As performance management has evolved, it has encompassed many different tools and approaches including measurement, data analysis, evidence-based management, process improvement, research and evaluation. In the past, many of the efforts to improve performance in government have been fragmented, separated into silos and labeled with a variety of different names including performance-based budgeting, performance-informed management, managing for results and so on. Making Government Work: The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management by Katherine Barrett and Rich Greene is loaded with dozens of stories of what practitioners are currently working on-what's working and what's not. The benefits are ample, so are the challenges. This book describes both, along with practical steps taken by practitioners to make government work better. Readers will discover that while the authors strive to meet the documentation standards of carefully vetted academic papers, the approach they take is journalistic. Over the last year, Barrett and Greene talked to scores of state and local officials, as well as academics and other national experts to find out how performance management tools and approaches have changed, and what is coming in the near-term future. Performance management has been in a state of evolution for decades now, and so Barrett and Greene have endeavored to capture the state of the world as it is today. By detailing both the challenges and conquests of performance management in Making Government Work: The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management, Barrett and Greene insure readers will find the kind of balanced information that is helpful to both academics and practitioners-and that can move the field forward.

About the Author
Described by Peter Harkness, founder of Governing magazine, as "by far the most experienced journalists in the country covering public performance," Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene are special project consultants to the Volcker Alliance, senior fellows with the Council of State Governments, senior fellows at the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania, external advisors at the Government Finance Research Center, and fellows in the National Academy of Public Administration. They founded the Government Performance Project, which was funded for more than a decade by The Pew Charitable Trusts and which evaluated performance measurement and other management systems in all 50 states, on a biannual basis, as well as in cities and counties on several occasions. In addition, Richard Greene has been named chair of The Center for Accountability and Performance at the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). They are also management columnists and write occasional major features for Governing magazine. They are senior fellows at the Governing Institute.


Book Information
ISBN 9781538125670
Author Katherine Barrett
Format Hardback
Page Count 190
Imprint Rowman & Littlefield
Publisher Rowman & Littlefield
Weight(grams) 463g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 161mm * 17mm