Understanding Performance Management from the Bottom-Up

Public Administration Review (Leif Kongsgaard; Open Access PDF)

This article provides a cutting-edge perspective of how frontline employees and managers respond to a robust performance management system in terms of their reactions to “numbers” from the point of view of their emotions, attitudes, and actions. The research is based on rich empirical data and interviews with employees in the Danish public employment services.

Making Oversight Work

Niskanen Center (Anna Heetderks)

It’s just not all about cost savings. One of the areas in which oversight entities are well-positioned to influence agencies for the better is in their ability to provide candid, evidence-based assessments of how well agency programs are working. Oversight can essentially function as an impact evaluation team, communicating what’s working in a program and what isn’t. Realizing this potential requires changes in oversight practices in six areas.

Measuring the Hidden Workforce

Barrett & Greene 

While many government entities have performance management systems in place to measure the success or failure of the work that’s done in house, this can be trickier when it comes to the contractors and consultants who are sometimes referred to as the “hidden workforce.”

Closing the Loop

Federation of American Scientists Amanda Girard)

The federal government has a feedback-loop problem. Information and artifacts alone don’t necessarily facilitate learning and adaptation; strengthening federal feedback loops requires embedding translation and use into decision-making from the start.