ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Performance Management
Assessing Government Performance through the Lens of Public Sector Workers
Michael Lipsky, Public Administration Review
A review of Charles Goodsell’s new book, The New Case for Bureaucracy, which seeks to “transcend stereotypes about the agencies of administration that do the work of government in this huge country.”

Analytics/Evaluation
Gerald Ray, Social Security Administration: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes
Brian Murrow, Business of Government
Applying analytics to a continuous process of improvement.

Efficiency/Reorganization
Fixing the Useless Federal Program Inventory
John Kamensky, Government Executive
To cut duplicative programs, agencies have to know how to count them first.
Effort to Root Out Duplicative Federal Programs Hits a Roadblock
Charles Clark, Government Executive
Because agencies use different terminology, their inventories of programs have limited value, GAO finds.

Open Government
Is E-Gov Really Delivering?
Tod Newcombe, Government Technology
It didn’t evolve as pioneers planned, but government’s move to digital has been revolutionary.

Analytics/Evaluation
Dean Silverman, IRS: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes
Brian Murrow, Business of Government
Dean Silverman, Senior Advisor to the Commissioner in the Office of Compliance Analytics for the Internal Revenue Service, maps analytics to business values.

Collaboration
Lessons from a successful research-to-practice collaboration: An interview with Carolyn Heinrich, Professor, University of Texas-Austin
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator Blog
How can partnerships between the public sector and academic researchers help programs and policies to achieve significantly better results?

Customer Service
A Mixed Verdict on Customer Service at Five Agencies
Charles Clark, Government Executive
GAO found that that all five agencies provided customers with opportunities to submit feedback, including comments and complaints, but none of the agencies’ standards included all of the key elements of customer service standards—goals, measures and transparency.

Innovation
Cobert: Technology, innovation key to OMB’s management agenda
Michael O’Connell, Federal News Radio
Technology is transforming daily life and agencies need to harness that innovation to make government work better.

Open Government
New Socrata Benchmarking Study Details Open Data Attitudes Across the U.S.
Michael Grass, Government Executive
80 percent of federal-, state-, county- and city-level government respondents indicated that they will invest the same or more in open data within the next six months.

Analytics/Evaluation
Carter Hewgley, FEMA: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes
Brian Murrow, Business of Government
The Director of Enterprise Analytics for the Federal Emergency Management takes an iterative approach to maturing strategic analytics with FEMAStat.
How New Mexico uses evidence to drive smart funding decisions and improve programs
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator Blog
In recent years, New Mexico has become a leader in using cost-benefit analysis to inform policy and budget decisions.
Army changing its energy culture through better data
Jared Serbu, Federal News Radio
The Army has been installing advanced electric meters on most of its major buildings over the last several years, and views the metering program as a valuable tool that will inform its future energy management programs.

Collaboration
The Ebola crisis: An enterprise leadership challenge
Ron Sanders, Federal Times
The Ebola crisis offers an example of the need for enterprise leadership, defined as the ability to lead a complex constellation of organizations that may include federal, state, and local government agencies, as well as international and non-government organizations and even other governments, all towards some common goal.
How to form coalitions of action
James Windle, Federal Times
The ideal “coalition of action” includes agency leadership, relevant White House councils and offices, and the committees with jurisdiction in Congress. Support from senior levels is always necessary.

Innovation
Creating Innovation Offices That Work
Gadi Ben-Yehuda, Business of Goverment
A new report, “A Guide for Making Innovation Offices Work,” details the models, methods, and metrics of how government agencies are incorporating innovation into their bureaucracies.
The White House’s Digital Fixit Man Talks Culture Change in Government
Jason Shueh, Government Technology
Mikey Dickerson speaks out about leading the U.S. Digital Service agency and how he and his team are working to usher in a culture change in the public sector.

Performance Management
10 ways to improve program management
Shefali Kapadia, Federal News Radio
The author examines best practices for acquisition program managers, but which are more broadly applicable as well.

Analytics/Evaluation
Malcolm Bertoni, FDA: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes
Brian Murrow, Business of Government
Malcolm Bertoni, Assistant Commissioner for Planning at the Food and Drug Administration, shares the important elements of a successful analytics program and a road map for getting there.
Using opportunistic experiments to learn what works: An interview with Peter Schochet, Senior Fellow, Mathematica Policy Research
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator Blog
How can the public sector make the most of opportunities to learn what works — in other words, to fill knowledge gaps about effective policies and practices? “Opportunistic experiments” are an important tool for doing that.

Leadership
Some Presidential Management Fellows Find Their Agencies and Managers Lacking
Kellie Lunney, Government Executive
While the program still remains overwhelmingly popular, agencies and supervisors fell short when it came to providing opportunities for professional learning and growth, fostering a work environment that allowed for creativity and communicating effectively.

Performance Management
Why Isn’t Performance Information Being Used?
John Kamensky, Business of Government
Champions of performance management in government are confounded. After decades of trying to integrate the use of performance information into agency decision-making, it still isn’t happening on as broad a scale as once hoped.

Analytics/Evaluation
Could Obama’s Push for Evidence-Based Program Evaluations Cross Party Lines?
Charles Clark, Government Executive
The Obama administration is reporting progress on its ongoing effort to prod agencies to increase their use of data analytics in making “evidence-based” evaluations of programs—even to the point of attracting interest from Republicans in the highly polarized Congress.
Lisa Danzig, OMB: Conversations on Using Analytics to Improve Mission Outcomes
Brian Murrow, Business of Government
Lisa Danzig, associate director for performance and personnel at the Office of Management and Budget, shares some insightful stories on leveraging big data and analytics to improve performance across multiple agencies.

Innovation
4 Key Challenges Facing Local Government Innovators
Nigel Jacob, Governing
Tensions that make it difficult to make innovation a regular practice.

Open Government
The Secret to Making Tough Fiscal Choices: Open Government
Chuck Reed, Governing
When governments make it easy for citizens to know the facts and engage them in the conversation about what needs to be done, reforms can happen.