Written by Trevor Rudolph

The Ninth Annual Government Performance Summit provided federal government employees with an opportunity to receive high level policy briefings from federal government executives over a three day period. The conference keynotes included US Comptroller, David M. Walker and Secretary of Labor, Elaine Chao. Presenters were able to impart their wisdom and latest best practices in the fields of performance management, human capital management and program management.

Comptroller Walker’s keynote address was followed by the conference’s “Leading Performance at All Levels of Government” leadership panel. Panelists included OMB’s Deputy Director for Management, Clay Johnson, Department of Labor’s Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management Pat Pizzella and Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Assistant Secretary of Administration, Keith Nelson.

Each of the three panelists presented on the latest performance achievements in their fields. Clay Johnson spoke of the need for better defined goals and accountability in order to improve the efficiency of federal programs. Mr. Johnson urged federal managers to create extremely specific goals and make these goals transparent to the taxpayer for ultimate accountability.

Pat Pizzella and Keith Nelson spoke of the performance achievements within their own departments. At the Department of Labor, Pizzella illustrated the importance of the Management Review Board and the Strategic Planning Working Group. Both groups review the performance achievements of the Department of Labor and work to improve their results as they relate to the President’s Management Agenda and the Program Assessment Rating Tool. Members of these two working groups help ensure that Labor consistently achieves Green on the PMA scorecard.

Keith Nelson’s message was primarily focused on the human resources efforts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD, like many federal departments is dealing with the large percentage of federal employees that will be eligible to retire in the coming years. HUD is actively implementing succession planning strategies, engaging employees with improved training services and using pay for performance to help provide better incentives for federal employees.

The Performance Institute, located in Arlington, VA., is a private, non-partisan think tank seeking to improve government performance through the principles of competition, accountability performance, and transparency. PI serves as the nation’s leading authority and repository on performance based management practices for government. The mission of the Institute is to identify, study, and disseminate the leading management innovations pioneered by “best in class” organizations.