ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Performance Management
A better path to performance management
Steve Kelman, Federal Computer Week
Tests and metrics can be used to really improve, rather than simply reward and punish.

Analytics/Evaluation
How program managers can use low-cost experiments to improve results
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator Blog
How can public leaders and program managers use low-cost experiments — also knows as low-cost randomized controlled trials (RCTs) — to improve program results in government?
Becoming an evidence focused grant-making organization: An interview with Kelly Fitzsimmons, Vice President, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator Blog
How can grant making agencies in the public sector build their capacity to build and use rigorous evidence and help their grantees do so too?
How data analytics can improve real property management
Rana Lahiri and Mark DeRosa, Federal Computer Week
Real estate is a massive (and complicated) part of agency operations. Leading-edge analytics help make the most of existing footprints.

Collaboration
Program management: The contractor’s role
Richard Spires, Federal Computer Week
Here is what it takes, both officially and informally, to make the partnership between an agency and a contractor succeed.

Open Government
Civic Ninjas Find Long-Term Solutions to Government Problems
Jessica Hughes, Government Technology
Civic hacking has evolved — it has become a way for civic-minded technologists to bypass red tape to find solutions for community and government problems. And now, one civic hacking group is taking that evolution a step further.

Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning: Are Agencies Set Up to Fail?
Dan Blair, Government Executive
While current operations must remain a priority, agencies must institutionalize long-term planning to make sure issues critical to future mission performance are addressed.

Performance Management
An Essential Guide to the ‘Stat’ Revolution in Government
Steve Goldsmith, Governing
A new book provides a comprehensive picture of the performance-management practice that has taken the public sector by storm.
Measuring value with performance management
Howard Steinman, Federal Times
What is a performance management program that would both comply with the laws, represent good management practice, and measure value?

Collaboration
Collaboration is the new normal for networks
Amber Corrin, Federal Times
There are a number of different partners and stakeholders involved in the military’s overarching plan to modernize Defense Department networks and IT, but one central tenet of the broad strategy is standard for everyone involved: Collaboration is the new normal.

Innovation
‘Hacking bureaucracy’ at 18F
Colby Hochmuth, Federal Computer Week
Greg Godbout, executive director of GSA’s innovation lab, wants to set an example in hiring and other areas for the rest of the federal government to emulate.
Cities to Compete for $45 Million Innovation Grants
J.B. Woogan, Governing
A private foundation is offering $45 million to cities willing to test a new model for solving common urban problems, from handgun violence to chronic homelessness.
Riding the Second Wave of Civic Innovation
Jeremy Goldberg, Governing
Public-private collaborations for local-government innovation are spreading. There are some best practices for making them work.

Risk Management
Creating Organizational Self-Defense
John Kamensky, Business of Government
Why don’t agency top leaders know about significant management problems in their organizations before it is too late?

Performance Management
DoD hashing out new civilian performance appraisal system
Andy Medici, Federal Times
The new system will consist of three tiers—workers will be rated as unsuccessful, successful or superior—and will be uniform across almost all of DoD.

Efficiency/Reorganization
City Finances and the Promise of Data Visualization
Steve Goldsmith, Governing
New tools that make it easy to find and view government financial data are enabling big gains in efficiency and transparency.

Innovation
A new direction for Presidential Innovation Fellows
Colby Hochmuth, Federal Computer Week
New PIF Director Garren Givens has revamped the selection process and installed a new system that means less “parachuting in” and wider opportunities for participants.
Implementing a department-wide innovation strategy: An interview with Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator
Under Sivak’s leadership HHS launched its IDEA Lab in 2013, which has already catalyzed more than 100 innovation projects.
Buying What Works: Case Studies in Innovative Contracting
Tom Kalil and Lesley Field, OMB Blog
OSTP and OMB have released the first version of Innovative Contracting Case Studies, an evolving document that describes a number of ways Federal agencies are getting more innovation per taxpayer dollar.

Performance Management
The “-Stat” Movement Turns Twenty
John Kamensky, Business of Government
In his new book on the PerformanceStat model, Harvard’s Bob Behn concludes that the PerformanceStat leadership strategy does improve performance, when adapted thoughtfully to an organization’s environment.

Innovation
OMB launches digital services team to guide IT projects
Adam Mazmanian, Federal Computer Week
The administration has launched the U.S. Digital Service, a team of experts based inside OMB to improve IT procurement and agencies’ efforts to design public-facing online services.
OMB wants HealthCare.gov lessons to endure in new Digital Service Office
Jason Miller, Federal News Radio
The administration is making the concept of an IT rescue team a long-term fixture.
Six ways government can use incentive prizes to spur innovation: An interview with Jesse Goldhammer, Principal, Deloitte Consulting
Andy Feldman, Gov Innovator Blog
Incentive prizes — also known as prize competitions or challenges — are increasingly being used to spur innovation and address key challenges by public agencies at the federal, state and local levels.

Performance Management
Doing What Works: Governing in the Age of Big Data
Martin O’Malley, Public Administration Review
Big Data is forever changing the way we manage, market, and move information. In Maryland, it is also changing the way the state is governed.
Accumulated Wisdom
John Kamensky, Business of Government
The Urban Institute’s Harry Hatry is one of the pioneers of the late 20th century performance measurement movement. He has just released a new guide on transforming performance measurement that sums his best practical advice in one place.

Efficiency/Reorganization
Washington State Agencies Report to Legislature on 2014 Efficiency Improvements
Hans Stropo, Plan Washington
In the first five months of this year Washington State government agencies completed more than 100 efficiency-improving initiatives to tighten operations and improve return on investment for taxpayers.

Innovation
Government Problems and the Power of Prizes
Bill Eggers and Anesa Parker, Governing
There’s a reason the public sector is increasingly turning to competitions for innovative solutions. They work.
When Innovation Isn’t Glamorous
Ron Littlefield, Governing
We need to make the case for the glitzless but still innovative initiatives.
‘Pay for Success’: a Better Way to Deliver Social Services?
Charles Chieppo, Governing
The idea of shifting the risk of failed initiatives from taxpayers to investors is catching on.