ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Strengthening Performance Management

Barrett & Greene

Here’s a recap of Do’s and Don’ts in strengthening performance management systems, based on the last Urban Institute report by the late Harry Hatry. They a grouped into five categories! 

11 Data Champions

What Works Cities

WWC highlights 11 community-level data champions from different backgrounds; they are experts in technology, energy, geography and more. Some spent years in the private sector while others were city interns straight out of school.

Resource of the Week:  Performance Management in the Public Sector, 3^rd Edition

Wouter Van Dooren, Geert Bouckaert, John Halligan

This newly updated book moves beyond the traditional New Public Management paradigm, the book critically examines how performance measurement, incorporation, and use can be purposefully designed to enhance public management and governance.

AI Auditing AI – Toward Digital Accountability

ASPA-CAP Webinar (Wed., Oct 22, 1 p.m. Eastern)

As AI increasingly influences critical areas such as policing, hiring, health care, finance and cybersecurity, traditional oversight struggles to keep pace with the speed and complexity of modern algorithms. Speaker Alan Shark will draw on real-world examples and emerging governance frameworks.

Bringing Government Accountability Into the Digital Age

YouTube (John Bernard, 15:06 minutes)

Bernard discusses a first-of-its-kind app that uses real government data to create 50 measurable data points for all 50 states, allowing you to see how your state compares and, ultimately, bring government accountability into the digital age.

Outcome-Based Contracting

IBM Center for The Business of Government (Allan Burman)

When using an outcomes-based technique, you not only have to know what you want accomplished, but you also must think through how you are going to measure whether you’ve gotten there.

Resource of the Week:  The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

CFIS is an independent, non-profit think tank established in 1969 whose purpose is to help people and organizations imagine, work with, and shape their futures. Here’s a link to its newest study, a toolkit for strategic foresight.

NonProfits Have an RCT Problem

Stanford Social Innovation Review (open access)

Randomized controlled trials are touted as the benchmark for evaluating social programs. The social sector should focus instead on an improvement orientation to evaluating performance.

Implementing Performance Management Recommendations

U.S. Government Accountability Office

Agencies and OMB have implemented most recommendations GAO made related to the implementation of the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010. However, the Office of Management and Budget has yet to fully implement 18, more than one quarter of GAO’s 61 recommendations, particularly those addressing crosscutting challenges.

Performance Audits and Community Input

Barrett & Greene

While performance audits in cities, counties and states around the country are often chosen by audit committees or through a quiet internal process, Nathan Pickard, an independent who was elected auditor in December 2024, reached out to the Tulsa community to see what residents wanted to see audited.

Making Sense of OKRs and KPIs

LinkedIn (Ayca Tumer Arikan)

Is it po-TAY-toe or PA-TAW-toe?

Measuring Strategy in Public Management

International Public Management Journal

Bert George and John Bryson write that “The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize and measure strategizing in public management as a set of interconnected activities. . . . we first offer our conceptualization of strategizing drawing on the ten strategy schools and extant public administration and other research on strategy.”

Quiet Death of “Results Washington” and Accountability

Seattle Times

With the stroke of his pen, Gov. Bob Ferguson killed Results Washington — once hailed as the nation’s model for government accountability and transparency. Executive Order 25-06 ended a program that dared to measure progress on the things that matter most to Washingtonians, and replaced it with a Customer Experience program.

Accountability and Reform Research Consortium Launched

The Volcker Alliance

As the federal government undergoes significant workforce reductions and program cuts, the Volcker Alliance announces the launch of the Accountability and Reform Research Consortium (ARRC), a cross-university research collaborative that will deliver rigorous and timely research on how these changes affect public service delivery, citizens, and democratic governance in the United States.