Fiscal Year 2025: Are We Happy Yet?

But President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2025 proposed budget also contains a section regarding progress made over the past year in improving how government works for Americans. And next steps.

Government Performance Resolutions Announced for the New Year

Refreshed Agency Priority Goals. By law, large federal agencies designate a small subset of their ongoing initiatives as “priority goals” with a commitment to make specific levels of progress over a two-year period. Some agencies commit to joint goals. For example, the Departments of Agriculture and Commerce have jointly committed to a goal of ensuring all Americans have access to the internet by funding projects that connect 6,250,000 households to reliable, high-speed, affordable internet service.

Measuring Organizational Health: The Backstory

There has long been a desire to be able to identify and encourage the development of agencies that are “high performing,” that demonstrate “performance excellence,” or “quality management,” and more. The OMB guidance memo describes this as Measuring, Monitoring, and Improving Organizational Health and Organizational Performance in the context of the evolving post-pandemic workplace.

It’s Time for a Health Check Up!

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Note: This column was first published in Government Executive and is republished here with its permission. A related backstory behind the development of the OMB memo can be found here.

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Agencies Really Are Missing an Opportunity by Downplaying Performance Information

Shelley Metzenbaum’s recent article for Government Executive, “A Missed Opportunity,” highlights a conundrum facing government improvement geeks for nearly three decades. She laments that federal agencies’ quarterly performance updates for their priority goals “deserve more attention.” She says this lack of attention is a “missed opportunity” to engage the allies and advocates for these priority goals, help agencies learn how to improve and inform

A Quick Take on the President’s Management Priorities

When President Biden’s fiscal 2023 budget request was released in late March, media headlines focused on agency spending levels and new initiatives proposed. But there is another set of stories surrounding the budget release that tends to get less attention. 

It’s Time for That Customer Thing Again – Only Bigger and Better!

The Biden Administration has announced a new “Customer Experience and Service Delivery” initiative, promising some pretty specific and measurable actions, not just high-minded rhetoric.  For example, it includes 36 customer experience commitments across 17 federal agencies focused on “the moments that matter most in people’s lives” such as retiring, travelling, and paying for college.

Can We Restore Trust in Government – One Customer at a Time?

No wonder a recent survey of business CEOs believe restoring public trust needs to be at the top of the national agenda.

Reinventing the Grant System to Be More Outcome-Focused

Grants expert Jeff Myers, and several of his colleagues, recently wrote in Government Executive:

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Emeritus Senior Fellow
IBM Center for The Business of Government

Mr. Kamensky is an Emeritus Senior Fellow with the IBM Center for The Business of Government and was an Associate Partner with IBM's Global Business Services.

During 24 years of public service, he had a significant role in helping pioneer the federal government's performance and results orientation. Mr. Kamensky is passionate about helping transform government to be more results-oriented, performance-based, customer-driven, and collaborative in nature.

Prior to joining the IBM Center, he served for eight years as deputy director of Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Before that, he worked at the Government Accountability Office where he played a key role in the development and passage of the Government Performance and Results Act.

Since joining the IBM Center, he has co-edited six books and writes and speaks extensively on performance management and government reform.  Current areas of emphasis include transparency, collaboration, and citizen engagement.  He also blogs about management challenges in government.

Mr. Kamensky is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and received a Masters in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, in Austin, Texas.