Why We Need Program Evaluation
Program evaluation involves a systematic collection of information about the activities, characteristics, and outcomes of programs. It is used for the purpose of making judgments about the program, improving program effectiveness and/or making informed recommendations regarding future program implementation. There are five main reasons why government officials should official evaluation programs, click here to find out.

Government Performance Conference 2008
For the past ten years, federal leaders have gathered to explore the latest mandates and best practices in performance management initiatives at the annual Government Performance Summit. The Summit is led by speakers from the upper echelons of the Executive and Legislative branches who will discuss leading government as it transitions to the next management agenda. Featured speakers at The 10th Annual Government Performance Summit include Clay Johnson, Robert Burton, and Karen Evans along with many other experts in government management. For a complete listing of speakers, please visit www.GovernmentPerformance.org. Read the press release here.

Increasing Performance through Strategic Planning Excellence
Strategic planning is a transformative leadership process that engages staff, stakeholders and citizens in identifying a common vision for where a community or an organization wants to be in the future. It also represents the values that will guide the journey, the strategies to drive the accomplishment of the vision and the identification of the measurements that will be used to evaluate its success. Mike Abels, the city manager for Deland, Fl recently led a strategic planning session and shared some of his insights on how to get the most from the process. To view his presentation, please click here.

Environmental Performance Summit
Recently, The Performance Institute held the 2007 Environmental Performance Summit in Arlington, VA. This three day event featured best practices and the latest innovations in Environmental Performance Management.

Project Management for Results Training
Recently The Performance Institute held a Project Management training in Arlington, VA. This 5 day training touched on vital facets in the world of the project management, in particular the work breakdown structure and earned value management (EVM).

Customer Service Excellence
Russ Jensen, Director of 311 for Knoxville, TN, addressed attendees and discussed the five keys for effective customer service, how to build and implement a 311 call center and tips for creating a service culture in your department. Read Russ’ Five Tips for Effective Customer Service.

E-Government Self Evaluation: Ask Yourself These Questions
Government agencies at all levels are adopting e-gov techniques in order to improve customer service and government responsiveness to citizens. Modern technology enables governments to move many services online, cutting costs and response times. However, sound e-gov management requires an evaluation of your government’s web portal in order to ensure that it is serving customers as effectively as possible. Craig T. Fifer, e-gov Administrator in Alexandria, Virginia and a presenter at the recent “City and County Citizen Services” conference at The Performance Institute, recently shared a series of questions that a government should ask itself about its e-gov system in order to optimize performance.

Putting Customers First: Making Government More Citizen-Centered
Last month’s “City and County Citizen Services” conference at The Performance Institute examined the latest trends and innovation in customer service for local government. Providing more open and responsive government is becoming increasingly important for governments as technological advances and private sector improvements raise the bar for satisfactory customer service.

A Closer Look at Results Based Management
Results Based Management applies a life-cycle approach to daily management used to achieve long term results and fulfill company goals. It improves communication and promotes a culture moving towards growth though trial and error. A new learning approach is adapted when using this management method that can enhance performance and lend a hand to obtaining a performance measurement system.

Transitions in Governance on the Radio and Google
Jon Desenberg, a senior consultant at the Performance Institute and the Project Director of the Transitions in Governance project, recently sat down for an interview on Federal News Radio to discuss the state of Transitions in Governance and where it is headed in the near future.

Iowa Answers the Process Improvement Challenge!
The recent Lean Six Sigma for Government Conference was an opportunity for government managers from across the country to present their strategies for process improvement to reduce waste and inefficiency.

Kniker Gives PART advice at Government Performance Summit
At this year’s Ninth Annual Government Performance Summit, Ted Kniker of the Federal Consulting Group delivered a presentation on managing the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) reviews. Federal programs and agencies must undergo PART reviews each year in order to measure program efficiency and effectiveness.

Putting Citizen Service First

In this modern age of service on demand, members of the public expect government customer service to be on par with the services offered by private companies. Cities and counties across the country are utilizing performance management techniques to improve the quality and reliability of their services in order meet the growing public demand. Bellevue, Washington's recently released Annual Performance Report is an example of what can be achieved when a government embraces innovative, performance-based strategies for improving the services they offer to citizens.

Bellevue’s Annual Performance Report describes the goals of the city's performance management system and the importance of citizen-feedback and service level measurement. The report is a comprehensive view of the quality and reliability of the city’s service efforts and, as the summary explains, these performance measurement and management techniques "allow Bellevue to make informed allocation decisions and assess program operations."

Taking government customer service to the next level first requires determining the current state of existent services. Like Bellevue, cities and counties all over the country are using performance measurement and reporting to ensure that government services are meeting the needs of citizens.

Read the Bellevue, Washington’s Annual Performance Report here.

A Message Worth Saving
Record and performance management tools used to be difficult to sift though, The following article discuses how selecting these technology solutions is becoming easier. “Now, archiving players — notably storage, records management and security giants with solutions that relegate messages to separate, searchable file stores — sometimes add server monitoring functionality. Smaller system performance management providers are further blurring the lines with lighter-weight archiving capabilities. Their tools monitor the health and capacity of e-mail servers.”

Managerial Cost Accounting Practices: Department of Agriculture and the Department of Housing and Urban Development
The following GAO report analyzes how federal departments are complying with managerial cost accounting standards. The report looks at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and finds that the two departments have certain issues with managerial cost accounting. According to the report, “The departments generally had not developed policies on the development and use of cost information, were not promoting the benefits of identifying the cost of performance, and were not monitoring implementation in the components.”

Senate Passes Bill Creating Federal Spending Database
The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act recently passed the Senate. The Act calls for OMB to create a searchable database of all federal spending. The bill finally made it to the Senate floor even though holds were placed by both Senator Stevens and Byrd. Both Senators cited needing more time to review the bill as the reason for placing the holds. Please click the following link to read the entire story.

Q&A Session: Senator Tom Coburn’s Government Waste Reporting Website
The following Q&A session briefly outlines Senator Coburn’s website for reporting government waste and fraud. The website was launched in April, 2006 and should provide greater federal government transparency and accountability to the taxpayer.

Watchdog, Lawmakers Eye Better Information Flow
OpenTheGovernment.org Director Patrice McDermott, recently told a House Government Reform subcommittee that all federal agencies were not appropriately complying with FOIA standards. McDermott specifically criticized the Justice Department and White House Office of Management and Budget. "There is no enforcement mechanism provided and no repercussions for ignoring these requirements," she said in written testimony. The Performance Institute urges all federal departments to comply with FOIA standards when processing public information requests. Read the following article for more information.

Red Carpet Treatment
The following article details the work done by the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index. The customer satisfaction index is responsible for conducting regular surveys on how US citizens feel about the quality of federal government customer services. The latest survey shed some light on the fact that the public actually views federal government customer service quality about the same as private sector service. The Performance Institute urges all federal departments and agencies to review the University of Michigan’s study in order to improve customer service throughout the federal government.

Senate Approves Measures to Improve Defense Accountability
The Senate recently approved several amendments to the 2007 Defense appropriations bill. The first amendment passed 96-0 to improve Defense reporting of improper payments. Another amendment proposed to post all mandates from the defense appropriations bill online. The proposal is aimed at improving Defense transparency. The amendment did leave the Defense secretary with power to redact any mandates that would threaten national security. Read the following article for more information.

Delivery Performance Standards, Measurement, and Reporting Need Improvement
The Performance Institute supports the US Postal Service’s efforts to improve transparency and accountability through better measures and standards. According to a recent GAO report, “USPS does not measure and report its delivery performance for most types of mail. Therefore, transparency with regard to its overall performance in timely mail delivery is limited.” The US Postal Service plans to update standards though in order to measure delivery performance and improve accountability. To read more on the report, click the following link.

Sustained Leadership Is Critical Effective Financial and Business Management Transformation
The Performance Institute would like to highlight the following GAO report on the Department of Defense’s attempts at improving performance and financial management. The report offered suggestions to the Department of Defense for improving its financial management and business transformation processes. The following report highlights the issue areas that the DOD needs to address in order to experience an overall organizational improvement. GAO advises that the DOD implement a comprehensive business transformation plan as well as create a chief management officer to oversee all aspects of growth and improvement. Read the following report for more information.

Accountability the key goal of the Subcommittee’s work
In the following article, the Subcommittee on Financial Management, Government Information and International Security outlines six guideline principles for accountability in government. Transparency, results, competition, priority setting, responsiveness and spending discipline are the principles described on the subcommittee’s website. The site mentions that “accountability means that an agency or program measurably achieves the mission it was created to achieve, in a cost-effective, efficient, and open manner.”

Financial Accountability and the Government: Approaching A-123 with an Open Mind
Twenty-three years after the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act, the federal government is finally in the spotlight for submitting timely, accurate, and useful financial information in accordance with new internal control requirements of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB’s) Revised Circular A-123.
Click here to read press release.

HUD's Team Effort
In its Vision 2010 document released in February, the Housing and Urban Development Department laid out its modernization strategy around its core lines of business. To get there in about four years, the department will rely on portfolio and project management-the basic tenets of any large system modernization effort-according to CIO Lisa Schlosser.