Effective implementation of performance management: where to start and what to do: integrating performance management into existing business processes allows organizations to realize the full benefit of performance management--but doing so is not a simple task.

• Author: Mucha, Michael J.
• Position: [PM.sup.2] CONNECTIONS PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT & MANAGEMENT

Many public-sector organizations track performance measures to record operational data on departments, programs, and services. That information is then collected, formatted, and reported on Web sites, as part of the budget, or in dedicated performance reports. Many governments have been successful in their efforts to report performance information to the public, often with the assistance of benchmarking programs such as the Florida Benchmarking Consortium, the North Carolina Benchmarking Project, and the ICMA Center for Performance Management, which can help in identifying a base set of measures for comparing similar governments. Other organizations such as the Association of Government Accountants provide guidance on preparing "citizen centric reports." In addition, the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) has developed criteria as part of its Distinguished Budget Presentation Award Program that identify how performance information should be communicated in the budget. However, ongoing surveys conducted by the GFOA indicate that the majority of governments still aim to improve existing performance measurement efforts, and most do not feel that their performance information is used effectively for making decisions and fostering learning and improvement within in the organization.

This disconnect represents the difference between performance measurement and reporting and performance management. For many organizations, measuring performance requires departments to do some additional work identifying and collecting measures, and the budget or finance staff, often, to do some additional work coordinating and assembling the information. For the most part, performance measurement and reporting efforts are done in addition to existing business as an "add-on" activity. On the other hand, implementing performance management requires a cultural change in the organization. Integrating performance management into existing business processes allows organizations to realize the full benefit of performance management--but doing so is not a simple task. Changing the culture of an organization to focus on performance data usually takes both effective leadership and time, along with a carefully planned process for implementing these changes. The following six-step plan, based on ongoing GFOA performance management research, will help governments implement performance management effectively, allowing them to transform their business processes and...