ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Analytics/Evaluation
Army, Navy using big data to increase energy savings
Frank Konkel, Federal Computer Week
The Army and Navy are using big data analytics to identify energy savings opportunities in more than 650 worldwide facilities, with a target of making half of all Navy buildings net-zero energy by 2020.

Efficiency/Reorganization
OMB Unveils Best Cost-Cutting Ideas
Tom Shoop, Government Executive
OMB has announced the four finalists in the Obama administration’s annual SAVE Award competition, recognizing federal employees who come up with innovative cost-cutting ideas.
OFPP updates rules for how agencies should analyze ways to lower costs
Jason Miller, Federal News Radio
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is reinvigorating the concepts of lowering life-cycle costs of programs by analyzing all facets of the approach.

Innovation
Public Sector Innovation Officers: A Growing Trend
Innovategov
Organizations are beginning to appoint innovation officers and institute offices of innovation, innovation centers of excellence, and innovation labs.
With the ‘Needipedia,’ DIA aims to lower barriers for innovators
Nicole Blake Johnson, Federal Times
DIA launched the initiative late last month as a means to express its needs to a larger community of innovators. Individuals, companies and academia can submit ideas and proposals for grants or contracts through an open broad agency announcement, based on DIA’s specific needs. Those needs are articulated on the Needipedia website and replace the traditional request for proposal process.
Six Trends Driving Change in Government: Examples of Agencies Leveraging Change
Dan Chenok, Business of Government
Outlines newly funded studies from the Center for the Business of Government, as well as some examples of agencies who are leading the way forward.
Government by design: Four principles for a better public sector
McKinsey & Company
Making progress on society’s biggest problems requires governments to make better use of data, involve citizens, invest in employees, and collaborate with other sectors.

Open Government
OpenGov: We’re number two!
Federal Computer Week
The United States has the second highest score of any country on the Open Data Barometer.

Strategic Planning
Required Reading: Agency Strategic Plans
John Kamensky, Business of Government
In early 2014, for the first time federal agencies will simultaneously submit refreshed strategic plans to Congress, covering the next four years.

Analytics/Evaluation
Reducing fear-driven responses to program evaluation: Paul Decker, President of Mathematica Policy Research and outgoing President of APPAM
Andy Feldman, GovInnovator Blog
How can public leaders encourage greater use of program evaluation to learn what works and to improve outcomes for citizens? One important part of the answer is to address the frequent fear associated with program evaluation.
Better cost data can mean bigger cost savings
Nicole Blake Johnson, Federal Times
Cost data, when it is captured, can vary widely among departments and even bureaus and sub-agencies within the same department that are buying the same things. But the General Services Administration, at least among its customer base, is hoping to change that.

Leadership
Trend Six: Leadership
Michael Keegan, Business of Government
Governments today face serious, seemingly intractable public management issues that go to the core of effective governance and leadership. Government leaders are presented with difficult choices, but also unprecedented opportunities. The right kind of leadership approach and style can drive change in government.

Open Government
White House unveils new open-government goals
Adam Mazmanian, Federal Computer Week
The White House unveiled a new take on its open-government policy that includes consolidating Freedom of Information Act requests across agencies, updating policies governing federal websites and upgrading the way people can petition the executive branch.

Performance Management
Trickle-Down Performance Management
John Kamensky, Business of Government
Typically, performance management works best in systems where agencies engage in direct service delivery, where leaders have more control over what is going on. But in complex intergovernmental programs, can effective performance management systems be developed and work?
Performance management pilot program not ready for governmentwide roll out, GAO says
Ryan McDermott, FierceGovernment
A pilot program used to measure employee and agency performance isn’t ready for governmentwide implementation because key factors are missing from the program and OPM and the Chief Human Capital Officers Council haven’t defined their roles in implementation.

Analytics/Evaluation
Using impact evaluation to improve program performance: An interview with Rachel Glennester, Executive Director, Jameel Poverty Action Lab
Andy Feldman, GovInnovator Blog
Randomized experiments can be used in public policy, with individuals randomly assigned to a program group and a control group, in order to rigorously test what works and improve program performance.

Efficiency/Reorganization
4 Imperatives for Smart Savings That Boost Efficiency
Dan Chenok, Government Executive
Government executives can harness major technological shifts and adapt proven public-sector and commercial best practices to make their agencies more efficient and effective.
Next act for Gov. Mark Dayton centers on reform
Baird Helgeson, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The focus is on decluttering state processes and regulations.

Innovation
Manage Innovation Risk with a Disciplined Approach
InnovateGov
A new study identifies 5 key aspects of innovation systems.

Leadership
Trend 4: Mission
John Kamensky, Business of Government
Agency and program leaders depend on a range of mission support functions, such as finance, technology, acquisition, or workforce management, to get their jobs done. The delivery of these functions, however, have changed significantly over the past quarter century.

Performance Management
Avoiding Complacency Risks: Make SMART Goals SMARTer
InnovateGov
The “SMARTness” of a goal is not always dependent on its content; rather how it is assigned and implemented is also important.
Diagnosing HealthCare.gov’s performance issues
Andreas Grabner, Federal Computer Week
Lessons learned that show why agencies must rethink system testing and the need for a more proactive approach to performance management.
Making Strategic Decisions
John Kamensky, Business of Government
Decisions vary along two dimensions – control and performance – and within each dimension, they range from high to low. This results in four types of decisions.

Analytics/Evaluation
Demand for data-driven models supplies agencies with decision making power
Jason Miller, Federal News Radio
How data-driven decision making is getting to be the driving force behind spending and program strategies.

Innovation
How the Government is Innovating (And You Can Too)
Gadi Ben-Yehuda, Government Executive
Lessons from what the government is doing today to prepare for tomorrow.

Open Government
DATA Act passes U.S. House of Representatives
Alex Howard, E Pluribus Unum
One of the most important bills for open government in the U.S. since the Freedom of Information Act of 1967 has passed the House. Now, attention goes back to the Senate.
Who Invented the Hackathon?
Colin Wood, Government Technology
Hackathons have been around for at least 14 years, but some people are still on the fence as to whether they deliver real value.

Performance Management
PIOs unearth the real value of data, analysis
Jason Miller, Federal News Radio
Agency performance improvement officers are helping mission offices look beneath the data to find the real impact of their programs.
How to make performance management work
Emily Jarvis, GovLoop
Interview with former OMB official Robert Shea.
Performance Management: The Real Research Challenge
Shelley Metzenbaum, Public Administration Review
Practitioners can benefit significantly from research that reveals how significant changes in outcomes result from variations in practices.

Analytics/Evaluation
Geek Cities: How Smarter Use of Data and Evidence Can Improve Lives
The Bridgespan Group
This report details how cities are using hard data and evidence to steer funding decisions and set priorities.
From Data to Decisions 3: Lessons from Early Analytics Programs
Partnership for Public Service
Lessons learned from long-standing data-driven efforts on how to start and sustain an analytics-based programs.
How to Get Past the ‘Big Data’ Hype
Charles Clark, Government Executive
Report suggests tying analytics to mission-critical goals and giving rank-and-file employees access.
White House announces big data partnerships
Frank Konkel, Federal Computer Week
The White House has unveiled several new partnerships among federal agencies, private companies, academia, state and local governments and nonprofits designed to deploy big data against many of the country’s big problems.
Predicting Famine Through Analytics
John Kamensky, Business of Government
Starving children have depended on warnings made by a federal interagency group that has worked together for more than 25 years to help international aid groups by predicting where famines in remote regions are occurring.

Innovation
Taking on the Risk of Government
Dan Chenok, Government Executive
Managing and communicating risks effectively can enable mission performance.