has conversations among staff and various interested parties in order to identify and document considerations, including:
Team members involved in the decision process;
Issues that may require input by the governing body and top management;
Internal and external stakeholders who may influence or be influenced by the decision;
Potential advantages or opportunities arising from the decision, as well as financial impacts; and
Potential threats or downsides of the decision, including financial impacts and how they may be mitigated.
The community enters information at each step and provides supporting documentation where available. This provides the community with a point-in-time perspective as it relates to the decision being made.
Finally, the community documents its outcome or recommendation.
Ultimately, a thoughtful and documented decision adds value by considering the resources of the local government at the decision-making level, rather than exhausting resources on a poor decision made in the hopes of a good outcome. Documenting the community’s recommendation provides an area to capture resulting impacts, lessons learned, or other pertinent feedback.
Insight generates reports at the end of this process which provide high-level decision summaries, including cost implications. This helps the community avoid unanticipated consequences relating to financial implications with their operating budget. As more decisions are added, the community is able to identify which have the highest potential impact on the organization.
In the end, the member decided to reopen the recreation center. The decision was supported as it furthered the community’s strategic objectives to strengthen neighborhood communities – and they felt the benefits outweighed the exposure. The community involved both internal and external stakeholders in the decision-making process, so the outcome was overwhelmingly supported. Response plans were in place in the event of adverse impacts, and the community had documentation as to why the decision was made, if needed, to defend their decision.
Calls for transparent operations are becoming more prominent. As public bodies adapt and adjust to this new normal, VRSA is here to ease what worries our members – so that you can focus on what matters most – serving your community. Call VRSA to learn how Insight can help you be more thoughtful, inclusive and transparent in your decision-making when your governing body and leadership team hold a conversation on the challenging issues facing your community.