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Government performance metrics must be carefully tailored to measure agencies' specific responsibilities, said participants in a Center for American Progress forum on Friday.

"In those places in the federal government where the government is interfacing with the government, transparency is critical," said Elaine Kamarck, a public policy lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "The biggest expenditure in the federal government is on military stuff. That is not something that is easily made transparent. Even if it was transparency, it is not easily understandable."

John Koskinen, the interim chief executive officer at Freddie Mac, said that during his tenure as deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration, one of the biggest challenges was identifying precisely what agencies were responsible for, and figuring out the best way to evaluate them on those outcomes. For example, he said, it does not make sense to evaluate federal education programs based on the performance of initiatives that federal agencies do not administer. Instead, Kamarck said, it was important to measure how agencies delivered funding to state and local governments, and then to evaluate those other levels of government on how they administered the programs that received the money.

Kamarck said the public understood, and frequently was pleased with, processes that the federal government controls, such as processing Social Security applications and issuing checks. But because citizens don't understand most of the government's functions, performance metrics might not be helpful in changing the public's sometimes negative attitude toward government. Instead, she said, some metrics should focus on the specifics of complicated tasks like procurement, and not be aimed at earning public trust.

Nancy Killefer, President Obama's first choice to fill the post of chief performance officer and now a senior director at the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., said as government examines how it measures performance, agencies might do well to consider whether their existing relationships with state and local governments, and with contractors, serve them well. A good example of a realignment of those relationships that produced better performance, she said, was the Homeland Security Department's creation of its regional fusion centers, which helped build relationships among state, local and federal officials, and facilitated information-sharing on possible terrorist threats.

But more broadly, the federal government needs to improve how it explains productivity to its employees and its customers, Killefer said.

"To many people, it's synonymous with job reductions," Killefer said. "In order to meet those demands, this government -- as well as governments across the world -- is going to have to improve its capability to deliver more with the same level of resources. That's productivity: How do you streamline what you do?"