The 2021 Community Managers Network Conference ‘Made to Measure’ was held on Friday 20 August. Over 115 attendees from a range of levels of local government shared in the critical topic of measurement in our communities. As we strive to deliver value for our communities, being able to collect the right data in the right way is critical to informing decisions about performance and direct scarce resources towards areas of improving customer satisfaction.

The program included a fantastic line up of speakers including Stephen Yarwood who gave us a snapshot to challenge our outlook of what the future will hold for our communities, Darren Button from Health Q Consulting broke down the essentials of output and outcome measures and how to develop them in a meaningful way, Barbara Binns presented a touching case study on the Weavers Program that demonstrated the need to develop a meaningful evaluation framework to capture the effectiveness of your program/initiative, our panel of Simon Faivel, Katherine Russell, Ross Womersley and myself provided different perspectives around measurement.

Simon Faivel then joined us again to present a workshop on how to develop a measurement plan while avoiding the 7 pitfalls in outcomes measurement, Shona Reid, CEO of Reconciliation SA who presented on closing the gap and the need to amplify First Nation voices, and Sarah Zanker who used real data from local Executive level leaders and Elected Members to showcase how to present data into stories for your audience to relate to.

The day would not have been possible without the team at LG Professionals SA who work so tirelessly to create such amazing development opportunities for our network.

Carla Leversedge, Chair, Community Managers Network