The Peak Academy is an initiative hosted by the Office of Open Data and Performance Management, designed to help government employees identify inefficiencies in the workplace and deal with them. Over a five day period, government employees from various departments come together and participate in lectures, discussion, games, and other activities that provide them with the necessary skillset to implement change in a government workspace.

As of June 2017, three different cohorts have graduated from Chattanooga Peak classes, and have proceeded to implement numerous time and cost saving initiatives of their own. With more classes planned for the future, Peak is quickly becoming an important part of the city’s push towards increased performance management.

You can learn more at the Chattanooga Peak Academy home page, found here.

In an effort to increase data driven functions throughout the City, the Office of Performance Management and Open Data officially launched the Data Academy in the Spring of 2019.  The initial Data Academy offerings are modeled off of a similar academy started in Durham, NC as well as San Francisco, CA.  In age where data is king, we must work as a City to empower all employees to drive insights from data available to create action aimed at breaking down barriers within the City.

The Data Academy couples well with the Open Data program by utilizing the platform on which many common data sets are stored at chattadata.org.  Those who have gone through PEAK training can utilize the Data Academy to better understand how they can measure the process changes they implement from the PEAK training.  The Office of Performance Management and Open Data consistently pushes for data driven solutions and practices within the City, and if YOU also want to learn more about empowering your work with data, please visit our Data Academy homepage, here.

As the City of Chattanooga progresses on its data journey, we must seek more efficient ways to utilize our data.  Currently, the high access to data has allowed City departments to gain new insights into what has driven previous performance and trends; but now, we must take the next step forward.  With Chattalytics, OPMOD is seeking to push City departments even further in the utilization of their data.  The next steps involve use of advanced statistical tools, machine learning, and programming efforts to create more predictive and prescriptive analytics within the City.

Instead of reacting to trends in the data, City departments will ideally be able to anticipate shifts and partner with community members to solve complex, big data problems.

Click here to find out more!