ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

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.

Performance Management
Interview with GAO’s Chris Mihm on Agency Use of Performance Data
Federal News Radio
The Government Accountability Office keeps score of which agencies actually use that information, and only two agencies are showing any improvement.
Agencies Lose Ground in Performance Management, GAO Finds
Charles Clark, Government Executive
More than four years after the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act became law, most agencies have shown little progress in using performance data for managing daily operations, a survey found.
Performance management pitfalls
Howard Steinman, Federal Times
As an agency implements and executes a performance management program, it often has available—if it knows where to look—a number of indications that the program is starting to stumble.

Analytics/Evaluation
Making Data Real – Lessons From and For Federal Leaders
Dan Chenok, Business of Government
How government leaders can leverage the power of analytics and data to make better decisions.

Collaboration
Collaborating across organizations — practice makes perfect
Steve Kelman, Federal Computer Week
Recent research supports what economists have long argued: Sustained collaboration adds real value, but you have to work at it!

Innovation
Strengths and misperceptions of Social Impact Bonds: An interview with Jeffrey Liebman, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) — also known as Pay for Success — are relatively new in the U.S., but interest has grown quickly at the local, state and federal levels in just a few years.
Crowdsourcing Offers Gov Funding Option for Civic Tech
Jason Shueh, Government Pechnology
Online crowdfunding platforms are a growing alternative route to support civic projects by citizens.

Open Government
Treasury, OMB chart path to Data Act implementation
Adam Mazmanian, Federal Computer Week
While OMB is leading the development of data definition standards, Treasury is concentrating on data exchange standards.
Recipe for a successful DATA Act is part collaboration, part oversight
Jason Miller, Federal News Radio
The Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) has already garnered more attention, more high-level focus, in four months since it became law than previous federal transparency laws did in the last seven years.

Collaboration
What Do We Know About Inter-Organizational Networks?
John Kamensky, Business of Government
As Millennials join the workforce, they are bringing their propensity for social networking into the workplace. As a result, network-centered approaches to doing work will likely become more prevalent.

Innovation
First of its Kind Venture Capital Fund Pumps Millions into GovTech Startups
Jack Moore, Nextgov
Over the past 15 months or so, a California-based venture capital fund has been quietly raising millions of dollars for a handful of technology startups designed to make the government work more efficiently.
Why large government IT projects fail
David Elfanbaum, Federal Computer Week
The conspiracy of hope begins when the government puts out requests for proposals for projects that are too large, long-term and complex for contractors to make credible proposals. Agile development offers a potential remedy, with large projects developed and delivered in small increments.

Open Government
The skinny on the White House’s new open-government initiatives
Colby Hochmuth, Federal Computer Week
The White House’s latest open-government plan includes four new or expanded initiatives aimed at promoting education to increase awareness and engagement, delivering government services more effectively through IT, increasing spending transparency and using big data to support openness and accountability.

Performance Management
Without Users, Performance Measurement Is Useless
Shelley Metzenbaum, Government Executive
Getting meaningful metrics to the right people drives improvements.
Performance management pitfalls
Howard Steinman, Federal Times
Four pitfalls that can lead to the failure of these programs to realize their full potential.
Support for Performance-Based Funding: The Role of Political Ideology, Performance, and Dysfunctional Information Environments
Thomas Rabovsky, Public Administration Review
The author finds that acceptance of performance as a basis for funding is driven by a variety of factors, including partisanship, organizational performance, dysfunction in the external information environment, and political ideology.

Customer Service
Guess Where the Government Ranks in Customer Satisfaction?
Lara Shane, Government Executive
Agencies could better serve citizens and businesses by streamlining websites.

Innovation
The Core Features of the Data-Powered City
Stephen Goldsmith, Governing
Today’s most innovative civic leaders are using technology to fulfill the promise of efficient and responsive local government.

Open Government
When Citizens Decide How Public Money Is Spent
John Kamensky, Governing
A few American communities are experimenting with participatory budgeting at the neighborhood level. Their experiences can help guide others interested in giving the idea a try.
Who really owns that government data?
Colby Hochmuth, Federal Computer Week
The latest kerfuffle over stimulus spending data points to a wider problem with agencies’ dependence on proprietary systems.

Performance Management
Improving Performance and Delivering Impact
Shaun Donovan, OMB Blog
The Administration has posted performance results for agency and cross-agency priority goals on Performance.gov for the 3rd Quarter of 2014.
Rep. Cuellar pushing for agencies to link performance, budget
Jason Miller, Federal News Radio
Agency efforts to measure their performance and continually improve upon those results are slow to materialize. Two House lawmakers want more action and more progress. To that end, new language in the House appropriations bill could hold agencies to higher performance standards in fiscal 2015.
Performance Management in Government: The Old Is New Again
Robert O’Neill Jr., Governing
As they deploy modern, data-driven tools for public-sector efficiency, today’s government leaders are building on work that began many decades ago.

Efficiency/Reorganization
Cutting Red Tape: It’s Time to Sweat the Small Stuff
Steve Goodrich, Government Executive
Large program waste is easy to see, but don’t overlook the daily complexities.

Innovation
10 Need-to-Know Lessons for Government Innovation Teams
Jason Shueh, Government Technology
A new Bloomberg study of 20 civic tech groups around the world offers tips on how to institutionalize innovation into a working framework.
Desperately seeking better citizen service
Colby Hochmuth, Federal Computer Week
A new study from the Partnership for Public Service urges government to engage with tech giants and revisit old laws in an effort to improve customer service.

Open Government
Empowering Citizens with Money and Social Media
John Kamensky, Business of Government
The White House’s Open Government initiative encourages citizens to become more actively engaged in budget decisions in their communities. How does this work in practice? Do busy citizens actually get involved?