GPRA

Many agencies have been quietly posting their draft strategic plans on-line for public comments, such as the draft plan for the Department of Veterans Affairs.  But the full set of finalized agency plans will soon be available, along with their FY 2015 annual performance plans. These should be a treasure-trove of useful information if you are interested in understanding federal priorities and how cross-agency collaboration could be improved in coming years.

The IBM Center is releasing an update to its 2009 “The Operator’s Manual for the New Administration” for the use of new executives in the federal government. This updated chapter reflects statutory changes since 2009 and provides insights on how executives can improve performance in their agencies’ programs.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Performance

A Government Accountability Office survey last year reports that the percentage of federal managers saying they used performance information in allocating resources actually dropped between 1997 and 2013.  Is it worth another try? In a new report for the IBM Center, Dr.

These four-year goals were first announced with the release of the FY 2015 budget back in March. Cobert’s announcement accompanies the first round of statutorily-required quarterly reports on the progress of the 15 Cross-Agency Priority (CAP) goals. 

The Obama Administration in 2009 directed agencies to identify a small handful of priorities that they would commit to achieving in a two-year timeframe.  This initiative was embedded into the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010.  Agencies are required to identify priority goals and report on their progress quarterly.  In late June, agency progress reports were posted on the governmentwide performance.gov website.

Increasingly, addressing public management challenges requires the use of collaborative networks across a range of agencies and non-governmental organizations. For example, the Obama Administration has designated a series of projects as “cross agency priority goals” and put networks in place to manage them. A lot of literature and practical experience show that a key element of success in any collaborative effort is the ability to create and sustain trust among stakeholders.

Background.  Early in the Obama Administration, OMB announced an initiative to create a small handful of High Priority Performance Goals in each agency, as a replacement for the Bush Administration’s

Since 2001, Dr. Behn has visited dozens of governmental organizations that are using the PerformanceStat model – some well, and some poorly.  His bold objective was to answer the research question of whether PerformanceStat really makes a difference in improving performance, and how it works.  In short, his answer is:  it depends, and it’s complicated.

Government and non-profits have already been pioneering the use of collaborative networks over the past two decades to solve complex societal challenges such as clean waterways, reducing child abuse, serving the mentally ill in the community, and reducing smoking. Much of this pioneering work has been done without a roadmap of what works and when using networks is more effective than relying on traditional hierarchies or the marketplace to achieve public goals.

The initial premise twenty years ago was that if performance information was made readily available, it would be used by agency decision-makers.  That turned out to not be true.  

Background.  A recent GAO study conclude that the “use of performance information has not changed significantly” in surveys of federal managers between 2007 and 2013.  More specifically: