State Spotlight: Tennessee

Tennessee, known as the Volunteer State, is rich in history and cultural diversity. It sits between the Great Smoky Mountains and the Mississippi River. Cities like Nashville, Memphis, and Chattanooga blend southern charm with big-city life. Local governments across the state work to turn their strategies into progress.

ClearPoint Strategy is software that is changing how local governments in Tennessee execute their strategies. ClearPoint makes it easier to plan, manage, and report strategic, operational, and performance data. It lets local governments track their strategic initiatives, measure progress in real time, and adjust direction as necessary. It connects strategy to execution and keeps government focused on its objectives.

ClearPoint software helps Tennessee's local governments make sure public funds are used efficiently and effectively. It gives visibility into each government initiative, which builds accountability and public trust. Governments can use it to balance competing demands and limited resources while delivering on their promises to the people of the state.

Below, we look at how ClearPoint customers in Tennessee use the platform to turn strategic plans into results for their communities.

City of Germantown

The City of Germantown, TN, a suburb of Memphis, developed a strategic plan titled Forward 2030. Led by their City Manager, a steering committee took input from citizens, stakeholders, and staff to create nine key performance areas over a twelve-month period. Within each area, they created objectives, key performance indicators, and action plans. The city wanted to share its progress online with citizens. It also needed a tool to track the plan internally.

As our Germantown case study describes, the Board of Mayor and Aldermen handed development of the 15-year plan to a 30-member steering committee representing all parts of the community. A town hall discussion with over 200 citizens reviewed the vision, and task forces of citizens then created action plans and measures. By the end, community members had invested about 2,000 hours in the plan.

The city wanted a community dashboard and an internal system live in one month. The ClearPoint Team worked with the city to structure all the information inside the platform. There would be scorecards for each key performance area as well as all departments. Meanwhile, the dashboarding process began, so a design could be approved and information synced once the account setup was complete. Within one month, both systems went live and ClearPoint staff trained all the appropriate city personnel.

Before ClearPoint, Germantown relied on Excel and several disconnected tools, with different reporting methods and formats across departments. With one platform, city leaders moved from debating data accuracy and formatting to asking better questions: “How much did it cost?”, “How long did it take?”, and “Did it have the impact we wanted?”

Now, the city updates measures and action plans in ClearPoint quarterly. It also tracks monthly financials across departments and citywide Capital Improvement Projects. These updates appear on the city's public-facing online dashboard. The dashboard uses the ClearPoint API to provide current information in a responsive website for city residents.

The internal side runs on a steady rhythm. Every quarter, the City Administrator meets with each department director to review key metrics using “Business Plan” reports generated in ClearPoint. The reports are concise, with status icons that focus the discussion on performance. Stacey Ewell, Assistant to the City Administrator, puts the public side this way: “It is all about storytelling. If you can't explain to your customers, residents or your neighbors how the data affects them, and what it means to their daily life, you will not be able to grab their interest.”

That work paid off. Germantown’s strategic plan and community dashboard helped it win top honors from the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence, the state-based Baldrige program. In 2019 the city received the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, becoming one of only four municipalities nationwide ever to receive it.

Read how Germantown used ClearPoint on its path to Baldrige excellence

City of Bartlett

Bartlett, Tennessee, a city with deep historical roots and an active community, has long been committed to strategic initiatives that improve residents' quality of life. The city administration describes itself as forward-thinking and innovative, with a persistent commitment to strategic planning and data-driven decision-making.

In recent years, Bartlett's local government has used ClearPoint software to support strategic planning, performance analytics, and transparent reporting. The city chose the software mainly to develop an actionable strategic plan with an emphasis on regular reporting. That breaks from the old habit of writing a plan and putting it on the shelf.

Bartlett's administration also wanted to consolidate its data. Information came from multiple sources, so the city needed one accessible location for all critical data. ClearPoint lets the city centralize its data, which makes it easier to access and improves data coherence. It also reduces the errors and inefficiencies that came from managing information across numerous platforms.

Bartlett moved quickly. Our Bartlett case study reports that the city built an entirely new strategic plan in only 13 months. Leaders met with a neighboring ClearPoint community, the City of Germantown, to talk through best practices, and partnered with the University of Memphis to help gather public data. The result, Bartlett Vision 2030, has each piece of the plan owned by one of its 11 departments. Each department has objectives and measures that link to one of five focus areas: Economic Vitality, Growth & Infrastructure, Vibrant Workforce, Health & Public Safety, and Community Engagement.

Save our sample strategy maps for different government situations

Transparency is another key commitment for Bartlett's local government. The city is building out its Community Dashboard and has made strides in public access to city data and operations. That transparency invites community engagement and promotes accountability, because residents can easily find information about city initiatives, projects, and performance indicators.

Behind the dashboard is a regular review cycle. Bartlett holds weekly meetings with department directors and quarterly strategic reviews, using ClearPoint to automate updates. Steve Sones, Chief Administration Officer, says ClearPoint helps him answer the questions: “What’s going well?” “What’s not going well?” “What can we do to help get there?” and, most importantly, “Is there anything that we need to be tracking that we’re not?” Next, the city plans to link a GIS map through ClearPoint so residents can track infrastructure progress.

ClearPoint has significantly changed how Bartlett's local government operates. Through active strategic planning, data consolidation, and transparency, Bartlett shows how technology can improve local government. Germantown's Forward 2030 strategic plan and Bartlett's commitment to data-driven decision-making show how Tennessee local governments use ClearPoint to turn strategic plans into measurable objectives, with accountability and transparency built in.

See how ClearPoint can create an impact in your community: schedule a demo to see the software in action!

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