ASPA Center for Accountability & Performance

Reclaiming the Gift of Performance Measurement

LinkedIn (Njeri Faith)

This article brings out the deeply human roots of performance measurement -long before KPIs and dashboards. It reminds us that measurement began with instinct and learning, not judgment. [Editor’s Note: a bit of marketing, but this is a beautiful essay!]

Using Data & AI to Make Cities More Efficient & Effective

RouteFifty (Commentary)

If the public sector wants to operate at peak performance, it must harness its data and deploy it across all its functions. Cities across the world are showing what is possible.

What Is “Efficiency?”

Barrett & Greene (Commentary)

“Efficiency” that is centered only around cost savings, without consideration of effectiveness, doesn’t lead to “more and better” service, especially within public agencies.

Pivotal Role of AI in Performance Management

BetterWorks

Managers, tasked with balancing performance evaluations alongside their own responsibilities, frequently struggle to deliver high-impact feedback and guidance. These challenges highlight a pressing need for innovation — and artificial intelligence (AI) in performance management is stepping in to fill the gap.

Performance Budgeting Initiatives and Evidence Use in Public Budgeting

Journal of Educational and Social Research

 This article by Dr. Marsida Ismaili focuses on public budgeting decision-making in Western Balkans countries and on performance-based budgeting initiatives they have undertaken, for an informed and democratic decision-making process.

Harry Hatry’s Contribution to Performance Measurement: A Review of 55 Years of His Work

Japanese Journal of Evaluation Studies

Professor Hiraki Tanaka, a Japanese performance management specialist, has written an article highlighting the contributions of Harry Hatry to the field of Performance Management during his 55 years of writing, research, and consulting. Dr. Tanaka’s review of Dr. Hatry’s work summaries six enduring themes that characterizes his pioneering contributions to the field.

Does Performance Change Budget?

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting, & Financial Management (ElaineYi Lu, Robert Hines, Katherine Willoughby)

How performance informs budgeting and budgets is contentious and unclear. By reviewing media articles over a 20-year period, and the budget trends of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, this research demonstrates that performance information, and media attention to it, leads to meaningful, if not immediate, budgetary change.

Capturing Performance Opportunities in State and Local Governments

McKinsey Co., blog

State and local governments in the United States often face a host of funding and workforce challenges, but taking six actions can boost operating performance.

The Hidden Cost of Performance Management

Public Performance & Management Review (Suho Ji et al)

Performance management can have unintended dysfunctional consequences. When faced with performance appraisals, organizations often reduce their efforts on unmeasured performance dimensions, a phenomenon known as effort substitution. Adopting a behavioral perspective, we propose that an organization’s past performance shapes its current behaviors, including dysfunctional ones.

Using AI to Transform Fraud Prevention in State Government

RouteFifty

Modern, AI-powered grants management systems, tailored to meet the unique needs of state agencies, offer a powerful combination of fraud prevention, process automation, and data-driven oversight—helping states protect taxpayer dollars while maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of grant programs.

“Death” of Performance History

Barrett & Greene

As time passes, we’ve become increasingly aware that many of the leaders in state and local government come up with ideas they think are brand new, without digging into the files, or talking to people who preceded them, to see whether their notions are really new or just a retread of something that’s been tried before.

How Does Performance Budgeting Affect Use of Performance Information?

International Review of Administrative Sciences (Malul Azam and Geert Bouckaert)

Studies on performance-based budgeting (PBB) suggest that, despite sustained reform efforts, stakeholders continue to make only limited use of performance information (PI) in budgetary decision-making. This case study of Indonesia indicates that PBB reforms have moderately strengthened the use of PI in the budgeting process, more so for control and learning purposes than for accountability.

Roadmap for Agile Evidence Building

Government Executive

 The current model of federal evidence building is outdated. It’s too slow for today’s policy environment, too expensive to justify in a time of fiscal restraint and too removed from the real-time decisions that drive public impact. But the answer is not to abandon evaluation. Rather, we must embrace a new model—one that is faster, cheaper and purpose-built for action. This new model is “agile evidence building.”

Trump’s War on Measurement

ProPublica

The federal government collects, organizes, and shares data that undergird decision-making at all levels of government and informs judgements of business leaders, school administrators, and medical providers nationwide. However the survival of these data is in doubt because of the Department of Government Efficiency’s comprehensive assault on the federal bureaucracy.

Resource of the Week:  Futures, Foresight and Horizon Scanning Toolkit

UK Cabinet Office

This Toolkit helps you develop policies and strategies that are robust in the face of an uncertain future. It updates and builds on a version published in 2017 by the UK Cabinet Office. It includes a bank of case studies and resources with facilitator guides and templates for running workshops.

AI, Bureaucratic Discretion, and Accountability

PATimes (Josemaria Salazar)

Accountability that was once reserved for public institutions and officials is now grounded in algorithmic decision-making. Who audits the code? Who ensures that marginalized populations are not unfairly denied services by predictive systems? Most critically, who is accountable when AI fails?

UsingAI to Develop Evidence-Based Policy in New Jersey

The GovLab

A Working Group was tasked with understanding how artificial intelligence will shape the future of work. The challenge was significant: how to rapidly analyze vast amounts of evidence about AI’s impact on work while ensuring recommendations reflected the real needs and concerns of New Jersey’s workers.

Congressional Speeches Less Evidence-Based

StudyFinds

For decades, evidence-based reasoning has been losing ground in the halls of Congress, making way for a more intuition-driven approach to political discourse. According to a new international study, U.S. congressional speeches have undergone a profound linguistic transformation since the mid-1970s, with lawmakers increasingly abandoning factual arguments in favor of gut feelings and personal beliefs.

Developing Strategic Foresight Skills to Navigate Uncertainty – Podcast (56:00 min.)

IBM Center for The Business of Government 

Donna Dupont discusses how strategic foresight can sharpen decision-making when stakes are high, the common barriers that prevent government organizations from adopting a foresight-driven approach to preparedness, and the true resiliency for a government organization.  

Resource of the Week:  County Evidence-Based Budgeting Guide

Results for America

This resource is designed to help county leaders invest in proven policy solutions and ensure that taxpayer dollars deliver results that people can count on. The Guide details five action steps that county officials can take to deliver results for residents.