“What does the future of government performance and results look like? A decade ago, prior to becoming associate director of performance and personnel management at the White House Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration, Shelley Metzenbaum laid out a set of guiding principles for improving federal performance management. Among those principles was to communicate trends and targets—not just target attainment and ratings—and encourage performance improvement with increased analysis, discussion, and knowledge sharing…”
“Driving Performance Within VBA
The Veterans Benefits Administration, an operational unit within the Department of Veterans Affairs, takes it a step further than any other agency by posting weekly updates on key performance indicators and hosting a quarterly webcast detailing its performance progress.
Interestingly, none of these statutory requirements directly affect VBA, because the requirements are focused at the department level. Yet VBA has adopted the key tenets of these laws internally as guideposts and taken the next steps to build a performance-driven culture from within…”
“Lessons for Other Agencies
Could other agencies adopt this approach? Certainly. As I noted back in February, would his approach be worth making it a routine practice across the government? Would there be an audience interested in knowing what is going on at the National Institutes for Health? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission? The Patent and Trademark Office? The Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control operations? My guess is that this approach works best in operational agencies that deliver services rather than policy or regulatory agencies, but I could be underestimating the value for these kinds of agencies…” Read the full article here.
Source: Viewpoint: Look to VA to See the Future of Government Performance and Results – By John Kamensky, July 29, 2019. Government Executive.
