Stellar Associates are experts in performance and outcome-based management. We are intimately familiar with the challenges of developing outcome measures and performance management systems. We can help you develop outcome measures that show the public and stakeholders what results they can expect and help your managers focus on achieving them.

We understand it may be difficult to define outcomes in certain areas. If lack of appropriate data is a problem, outcome information can be misinterpreted and misused by stakeholders. Stellar Associates has developed strategies for meeting these challenges. These strategies keep the momentum going while providing a period for learning and building outcome-based systems.

We not only help organizations clarify their goals and objectives, we help simplify the metrics that tell the story. We know how easy it is for an organization to get lost in their performance measures. Our aim is to simplify those metrics so they illuminate, instead of complicate, true performance.

You can count on Stellar Associates to give you specific business process improvement recommendations that improve performance. Stellar Associates brings a fresh, unbiased and creative perspective to program and business managers. Sometimes the managers know the answers to their performance improvement questions, but need external validation. Other times, managers are so close to a process they can’t look at it objectively, so they look to Stellar Associates for that outside assessment.

Stellar Associates’ business transformation approach and supporting tools have consistently achieved highly effective results for our clients. This success is a result of our emphasis on collaborative, iterative processes and ongoing stakeholder feedback built into the overall design. We encourage business change champions and sound project management. Stellar Associates provides mentoring and coaching to make your effort successful and enduring. Our methodology supports your efforts to manage change as it occurs and once the change is implemented we will help the team evaluate the results.

Information technology management decisions have become an additional responsibility for most executives. Keeping up with the latest technology trends and issues is a time consuming task that can overwhelm the most tech savvy executives. Stellar Associates can help.

We understand the business issues facing executives and how to communicate on an executive level. We understand and focus on the big picture while translating it into the detail required for project management. We talk technical jargon with technicians and translate their issues into business terms that executives can understand and act upon. Our financial management experience and expertise, combined with sensitivity to business needs and knowledge of technology management requirements can help you answer the broadest questions.

• How should we evaluate the options, prioritize our needs, and fund new strategies and projects?
• How can I sift through all this technical jargon and financial data and figure out what I should be doing?
• How do I know if the new system and my organization are ready to implement this new system?

Stellar Associates helps executives make informed decisions and serves as liaisons to technical staff. We can offer sage advice because of our appreciation for positions at various levels, and our management experience, credibility, and technical expertise.

Cost accounting and management reporting can provide the tools you need to learn about your organization and how what it spends its money on. Stellar Associates consultants are cost management experts. We have developed an approach to cost management implementation that puts the cost accounting tools in managers’ hands without requiring them to become accountants.

The structure of your cost accounting system design depends on your business, the information you want to know, and the incentives you want to set. We will help you develop a system that is appropriate to your organization.

We often find that cost accounting implementation stirs up other issues. It provides an opportunity to streamline accounting, organization, and reporting structures. It also can bring to light the true cost of providing a service to the public or an internal service such as accounting or human resources. Tough questions about the nature, the cost, and the level of these services often emerge. We understand that these issues are a natural companion to cost accounting and are ready to assist you with these needs, as well.

We can help you improve your current financial management system. Keeping in mind your specific needs and concerns, we will assess the efficiency of your financial management system within your unique business environment. With this assessment, we can work with you to design an overall blueprint for enhanced cost reporting, productivity improvement, and accountability. We can also help you develop the requirements for a new financial management system.

Sometimes your reporting systems behave exactly as you expect and sometimes they don’t. The problem may be what data is captured in the system. Stellar Associates can review your related processes, make recommendations, and in many cases, help you improve the results you are getting from your current systems.

Stellar Associates can evaluate your current budgeting tools and processes, including capital and multi-year budgeting processes, and make recommendations to improve your budget deliberations.

Stellar Associates can develop a workload measurement methodology that enables you to model various workload scenarios to simulate changing staffing levels. This methodology is based upon statistical work sampling methods enabling an efficient and reliable means for calculating the amount of time required to manage a given workload. You are able to explain and defend your staffing needs based on the volume of work being performed, and you can simulate the effects of different policies or business process improvements on your staffing levels.