No Easy Task: Building a Better Government Performance System

Today, Accenture, the Georgetown Public Policy Institute (GPPI), and OMB Watch officially released a report, Building a Better Government Performance System: Recommendations to the Obama Administration [1]", that outlines six key principles that are essential in the reform of government performance systems.  These principles will help to open up internal compliance-based review processes that typically result in static ratings and create a more dynamic conversation about continually improving performance.

Last year, Accenture, GPPI, and OMB Watch convened experts for a day-long session where there was lively discussion, debate, and even disagreement about how to best measure government performance.  Well-versed in the challenges of creating and implementing performance measures, these experts came from a variety of backgrounds and experiences.  Instead of scrapping the entire PART [2] system, the goal was to draw out the core requirements for a good performance measurement system. The six principles developed are:  

1. Preserve the public's right to know how well government programs work;
2. Strengthen leadership and accountability from top to bottom;
3. Modify - don't discard - current systems;
4. Rebalance the roles of OMB and federal agencies;
5. Use positive reinforcement to improve performance and accountability;
6. Seek input from outside stakeholders.

It is clear that government performance systems cannot operate in a vacuum and must be constantly reexamined to ensure their relevancy.  These six principles provide a foundation based on collective accountability and ownership in and out of government.  With the election of a president who is actively interested in transparency, data standards, and technology, there's unprecedented opportunity to use these six principles to improve how the federal government measures success.  

Image by Flickr user bucklava [3]. Used under a Creative Commons license.