Performance Management

Noted business author Tom Davenport has an article, “Make Better Decisions,” in the November issue of Harvard Business Review . He describes the prevalence, in the business world, of what he calls “decision-making disorder,” but this also has real applicability to government.

The Senate Budget Committee has created a new Task Force on Government Performance, according to a press release issued this morning. To be led by Senator Mark Warner, the task force “will examine the federal government’s management framework and identify opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and services.”

WFED’s Jason Miller reports that the Office of Management and Budget wants to change its stripes and “move away from command and control toward a focus on collaboration.”

The issue of poor performers is a perennial topic. This topic seems to continually top the list of issues the President’s Management Council – comprised of deputy secretaries – wants to address by streamlining the rules. But a new report by the Merit Systems Protection Board concludes that it is not the rules, but the managers, who are the problem.

Recovery Act guidance from OMB requires agencies to identify the risk associated with each program and develop a plan of action to reduce such risks. After all, if a program gets 3,100 % increase in funding, like the home weatherization program did, there must be some risk involved!

The Office of Management and Budget released new guidelines to agencies to increase their emphasis on conducting program evaluations. According to the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe in his article, “OMB Wants More Data on Government’s Performance,” OMB’s Jeff Zients told him: “We’re working to create a system that’s actually used by senior decision-makers.”

Chief Performance Officer Jeff Zients debuted before an audience of federal managers yesterday at the Excellence in Government Conference 2009, recapping what he has seen and learned during his “listening tour” of the government in his first 100 days in office.

While there’s been little open discussion in recent days about the progress of President Obama’s Open Government Directive, the General Services Administration’s quarterly “Intergovernmental Solutions” newsletter has dedicated its latest issue to describing dozens of examples of how citizen engagement is increasing in government – federal, state, local, as well as other countries. It is worth reading!

Happy New (Fiscal) Year 2010!

Have you made your New Year's Resolution yet? If not, here is an idea . . .

When I was working for Vice President Gore’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government in the 1990s, we were encouraged to craft personal mission statements.

My personal mission statement for more than a decade has been to “help create a government that is results-oriented, performance-based, citizen-focused, and collaborative in nature.”

Last week, Senator Tom Carper held an important hearing based on a key finding from a Government Accountability Office (GAO) released last year. GAO’s 2008 report summarized a survey it conducted of agency program managers on their use of performance information.