13 minutes
Leading and outcome indicators, by area Build a small executive progress summary across digital accessibility, workplace accommodations, service access, culture and governance, with indicators that predict and indicators that confirm.
What you’ll be able to do Select leading and outcome indicators for digital accessibility, workplace accommodations, service access, culture and governance, at the level of systems and aggregates. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What do you change? Document a next step for Leading and outcome indicators, by area: Draft the progress summary and ask the accessibility lead and the steering committee two questions: what is missing, and what could be misread. Predict and confirm A leading indicator tells you whether the conditions that produce an outcome are in place: content is being tested before release, supervisors know the accommodation process, meeting standards have been adopted, budget and owners exist. A lagging or outcome indicator tells you whether the result arrived: fewer barriers reported, faster accommodations, higher participation, stronger belonging, priority improvements completed and still working. Leading indicators let you act before the outcome fails; outcome indicators keep you honest about whether the leading ones actually lead.
Keep the progress summary small. Two leading and two outcome indicators in each of five categories is twenty numbers, which a sponsor can read in five minutes and a steering committee can discuss in one meeting. Every indicator should name its source and its owner, and every indicator should be about a system, a process, a product or an aggregate group. The moment a progress summary begins to describe identifiable individuals, whether through per-manager scores, disclosure counts in small units or complaint tallies that point at a person, it stops measuring the culture and starts shaping what people are willing to say.
The five categories below follow the executive progress summary structure recommended for this level. Adapt the indicators to what your area can actually source; do not invent a number you cannot get.
Executive progress summary categories Digital accessibility Workplace accommodations Service access Culture Governance
Leading indicators Share of new public and staff-facing content and systems tested with assistive technology before release. Share of high-use templates and authoring tools confirmed accessible at the source. Outcome indicators Barrier reports and access-related support requests per volume of use, by system, before and after changes. Blocking defects open past their remediation date, by system and vendor. Leading indicators Response-time target adopted, with median and longest time from request to decision and to delivery, in aggregate. Share of supervisors who have completed accommodation-process training. Outcome indicators Retention, engagement and advancement of disabled employees compared with the agency average, reported in aggregate and only where group sizes protect anonymity. Share of requests with interim access provided while open. Leading indicators Accessible intake, event and communication standards adopted and in use, by service. Share of services offering more than one way to apply, attend and be heard. Outcome indicators Participation and completion by disabled applicants and attendees where it can be measured in aggregate, and satisfaction reported through accessible feedback channels. Equitable outcomes across services: approvals, timeliness and appeals compared across groups, in aggregate. Leading indicators Leader behavior visible in systems: access criteria in charters signed, accommodation and access items on standing agendas, steering committee recommendations answered. Staff confidence, from voluntary and anonymous surveys, that they know how to arrange access and raise a barrier, and that it is safe to do so. Outcome indicators Reports of exclusion, in aggregate and by type, trending down over time. Sense of belonging among disabled employees moving toward the agency average, from voluntary and anonymous surveys with group sizes that protect anonymity. Leading indicators Base-budget lines for access in place and in use; standing contracts for captioning, interpretation and remediation drawn on. Every priority barrier has an assigned owner and a date, and reviews occur at the agreed review points. Outcome indicators Priority improvements completed on time and confirmed by testing. Improvements still operating as designed at later review points, not quietly reverted. Keep it small and keep it about systems What you can change You control how many indicators the progress summary carries and whether any of them describes a person.
What to watch for Do not approve a progress summary with per-manager or per-employee scores, disclosure counts in small units, or complaint tallies that point at individuals. Do not let the progress summary grow past what can be read in five minutes.
Your next step Cut your draft to two leading and two outcome indicators per category and write the owner beside each.
Checks before an indicator goes on the progress summary Is it about a system, process, product or aggregate group, never an identifiable person?
Can we actually source the number, and who owns it?
If it moved, would a disabled employee or participant recognize the change?
For a leading indicator, has the link to an outcome been checked or at least stated?
Are group sizes large enough that no one can be identified, and if not, is the indicator suppressed or combined?
Will reporting it change what people are willing to say in surveys or barrier reports?
Pairs that belong together Testing rate and barrier reports
Leading: share of content tested before release. Outcome: barrier reports per volume of use. If testing rises and reports do not fall, the testing is not finding what users find.
Manager training and accommodation time
Leading: supervisors trained. Outcome: median days from request to delivery. If training rises and time does not fall, the delay is in the process, not the managers.
Standards adopted and participation
Leading: accessible meeting and intake standards in use. Outcome: disabled participation and satisfaction. If standards exist and participation does not change, check whether they are actually followed.
Owners assigned and improvements sustained
Leading: every priority barrier has an owner and date. Outcome: improvements complete and still operating later. If owners exist and improvements revert, the ownership ends too early.
Carry this forward A leading indicator tells you whether the conditions for an outcome are in place; an outcome indicator tells you whether it happened. A progress summary needs both.
Two of each per category is enough; a progress summary nobody can read in five minutes will not be read.
Every indicator is about a system, a product, a process or an aggregate group. None is about a named or identifiable person.
One knowledge check; a drafted progress summary for your area with no more than two leading and two outcome indicators per category.
Draft the progress summary and ask the accessibility lead and the steering committee two questions: what is missing, and what could be misread.
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Previous lesson Next lesson Carry this into practice Choose leading and outcome measures, treat feedback from disabled people as a core input, and run review points that produce decisions rather than presentations.
Return to the experience: What did you notice or try, whose perspective informed it, and what would you keep or adjust?
Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
