The Agnes Project Approach
How it Works.
In the simplest of terms – The Agnes Project injects market-based competition into government.
The Agnes Project creates a process wherein governments compete on an objective – not subjective – basis using the economic principles of Comparative Analysis.
We perform a data-driven assessment, using input from the customers perspective, to derive an aggregated singles score for each municipality in two areas – site plan/ construction permitting, and planning/ zoning/ land use approvals.
By using “evaluators” who are regularly working through comparable approval processes of multiple municipalities, they are uniquely qualified to assess the efficiency, responsiveness, consistency, and customer focus of each – and in particular in comparison to each other. The evaluators are engineering and planning professionals who are typically fact-based, formula-driven professionals.
The secret to the success of The Agnes Project will be the confidential process of scoring and ensuring there is enough evaluators for a municipality so it is not obvious to the municipalities’ review staff which firm may have rated them high or low. The confidentiality allows evaluators to be honest and the aggregated scores for each municipality will provide a good indicator of performance.
Our Goal.
We want North Carolina to be the best place to do business. The goal of The Agnes Project is to help drive improvements in service and efficiency of all municipalities related to Planning and Permitting.
If companies, investors, or job creators experience an increased efficiency in the planning and permitting processes, it will encourage them to make additional investments in our state. If a CEO of a company building a factory in North Carolina had a great experience and was able to open its factory three months earlier because the permitting process was quicker than expected, they will feel great about North Carolina. A happy “customer” is also very likely to tell their friends (who may be CEOs of other firms).
Why Do We Need The Agnes Project?
Most municipalities and particularly its elected officials, believe their community is “business friendly” or “customer focused.” They will certain state publicly that they strive for this. But is their city truly business friendly or efficiently operated? And, if it is not, how would they know?
The concept of Comparative Analysis creates competition between municipalities and a quantifiable score is assigned to each. By using the theory of Spotlighting we create public pressure on these municipalities to improve their service related to permitting and planning processes and approvals.
How to become an evaluator:
- Firm must have been the lead engineering or planning firm for at least two different municipalities within the past two years.
- If an engineering firm has multiple projects, but all permitted through the same city, they will not be an evaluator because they lack the ability to compare municipalities approval processes.
Scoring Method.
Scores are submitted by various engineering and planning firms and not individuals. Each participating firm will be able to provide one set of scores for each of the firm’s offices. If a company has a Raleigh office and a Charlotte office, that company will submit two distinct sets of scores. However, one firm – even if it has multiple offices – will only allowed to submit one score for an individual municipality. Design projects where the municipality is the client (such as infrastructure design) would not be considered when submitting a score.
The magic of the scoring comes through the concept of Forced Separation. Based on how many municipalities an Evaluator is scoring, they must give scores which fall into certain ranges. If an Evaluator is scoring 4 municipalities, they must score one municipality in each of the following ranges: 0.0 – 2.5; 2.6 – 5.0; 5.1 – 7.5; 7.6 – 10.0.
A Municipality might not “deserve” a low score of 1.0 or a high score of 9.0 from an individual Evaluator, but all Evaluator scores are aggregated so all evaluator’s scores to provide an overall ranking system and provide separation. Without this process the results might be all cities scoring between 6.5 – 7.5 and this will be viewed as “everyone is basically similar” when the opposite may be true. Bunched up scores would avoid the ability to use Spotlighting to affect improvements.
The aggregated scores could still result with little separation. However, the hypothesis is that most Evaluators have similar experiences with specific municipalities. Therefore, Evaluators’ are likely to provide high scores to the same municipalities.
For the purpose of evaluation, there is no distinction made between towns, cities and counties – we lump them all together. The reason for this is because the design professionals know which municipality has review and approval authorities in different locations. In some cases, a project may have multiple municipality entities reviewing a project (i.e., county for stormwater, town #1 for site plan, City #1 for utilities).
The municipalities’ reviewers’ responsibilities may vary, but that may or may not impact the scores they receive from the evaluators.
There is also no distinction made between project types, all land development site-related permitting and planning processes will be evaluated collectively.