Case Study
City of Gatineau
Driving Strategic Performance in City Governance with Actio
City of Gatineau, located in southwestern Quebec on the north shore of the Ottawa River. With a population of approximately 300,000, Gatineau is the fourth-largest city in the province.
A few years ago, Gatineau established a new Organizational Performance Department to drive continuous improvement across the city’s services. This department’s mission is to foster a performance-driven culture and ensure that every initiative, whether at the organizational or departmental level, has a tangible impact on the quality of services delivered to citizens.
To support this mission, Gatineau adopted Actio | Strategy management software. This initiative aimed to digitize the city’s strategic management process, breaking down silos and aligning hundreds of initiatives & performance measures with the city’s strategic objectives.
City of Gatineau
Website: gatineau.ca
Industry Government Administration
Company size: 1,001-5,000 employees
Headquarters Gatineau, Québec, Canada
Actio Solution: Actio Strategy Management
400+
initiatives managed in one platform.
100%
live tracking of all performance indicators and projects.
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unified city strategy, from execs to frontlin.
Significant reduction in manual reporting time.
Static monthly PowerPoints eliminated with Dynamic presentation.
Software is used fully in French.
Challenges
Gatineau’s leadership recognized that their traditional methods for managing strategy were not keeping pace with the city’s needs. Several factors drove the need to digitize the strategic management process:
Sheer Volume of Initiatives
The city manages over 400 Initiatives, objectives, and performance measures. Keeping track of all these strategic initiatives and ensuring they align with overarching goals was extremely complex without a unified system.
Lack of Real-Time Visibility
Strategic planning and reporting were handled with basic tools like Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint. This made it hard to track progress in real time and to communicate updates effectively.
Manual Reporting
Staff spent considerable time gathering data and preparing presentations for results meetings. These presentations were built from scratch each time, aggregating data from various spreadsheets. The process was time-consuming and prone to error, taking focus away from actual performance improvement.
Limited Strategic Alignment
Perhaps most importantly, employees did not always understand “Why” behind their contribution. With goals and metrics locked in disparate documents, there was a disconnect between high-level objectives and operational activities.
Solution
Actio provided the single platform Gatineau needed for centralize strategic planning and performance tracking.
All departments now update their project status and KPIs in Actio | Strategy Management, linking every initiative to the city’s strategic objectives. The platform’s intuitive dashboards and automated reports turned Gatineau’s static plans into a living, breathing strategy. Stakeholders at every level can log in to see real-time progress toward targets.
Implementation and Impact
Key aspects of the solution included:
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Strategic Cascade & Alignment:
Actio’s Relationship feature was introduced to visualize the hierarchy from top-level goals down to individual projects. The software made the city’s strategy map clear and accessible. This cascade ensured every project and KPI was explicitly linked to broader priorities. Gatineau’s team chose this feature to communicate the purpose and direction behind each project, applying it by mapping all departmental initiatives to the city’s strategic plan.
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Engagement & Accountability:
This golden thread of strategic cascade from the City’s top priorities down to individual projects also fostered accountability – teams know the “Meaning” behind their tasks and feel motivated.
When users enter KPI updates, they can immediately see which goal the metric influences and “why” it matters. The result was a dramatic change in mindset.
This clarity has motivated teams to focus on the results and take ownership of outcomes rather than just reporting figures.
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Efficiency and Decision Making:
Gatineau addressed the issue of manual reporting and data aggregation by leveraging Actio’s dynamic reports, dashboards and presentations feature. The team set up live dashboards and presentations that pull the latest project statuses and KPI figures, eliminating the need to rebuild presentations every month.
This means the Performance Department and project managers spend less time preparing reports and more time executing and analyzing results.
Moreover, Actio enabled real-time visibility. With up-to-date information at their fingertips, Gatineau’s leaders can make decisions faster. Senior officials can log in and check progress anytime, and staff spend less time answering ad-hoc status requests.
“Once they update a project, they no longer need to send an email every time to their manager. The manager can simply log in and see the progress… That’s it,” explains Eric, highlighting how transparency has improved management efficiency.
What we can learn from Ville De Gatineau
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Cultural Shift and Organizational Maturity:
While technology was the enabler, Gatineau’s transformation is fundamentally a story of cultural change. They acknowledge that this journey is ongoing and requires nurturing the organization’s maturity step by step. “It all starts with culture,” says Eric. “Right now, in terms of maturity, we’re progressing, but we’re not there yet. We’re still developing our performance culture.” By his estimate, the City is only about 60% of the way to where they ultimately want to be in terms of fully embracing data-driven, result-focused management.
This honest assessment reflects that true transformation isn’t instantaneous. It takes continuous effort in training, change management, and demonstrating value.
One important cultural shift observed is that managers are gradually moving from Action-oriented thinking to Results-oriented thinking. With Actio making outcomes more visible, success is measured by whether the actions achieved the intended result. This shift fostered a mindset change: managers are beginning to think in terms of impact, asking “are we meeting our goals?” instead of just “did we complete actions/projects?”.
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Phased Growth and Continuous Improvement:
The City is first ensuring that everyone is comfortable with the core functionality of Actio (strategic objectives, projects, KPIs, and basic dashboards). The next phase planned is to incorporate risk management layer, integrating risk registers and mitigation actions into the strategic measures and projects. Over the longer term, Gatineau can use Actio to support a robust project portfolio management approach.
Actio ensure it fits your organization’s needs today and is ready for your management maturity in future.
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Leadership support and vision:
Gatineau’s executives not only sponsored the Actio implementation but also champion the performance culture.
They frequently communicate the vision of being a results-driven organization. Eric mentions that part of their vision is to “position ourselves as a leader among Canadian municipalities” in how they manage performance.
This aspirational goal helps rally the internal culture around striving for excellence, not just compliance. It sends a message: using Actio and focusing on data is not about extra bureaucracy; it’s about becoming one of the best-run cities in terms of strategic management.
Summary
Gatineau’s case highlights that technology adoption and cultural maturity go hand in hand. Actio provided the tools to change how work is done, but the human side – changing mindsets and building new habits – is an ongoing journey. The city has made great strides, but they remain committed to continuous improvement as they advance their strategic management maturity.
With visionary leadership, a focus on culture, and the right digital tools like Actio, a city can reinvent its strategic management practices. The City is now more agile, transparent, and aligned in executing its strategy – all to the benefit of its citizens.
Gatineau’s pioneering experience serves as a compelling example of how embracing strategic digitization can empower a municipality to achieve new heights in performance and accountability.