ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Performance and Management

We Already Have the Tool We Need to Get the Most Out of Federal Contractors

Greg Giddens, Mike Smith and Jim Williams, Government Executive

It’s called CPARS, and we’re just not using it the way we should.

GAO: Federal Human Capital Management has Regressed Over Last Two Years

Erich Wagner, Government Executive

The government watchdog agency faulted a lack of leadership at OPM for the failure to address gaps in critical skills and other federal workforce issues.

Open Data and Analytics

GSA making interagency data and cloud collaboration easier mid-pandemic

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

The COVID-19 pandemic has the General Services Administration thinking about how it can reduce barriers to interagency collaboration around data and the cloud.

Data-Driven Ways to Maximize City Budgets Post-Pandemic

Stephen Goldsmith, Government Technology

Officials predict city budgets will be cut anywhere from 15 to 40 percent in the next year. The best way to do more with less is to use data as a tool to find out what works and where there’s opportunity to save.

Disparate agencies encountering similar lessons, pitfalls in prioritizing AI efforts

David Thornton, Federal News Network

As more agencies begin exploring how artificial intelligence can benefit their missions, one question keeps coming up: how to prioritize the potential use cases to get the best return on investment, and best serve their constituents?

Can Good Data Improve Policing and Prevent Excessive Force?

Jed Pressgrove, Government Technology

The police force of Durham, N.C., has teamed up with SAS Institute to create a data system that will put a spotlight on exemplary police work and reveal cases where officers may need training or counseling.

AI Is Killing Choice and Chance – Which Means Changing What It Means to Be Human

Nir Eisikovits and Dan Feldman, Nextgov

Artificial intelligence increasingly shapes the human experience.

Open Government and Innovation

Smaller Federal Agencies Are the Tip of the Spear for Innovation

James Langley, FedTech

Smaller federal agencies (those with under 6,000 employees) drive many critical national operations. However, those agencies are often subject to tighter budgets and fewer resources than their big agency counterparts

Performance & Management

GovExec Daily: Ten Years of Federal Performance Management

Adam Butler, Ross Gianfortune, Government Executive

Georgetown’s Dr. Donald Moynihan joins the podcast to discuss the reasons for optimism after a decade of the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act.

Open Data and Analytics

Federal Data Service looks to borrow from success of agency dashboard projects

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

The under-development Federal Data Service is set to focus on accelerating agencies’ data maturity with dashboard projects, like those the U.S. Department of Agriculture has undertaken the past few years.

Open Government and Innovation

Machine learning speeding up patent classifications at USPTO

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

Machine learning is helping the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office shorten the time it takes to assign patent applications to examiners, instead of having to redo its entire classification process, according to CIO Jamie Holcombe.

Air Force picks 15 airmen-designed projects to automate menial tasks

Jackson Barnett, FedScoop

The Air Force’s Vice Chief’s Challenge yielded 15 winning ideas based on technology to help automate menial tasks and give airmen new opportunities to get their hands on code.

Pandemic has spawned all sorts of government innovations, and not all at the federal level

Tom Temin, Federal Drive, FNN

The IBM Center for the Business of Government has put together a series of essays that examine the lessons learned and the innovation success. Leadership Fellow Michael Keegan joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin with some of the findings.

Virtual Tools Allow Agencies to Onboard New Workers from a Distance

Heather B. Hayes, FedTech

Some of the practices are so efficient that they may become a permanent part of the hiring process

Performance and Management

How to Address the Question Every Program Manager Should Answer: Does It Work?

John Kamensky, Government Executive

In one of his first actions, President Biden encouraged agency heads to support “evidence-building plans,” more commonly called “learning agendas.” Here’s the back story.

The Next Steps in Performance Management are Critical

Janet A. Weiss, Government Executive

The Biden administration should restore and stimulate performance management across the executive branch, encouraging managers doing the hard work of improvement.

Open Data and Analytics

Want better policy? Give more support to federal statistics agencies

Tom Temin, Federal News Network

Without reliable data about industry, about agriculture, about the U.S. population, it’s impossible to form good public policy, much less have a meaningful debate about it. Supplying that data falls to a collection of federal organizations known as the statistical agencies.

How Computer Vision Is Helping Agencies See Their Mission Objectives More Clearly

Ryan Luckay & Gretchen Stewart,  FedTech

Computer vision takes image processing a step further and provides agencies with deep and potentially critical insights.

It’s a fact: Government relies on statistics

Tom Temin, Federal News Network

Nearly every policy decision the government makes is based on statistics.

4 Data Analytics Trends to Watch in 2021

Michael Gormley, Nextgov

Expect more live data dashboards and APIs as a key enabler.

AI Could Quicken Disease Diagnoses and Save Lives

Randy Barrett, FedTech

NIH, DOD and VA are working to add artificial intelligence to pathology and radiology protocols.

Government Innovation

How Forward-Thinking Investments Will Build the Future of Digital Government

Jeremy M. Goldberg, Nextgov

To succeed, governments must create long-term integrated plans that encompass enterprise architecture, funding and policy support.

Why Too Many Government Modernization Efforts Fail

Nina Kern, Government Executive

Technology “solutions” almost never address the organizational issues critical to success.

Customer Experience

How to Use Analytics Data and Smart Experiments to Optimize Agency Services

Piotr Korzeniowski and Ben Rometsch

Those searching for more ways to improve citizens’ digital experiences should look toward setting up experiments and a testing culture to optimize results over time.

Performance and Management

Ten Years On, How Has the Federal Performance System Performed?

Donald Moynihan, Government Executive

An early skeptic finds there’s evidence for optimism, and much the Biden administration can build on.

Current crises call for effective management. Here’s how agencies can cultivate that

Federal News Network

The Biden Administration took office amid a compounding series of crises, and only effective emergency management is going to help successfully navigate them. One guiding way to think about prioritization is the “punctuated equilibrium theory.”

Open Data and Analytics

Why Biden’s Embrace of Evidence in Policymaking Is Just What We Need Right Now

Andrew Feldman and Jed Herrmann, Government Executive

A new presidential memo signals commitment from the very top to the use of data and science at a time when the country is confronted by major crises, two experts say.

Open source: An efficient way to handle data

John Gilroy, Federal TechTalk, Federal News Network

Data is in constant change. Given this fact, how does a federal professional assure that real-time information is provided for key decision-makers?

When Data-Driven Decision-Making is a Mandate

Kevn McCaney, GovLoop

Agencies have shown enthusiasm for achieving the Evidence Act’s goals, though mixed with some uncertainty.

Performance and Management

Biden’s Opportunity to Make Performance Reporting Work a Lot Better

Andrew Feldman and Kathy Stack, Government Executive

The White House should go beyond simply reversing what the previous administration did and use data to improve outcomes through true results-driven governance.

It’s ‘Back to the Future’ to Improve Agency Management Practices

John Kamensky, Government Executive

Given the shift in workplace dynamics driven by the pandemic, creating a new bottom-up initiative with a focus on quality management may be what’s needed now.

OMB memo lays out agency performance metric challenges for Biden administration

Jory Heckman, Federal News Network

A last-minute memo from the Trump administration created some uncertainty about performance information in the budget process when OMB removed key guidance from its A-11 Circular. In the final week of the Trump administration, however, OMB issued a second memo, clarifying that agencies should still measure and track program performance data as required by GPRA.

Open Data and Analytics

Treasury’s fiscal data site growing by leaps and bounds

Dave Nyczepir, FedScoop

The Treasury’s one-stop shop for data about federal finances has added six datasets since its launch last summer, with plans for a couple more additions in the next few months.

The Role AI Plays in Safeguarding Government Data

Seth Cutler, NextGov

Government agencies need to pivot to better filter and monitor incoming threats and data with velocity, efficiency and optimization.

Can better data improve federal hiring?

Natalie Alms, FCW

Alternative hiring assessments show promise for improving the yield of successful applicants from federal job postings.

Why Federal Information Governance Is a Team Sport

Lynsey Jensen, Nextgov

The federal government needs to ensure that trust in federal data stewardship is always maintained.

Customer Service

Can government fix vaccine distribution screwup?

Tom Temin, Federal News Network

The hope produced by success of the vaccine tests quickly turned sour as millions scramble to actually obtain shots. You might say the vaccine rollout has been the ultimate customer experience failure.