ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

A Guide to Measuring Performance: The City of Berkeley, CA Edition

Barrett & Greene

The Berkeley, California auditor’s office is well-known for the attention it pays to the measurement of performance, under the leadership of Auditor Jenny Wong. Lately, at the request of a councilmember, her office has been conducting “benchmarking and best-practice research on outcome-based budget metrics. The result? “A Guide to Measuring Performance in the City of Berkeley”, a document that provides sound advice for any community on creating useful and credible performance measurement systems.

GovEx Lessons Learned in Its First Decade

Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence

The founder of GovEx writes that since 2015: “GovEx partnered with hundreds of cities around the world. We visited countless city halls, sat across from mayors and frontline staff, and have seen up close how data can transform not just decision-making, but entire communities. We’ve learned what works, what doesn’t, and what it takes to build a data-driven culture that lasts.” She then offers seven lessons learned.

Performance in a Time of Instability

Barrett & Greene 

Zachary Markovits writes “When conditions are intense, the instinct in cities, counties and states is to chase the crisis of the day. . . .That instinct is understandable, and often necessary. But incremental, deliberate, data-driven management is not a distraction from urgent work. It is what allows governments to respond to crises without losing ground on their core priorities.”

A Moneyball Moment for Workforce Development

Results for America

The U.S. Department of Labor recently released new guidance that allow states to modernize how they design, fund, and deliver workforce programs funded under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. Results for America encourages states to embed evidence in their state workforce systems via their state plans and waiver requests, and offers advice on how to shift workforce dollars toward proven programs.

Resource of the Week:  Performance America Consortium

U.S. Office of Personnel Management

The Performance America Consortium is a working group of federal, state, and local government agencies coordinated by OPM. This consortium is similar to other Fortune 50 company consortia that promote the use of common organizational assessment items and the sharing of data among companies.

Human-Machine Collaboration for Strategic Foresight

Public Administration Review (gated article)

This is a case study of an innovative pilot project conducted by an Australian state government that leveraged generative artificial intelligence (AI), specifically large language models, for strategic foresight using a design science approach.

Integrating Key Performance Indicators into the Governance System

Journal of Constitutional and Governance Studies (Open Source – PDF Download)

Evaluating the performance of Indonesian ministries is conducted through the 2014 Government Agency Performance Accountability System. However, this system relies heavily on internal self-reporting and lacks transparency and standardization. This study develops a performance index based on transparency that would serve as the basis of presidential decisions.

OPM’s Challenge of Creating High Performance Cultures

Government Executive (Howard Risher)

To help federal agencies operate like modern high-performance organizations requires an understanding of their current barriers and an importance placed on the workforce’s value

States Turn to Predictive Tech

RouteFifty
Student test scores across the U.S. are lower than they have been in decades. Schools that leverage tools to benchmark and predict their performance can help teachers better address learning gaps, experts say.

Lessons in Building Evidence – Lessons from Federal Partnerships

AEA365 (American Evaluation Association)

Michael Hand, a portfolio led and behavioral scientist with the federal Office of Evaluation Sciences , shares three key lessons learned when building evidence with agency partners.

The Power of Performance Audits

American Society for Public Administration 

A four-person panel of city performance auditors ask tough questions: Are programs working? Are they fair? Who’s being helped … and who’s left out?

Reform in a Post-DOGE World

We the Doers

Former civil servants offer prescriptions for making government more effective, efficient, and trustworthy – starting with defining a meaningful bottom line — because current performance data doesn’t.

Resource of the Week:  The PULSAR Program

World Bank

The Public Sector Accounting and Reporting (PULSAR) program is a regional and country-level program targeting the Western Balkans, European Union Eastern Partnership countries, and Tajikistan to support the advancement of public sector accounting, financial, and sustainability reporting practices in line with international standards and good practice.

What Does It Take to Make Public Data Usable?

Substack/Rebecca Mbaya

This Substack account spotlights visionary changemakers in Africa. This interview spotlights a Namibian data analyst who moves between economic analysis, public-sector data systems, and the mechanics of decision-making, where the quality of evidence matters less than whether organizational leaders are actually able to use it.

Oversight Community Wrestles with Challenges to Independence

Federal News Network

A mid-January workshop hosted by Virginia Tech’s School of Public and International Affairs discussed the near- and long-term challenges facing the federal oversight community.

Building Better Systems for Measuring, Managing, and Reporting on the SDGs

Public Money & Management

The UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals need credible, transparent, and actionable sustainability reporting in the public sector. This volume of the PM&M Journal is devoted to exploring progress and challenges

The New KPIs for City Innovation

Bloomberg Cities Network

After decades of research into how cities can better use innovation to improve lives, the research shows that performance metrics tell only part of the story. The University College London Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose have developed new KPIs for city innovation.

Giving Front-Line Employees Direct Access to Their Performance Data

International Review of Administrative Sciences (free PDF download)

This study demonstrates the effect of replacing traditional manager-led feedback with transparent performance data. The effects depend on the type of performance metrics, the quality of the employee-supervisor relationship, and the differences in employee motivation types.

Resource of the Week:  The Data Skills Network

Apolitical (a free, global, online community for public sector practitioners)

This network within Apolitical is an online community to build your data skills through connection and conversation with peers across government. This space is open to all, whether you consider yourself a data novice or a data expert.

Measuring GSA  Performance in Acquisition Reform

Federal News Network

Ed Forst, the new administrator of the US General Services Administration, calls his agency “the engine room that makes the mission run.” He also says measuring performance and holding organizations and people accountable are among his key focus areas.