How does Program Performance Assessment Affect Program Management in the Federal Government?

The term program performance has taken on a new priority and focuses the attention on what programs deliver. Changing management culture to promote the use of program data when making changes to improve program design and delivery or to reallocate resources is recognized as a challenging reform goal. Managerial decision making is certainly affected by many factors. Ongoing communication and fruitful dialogue among program managers, evaluators, and oversight officials on what performance data demonstrate about the viability and success of programs enhance management in government. Learning how to use performance measurement effectively to promote collective learning will evolve slowly and probably not in every public policy arena. In a fragmented service delivery system involving many players, efforts to improve communication and coordination are clearly beneficial, and conceptual learning is a very likely outcome.