Budget Provides Some More Details on the Chief Performance Officer
President Obama's budget has some more details--however slight--on the Chief Performance Officer's office and how it will work. Apparently:
Put Performance first. The President is creating a focused team within the White House that will work with agency leaders and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to improve results and outcomes for Federal Government programs while eliminating waste and inefficiency. This unit will be composed of top-performing and highly-trained Government professionals and will be headed by a new Chief Performance Officer (CPO). The CPO will work with Federal agencies to set tough performance targets and hold managers responsible for progress. The President will meet regularly with cabinet officers to review the progress their agencies are making toward meeting performance improvement targets.
I think there's a lot that's promising and interesting here. It would be amazing if assignments to work with the Chief Performance Officer functioned like a detail that drew from lots of different agencies, and became a real incentive to compete for. If the jobs were structured like that, they could lend a lot of prestige to people who are working on management, performance measurement, and human resources issues.
I don't know yet what "[setting] tough performance targets and [holding] managers responsible for progress," will look like, and I don't know that anyone does. But it sounds like Obama plans a flexible framework that can be adapted to agencies' needs.
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Government Executive Staff Correspondent Alyssa Rosenberg takes a look at news affecting the management and operations of the massive federal bureaucracy.
The CPO is already OBE, thanks to OMB, CBO and the GAO. GPRA, PART and CSM are DOA, kilt by the AFGE, NTEU, and Congress via 010 Omibus. We will get what we are now going to pay for - more, much more, of the same. Whats the promise of old fashioned sham studies conducted to justify pre-determined results? Performance targets are either unachievable or arbitrary quotas unless competitively bid.
Adam Posted Thursday, February 26, 2009 2:22 PMI believe any performance targets must be tied to specific budget levels as a starting point. Secondly, there are a number of federal organizations (IGs as example) that need to be an integral part of this process. Thirdly, only some of the staff should be pulled as detailees--some of staff should be permanent.
Former U.S. Civil Servant Posted Friday, February 27, 2009 12:24 PMWall Street set tough performance and held people accountable, yet they sold investment junk and their firm's imploded.
Politics suffers from the same hapless leadership. Greed and leverage killed investing. Big money and heady power killed politics.
I wonder how many people will invest again.
Tough targets and holding people accountable is balderdash. More sound management theory is available, but the blind lead the blind in Washington, D.C. and occupy plush board room chairs.
Alan Posted Saturday, February 28, 2009 4:00 PMWe do need Performance Officer, it's about a time. There needs to be clearly defined roles, rules of the game and the system has to be well coordinated for this to work.
David Dzidzikashvili Posted Thursday, May 7, 2009 5:29 PM