ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Responding to Response Times

Barrett & Greene

For emergency services, every moment can spell the difference between a minor incident and a crippling injury or a death. To the general public, fast response times are the most tangible evidence that they are getting good service. But most people who read about response times aren’t aware that they can be measured very differently by first responders.

Embedding Strategic Foresight into Strategic Planning

IBM Center for The Business of Government (Bert George)

Despite strategic foresight’s popularity, it is often detached from more ongoing strategic planning and management in government. This goes against the origins of strategic foresight, which was developed as an approach to making strategic planning and management more future-oriented. This report makes the claim that when strategic foresight and strategic planning and management are better integrated, the effectiveness of both approaches in government and for government enhances greatly. But how to provide such integration? Four cases of strategic foresight from across the globe are analyzed in this report.

Resource of the Week:  City Health Dashboard

NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health

This project’s goal is to provide communities and city leaders with an array of regularly updated data specific to neighborhood and/or city boundaries – such as life expectancy, park access, and children in poverty – to improve the health and well-being of everyone in the community. Launched in 2018, the Dashboard offers data on over 45 measures of health and drivers of health for over 1,200 cities across the U.S. 

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?