This actually looks like a good idea to me:
Most big organizations rely on performance metrics to tell whether they’re being productive or not. I like the idea of having the government do that too. Although I suppose it could result in yet another layer of bureaucracy, I kind of doubt it. The whole idea here is to make government more responsive and to eliminate bottlenecks in the same way that large corporations do: develop metrics to measure performance, streamline processes, and find and eliminate (or reduce) inefficiencies. I commend the Obama folks for this very good idea; let’s hope it makes a difference.
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I dunno. Was it Milton Friedman that said (in paraphrase) : "I am thankful I do not get all the government I pay for?"
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What would that have to do with creating an office and position whose sole purpose is to develop performance metrics and measure how well various government agencies are actually performing?
But isn’t that what the GAO is for?
BWAHAHAHAHA! Laughably naive. The federal government is a huge and lumbering bureaucratic beast and no one can overcome its inertia enough to do any more than deflect it slightly. (I work for a federal agency, btw. In 19 years through three administrations, NOTHING has reversed the ever-increasing inefficiency of this place.)
(Is anyone else disturbed that he thinks that "taxpayers" and "ordinary Americans" are two different groups?)
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If there is a product, this makes sense, otherwise what is the basis for "how well" the agencies are doing, what are the metrics for testing how well the agency is doing? Is the National Science Foundation going to get judged on how many scientific breakthroughs occur? Is the FDA going to get positive marks based on the number of people that don’t get sick from contaminated food? Who is going to take the hit when some foreign product causes an injury?
And yes, the Office of Budget and Management (not actually GAO but right concept) implements the President’s "Management Agenda,"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/results/ which requires metrics from organizations. If the program deals with tangibles, it works pretty well (not sure why we need a new beauracracy) if there are specific tangibles,if the organization does not deliver a product then not so well. Â
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The Department of Energy has/had one program element with responsiblity to shepherd nuclear engineering education in the U.S, which was on a crash & burn trend for about 20 years. The program stoked nuclear engineering education for a few years, and when the trend was reversed DOE cut all funds from 3/4 of the associated programs. This included gradute and undergraduate student support (now gone),  research into optimizing nuclear energy (now gone), research into nuclear safety (now gone). The universities graduate programs are affected pretty dramatically, with increased enrollments and decreased research programs.Â
The National Labs are similary affected with infusion into research that dead ends because the “objective” of the research has been met. Unless the research is very specifically aimed at some kind of product that can generate support for more work, it just dies. “If we knew what was going to happen, we wouldn’t call it research,” — A. Einstein.
Presumably there is some penalty if the metrics are not met, but I don’t know what.
1. Get office.
2. Say, "GAO already does this."
3. Fire self.
Result: Waste and duplicated work reduced. Success!
I must say that I like the idea in principle. We’ll have to see how it actually gets implemented in the end, of course, but having a cabinet-level position focused on performance efficiency is at least something worth trying.
Also, for those of you who mentioned the GAO, that is a Congressional agency, and therefore not under the purview of the president. The president has historically relied on the OMB and the Inspector Generals (IG) for this service. If the Performance Officer can properly leverage the IGs without adding additional bureaucracy, this could work well.
You can create performance metrics for anything. Believe me, anything. And no, it does not have to be "tangible."
The question is whether the metrics are useful. That’s often tricky and requires real expertise.
Certainly you can make metrics for anything, measuring them on the other hand can be rather difficult.
And how long do you think it will be before many of these metrics are used to create more bureaucracies (The metrics for X need to be met, create a committee!), silence critics (I’m sorry, you failed to meet metric X. What, metric X was impossible to meet, and why only your organization needed to meet it? Sorry, you do not have sufficient clearance for that Citizen.*), and similar abuses. If you think it will not be used in that manner, you are being very naive.
(* Yes, that was a Paranoia reference. Just run it a few times and you get to realize just how easy it is to abuse things like metrics.)
The GAO reports to the Comptroller General, who is appointed by the President. All the GAO reports go to Congress and the President (by statute.) In other words, he has added a duplicate position whose primary difference seems to be that it is purely a political appointment that serves at the whim of the President (as opposed to the Comptroller General, who can only be removed by impeachment and therefore isn’t as beholden to the President or Congress.)
BAWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA!!!
No, wait, you actually think it is possible for any government position to be created without "additional bureaucracy?"Â Seriously?
BUWAHAAHAAHAHAHAAAAA!!
CPO without the 3PO: a performer who does the toodle-do when Obama needs to deflect blame from himself. That’s the only prospective CPO function not duplicated in otherwise existing agencies.
What is good for Obama is not necessarily good for America. He does the "good for Obama" part very, very well. I don’t think that will change much.
We need a national ombudsman corps operating under the umbrella of the USDOJ. But Obama won’t do that.
We need a nationwide federal ombudsman corps which reviews grievances against government employee conduct which enjoys immediate access to controlling legal authority on behalf of the aggrieved citizen. But Obama won’t do that either.
I had hoped Obama would have something special. Sadly, he’s proving to be a first-class Post Turtle. We think he’s conducting a grand symphony of policy and leadership, but it’s just turtle legs waving in the wind.
The world of the non-profit organization is a world of titles and proclamations, and lots of posing and pointing. We now have the first POTUS drawn from the unproductive presiding elite who run the "goody-goody" swamp ever awash with other peoples money.
America is not just another university, ministry, food bank or faculty committee.
This job’s for real. That turtle shell is gonna come in mighty handy.Â
I see several problems with the effectiveness of such a role in government. First, government is not a business. It does not operate under the same constraints and is clearly not held accountable for the bottom line as its shareholders have been successfully divided and diverted by the political process.Â
Second, government is inherently political, even more so than a corporation. Since the individual legislators and presidents are beholden to their electorate, they are more interested in seeking reelection than actually doing much good for the country as a whole. Nowhere is this more evident than in Congress, a body that this CPO has no influence over.
Third, as the position is appointed by a politician, it best serves that politician’s concept of "performance". Yes, performance can be measured, but the standard of measurement will change from administration to administration or even as frequently as the political wind. I’m much more interested in facts that are measured with a rigid standard that does not change depending on who is in office.
All in all, it sounds like a neat idea, but the position largely exists already in the OMB and CBO. I’m really trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt; but his sounds naive at best. What is really needed is a good method of disseminating the data produced by these offices and others in a way that the real CPO, the People, can use to make executive decisions when they enter the voting booth.
Keith: Most government employees are not politicians, so most of what you said there about that is wrong.
Plus, anyone who’s been part of any big corporation knows that politics is every bit as rife there, and shareholders rarely have the kind of transparency or the power you imagine them to have.
The officers in charge of a corporation answer to the shareholders ultimately, although it can take a long time before they do. The officers in charge of government face re-election regularly and answer to the voters. The difference is nowhere near as dramatic as you suggest.
Dean,
My point is that government agencies are funded by a political body that is elected and reelected by the voters in a system which heavily favors the incumbent. This same body has the power to levy taxes on it’s customers, effectively naming the price that it sells its services for which it has a monopoly.Â
It’s not the agencies that should be watched; they blow money just so they can get the same amount or more next year. It’s only Congress and the President that we can do anything about. Is it any wonder that regardless of a President’s political ideologies, they tend more to the center while those in Congress can play at the fringes?Â
The President answers to a national electorate and therefore is more interested in pleasing everyone. Not so with Congress. They can play to special interests and continue to be reelected because those same interests contribute to their campaigns each cycle. That’s a problem. And since the heads of most of the bureaucracies you mentioned are in fact appointed an approved, I believe these are politicized institutions more so than other organizations like corporations.
I agree that the officers of a corporation answer to their shareholders and that it can take time; I never said there were no politics in corporations. But those same officers, and the corporation itself, answer to their customers as well. Customers are free to choose an alternative. That’s not true with government other than through elections which, as I’ve mentioned, favor incumbents. Again, making available more information about how tax monies are raised and spent *might* help Americans make more informed decisions. The MSM won’t do it because they’ll sell more ads stoking the fire. Alas, even if it was more available, I think many Americans just don’t care to know.
I have more cynicism about corporate culture and the power of shareholders than you do, obviously.
Perhaps, Dean. I certainly have a lot of cynicism for politicians and government.
Well, Ms. Killefer was given a big responsibility by President Obama. This would really test her because she has a big role in repairing the economical trouble that we are now facing. Nancy Killefer won’t be looking at payday loans for a while. Ms. Killefer has just been named as the Chief Performance Executive for President Elect Barack Obama‘s Executive team. Many just may wonder what a Chief Performance Officer is, as only a few corporations keep one on staff. A Chief Performance Executive makes sure that the services or products that a company offers performs up to standards, like payday loans, and the Obama administration will need all the help it can get. She has most likely been picked to ensure that the measures that President Obama oversees to revamp the nation’s sluggish economy do what they are intended to do, as in get the American economy out of the recession, and get America back on track. One of his first plans is a stimulus that will get payday loans to the American people. To find out a bit more click <a title="READ Executive Payday Loans for Nancy Killefer" rev="vote-for" href="http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/01/07/executive-payday-loans-for-nancy-killefer/">payday loans</a> to find out just what her office will be about.
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