TOPICS
TOPICS
Obama performance agenda takes shape
Identifying and tackling some of the most urgent performance goals are at the top of the Obama administration's management agenda, a senior official with the Office of Management and Budget said on Monday.
Dustin Brown, OMB deputy assistant director for management, said the full management and performance agenda will come together during the next few months, but the administration already has begun identifying performance goals and working on various initiatives, including hiring reform, employee satisfaction and wellness, transparency, and contracting reform. OMB is working with agencies now on these issues, Brown said. He spoke at Government Executive's Excellence in Government conference in Washington.
OMB Director Peter R. Orszag directed agency heads in a June 11 memo to identify a limited number of high-priority goals and begin developing strategies to address them.
The administration likely will face many challenges in carrying out its management and performance agenda, said panel participants at Monday's conference. Nancy Killefer, who runs the global public sector practice at McKinsey & Co., and the former Obama nominee to be chief performance officer, said the administration must have a clear idea of the environment in which it's operating. Killefer said OMB and agencies should take stock of how they are performing currently, and define their challenges and goals.
"You've got to start with those in place before you can even set out to have a set of priorities that make sense and resonate with your organization," she said.
Robert Shea, director of Grant Thornton LLP's global public sector and a former senior OMB official for performance, said the systems now used to gain a fact-based understanding of the performance landscape are not mature enough.
"We will never get to an ideal state; what we do is very complicated," Shea said. "We'll never be able to measure reduction in processing of [Veterans Affairs] claims the same way you do curing cancer, which is really the diversity of things we're trying to track."
Brown agreed that having data is important to performance, but said measuring alone doesn't improve programs.
"Just weighing the pig doesn't make it fatter," Brown said. "I think we've done a lot of measuring and reporting up until now and we'll continue to do that and it's important, but just doing that in and of itself, and that process, is not going to change the dial. We need to take that next step going forward."
Shea said one of OMB's primary challenges will be ensuring that it is genuinely focused on helping agencies achieve their performance goals, rather than imposing goals on them from above.
"You've got a hurdle to overcome as far as gaining trust that this isn't a political exercise," Shea told Brown.
OMB already has met with at least a dozen agencies to discuss the development of their performance priorities, Brown said. They are most excited about advancing interagency performance goals, he said.
In addition to prioritizing goals, the administration wants to ensure that top leadership is invested in performance improvement initiatives, and that agencies employ best practices and evidence-based strategies, Brown said. After those three elements are in place, "it's the relentless attention ... that's really going to make those things happen."
COMMENTS
- Effective measurement systems and their deployment are not as simple as OMB makes it sound. To date the measurement system for a very straightforward metric - how many jobs have been created from stimulus spending - is not clearly defined or implemented. It will be even more complicated to take on measurement systems across the federal government. At 12.5% of the way through this administration I would suggest the OMB is way behind. When you add that much of the world will be focused on re-election beginning early in 2012 the pace may be much slower in reality. Ron Wince Posted July 21, 2009 10:31 PM
- Where-o-where is the HISTORICAL comparison test of any kind of NEW performance measures. Yo, yo, yo McKinsey dudes can we get a time-line on how LONG it will take to brief, explain and otherwise implement the new improved OMB performance measures down to say the 3rd from the top management level. Why a timeline? – oh I bet all blog readers know—for newcomers, here’s why: because it will take at least 4 years, and likely 8 years for the new OMB-Obama performance measures to be thoroughly inculcated into the working bureaucracy – just like all past new systems, replacing their predecessors, in the Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter , Ford, Nixon, etc. Administrations. Where I did I put my Zero Based Budgeting notebook, and my Management by Objectives coffee mug? Yo, program analysis fans raise your hand if you daily read Dilbert for laughs and profound wisdom; all others report pronto to lower Manhattan, your corner office at Bain, Booze and McKinsey awaits and your partnership papers are ready for signing. But, to strike a positive note: herein revealed, the SECRET to any management performance system in the federal bureaucracy: the key elements are: selection of the lead coach, and measurement that errs more on simplicity than complication (Joe the country newspaper editor gets it, lower level bureaucrats can use it, Hill staffers can’t avoid it), is SUBORDINATE to all statutorily required systems with easily understood outcomes, i.e. easily measured major change that trumps narrow partisan politics, e.g. closing down a major military base, a major benefit, a long standing wasteful process by a major contractor and employer. Modest success the expectation and the final measure. Too simplistic? O.k. sophisticates: here’s an analogues test: How long would rabid Redskins fans and veteran DC sportswriters stand polite as a prospective coach blathered on about his NEW system to reach the Super bowl, how long before he earned a tidal wave of tart questions on his past record, team history, talent limits, and salary caps? This analogy too naïve, too abstruse, too irrelevant? Well, you win sophisticates, please proceed forthwith for your seating in the owner’s skybox – sweet anointing of insider arrival— but, yo dude, stay clear of the Vegas line, prudence before courage amigo. Just makin’ bacon in ole DC. Plus ca change. Concerned Retiree Posted July 21, 2009 6:15 PM
- One of the fundamental problems with performance improvement is execution of goals. Planning and strategy have never been the issue. The real issue comes down to performing a comprehensive gap analysis of current state and future state, and then doing the analysis on how to get there. Exacerbating the issue is the stove-piped approach to performance objectives and metrics that need to be fully integrated across government, and I am glad to see OMB is moving away from an agency-specific model to a holistic, fully integrated model. Goals and objectives can only be met when corrective actions are taken when faced with data that illustrates when they have not been achieved. The current paperwork drill for benchmarks, scorecards, etc. will need to be eliminated in favor of a model where accountability is tied into achieving the goals and objectives that are being measured against the strategic plan. This is where leadership will be vital, and arguably the most challenging aspect of the performance improvement initiative; creating a culture of accountability. Jaime Gracia Posted July 21, 2009 5:24 PM
PROMO RIGHT: GBC
Advancing the business of government through analysis, insight and the sharing of best practices.
SPONSORED RESEARCH
Achieving a Greener Federal Government IBM
Federal Cybersecurity: Securing the Nation's Information IBM
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: New Requirements for Tracking and Reporting Federal Workforce Data Kronos
Managing the Stimulus: A Candid Survey of Federal Program Managers Accenture and Microsoft
Improving Collaboration and Productivity in 21st Century Government: The Role of Communication for Government Executives Cisco
