CIPMS is a critical component of the Employment Ontario Training and Employment System. It is part of an overarching strategy designed to create a cohesive set of policies and improved processes throughout the Employment Ontario system so that programs can better work together to address client needs. Employment Ontario intends to transform the way MTCU delivers training and employment programs to achieve more effective and efficient services and better results. ^{Endnote 2}

Beginning in 2008, Employment Ontario will be looking at the program design delivered by third-party delivery agencies with a focus on outcomes-based, clientcentred models. The work that literacy programs do with regards to CIPMS by identifying and working towards achieving outcomes will be critical.

For more information, be sure to visit the Employment Ontario Website at www.ontario.ca/employmentontario or the Employment Ontario Partners' Gateway at www.eopg.ca. You can also read more about Employment Ontario and Literacy and Basic Skills at CLO's website at www.nald.ca/clo.

What is Continuous Improvement Performance Management?

A study of current Canadian and international business or government operating methodologies will result in countless references to information about performance management, performance measurement, continuous improvement programs and other similar processes.

Although the terminology varies slightly, the intent of CIPMS is the same, i.e., to effectively and efficiently manage organizational performance to achieve specific results, to measure the outcomes or results we are achieving and to continuously strive towards improving management and measurement processes so that we can better meet the needs of the people we work with. In a Continuous Improvement Performance Management System (CIPMS), core measures and performance indicators are used to provide an overall picture of what a program aims to achieve, what it actually achieves and how well it meets its goals. This can be summed up as managing for results.

Performance management and measurement is not an annual event or an occasional check-in. It is an active process that becomes part of the overall organizational culture and informs all management and measurement activities and decisions. It is an ongoing cycle of implementing, monitoring, reacting and measuring. As you achieve success in one area, you will begin to strive for additional success elsewhere. What constitutes success will also change and evolve. The process is continuous.

Managing for results pertains to efficiency and effectiveness and being the best you can be, not just tallying up ever-increasing numbers. It is meant to help us as literacy organizations provide the best possible service within the resources at our disposal.