gg96118.txt

United States General Accounting Office
Comptroller General of the United States
GAO

June 1996
Executive Guide



Effectively Implementing the Government Performance and Results
Act

G AO


years

1921 - 1996




Preface
In recent years, an understanding has emerged that the federal
government needs to be run in a more businesslike manner than in
the past. As companies are accountable to shareholders, the federal
government is accountable to taxpayers, and taxpayers are demanding
as never before that the dollars they invest in their government be
managed and spent responsibly.
As countless studies by GAO have long noted, federal agencies
often fail to appropriately manage their finances, identify clearly
what they intend to accomplish, or get the job done effectively and
with a minimum of waste. After decades of seeing these problems
recur in agency after agency, Congress moved to address this
endemic situation on a governmentwide basis. Major statutes now in
their first years of implementation hold substantial promise for
creating a more accountable and effective federal government.
The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990 provided for
chief financial officer positions in 24 major agencies and required
annual reports on the financial condition of government entities
and the status of management controls. Under the CFO Act, federal
agencies will be subject to the same kinds of financial reporting
that have long been required in the private sector and by state and
local governments.
The Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996
requires, among other things, that agencies set goals, measure
performance, and report on progress in improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of operations through the use of information
technology.
And, most fundamentally, under the Government Performance and
Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), every major federal agency must now ask
itself some basic questions: What is our mission? What are our
goals and how will we achieve them? How can we measure our
performance? How will we use that information to make improvements?
GPRA forces a shift in the focus of federal agencies-away from such
traditional concerns as staffing and activity levels and toward a
single overriding issue: results. GPRA requires agencies to set
goals, measure performance, and report on their
accomplishments.
This will not be an easy transition, nor will it be quick. And
for some agencies, GPRA will be difficult to apply. But GPRA has
the potential for adding greatly to government performance-a
particularly vital goal at a time when resources are limited and
public demands are high. To help
Page 1 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results Act
Congress and federal managers put GPRA into effect, we have
identified key steps that agencies need to take toward its
implementation, along with a set of practices that can help make
that implementation a success. We learned of these practices from
organizations that successfully have taken initiatives similar to
the ones required by the act. Several federal agencies that have
already put these practices to use are represented in the case
illustrations that are part of this guide.
This guide is a companion to our Executive Guide: Improving
Mission
Performance Through Strategic Information Management and
Technology, which outlined a number of information management
approaches that federal agencies can take to improve their overall
performance. Improving the management of federal agencies will
require responsible actions in several areas at once. Success will
demand concerted effort and long-term commitment, but the returns
should be considerable. And American taxpayers deserve no less for
their investment.

Charles A. Bowsher Comptroller General of the United States
Contents

Preface

6

Introduction


Page 4 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results Act

Abbreviations



Introduction

A Changing Environment Demands Federal Management Reform
Over the past several years, Congress has taken steps to
fundamentally change the way federal agencies go about their work.
Congress took these steps in response to management problems so
common among federal agencies that they demanded governmentwide
solutions. In addition, two contemporary forces converged to spur
congressional action: year-in, year-out budget deficits that had to
be brought down and a public now demanding not only that federal
agencies do their jobs more effectively, but that they do so with
fewer people and at lower cost.
This was-and remains-an enormous challenge. For one thing, many
of the largest federal agencies find themselves encumbered with
structures and processes rooted in the past, aimed at the demands
of earlier times, and designed before modern information and
communications technology came into being. These agencies are
poorly positioned to meet the demands of the 1990s.1 Moreover, many
of these agencies find themselves without a clear understanding of
who they are or where they are headed. Over the years, as new
social or economic problems emerged, Congress assigned many
agencies new and unanticipated program responsibilities. These
additions may have made sense when they were made, but their
cumulative effect has been to create a government in which many
agencies cannot say just what business they are in.
In some cases, agencies' legislative mandates have grown so
muddled that Congress, the executive branch, and other agency
stakeholders and customers cannot agree on program goals,
worthwhile strategies, or appropriate measures of success. Our work
has shown that the effectiveness of federal program areas as
diverse as employment assistance and training, rural development,
early childhood development, and food safety has been plagued by
fragmented or overlapping efforts.2 A frequently cited example of
overlap and ineffectiveness is the federal food safety system,
which took shape under as many as 35 laws and was administered by
12 different agencies yet had not effectively protected the public
from major foodborne illnesses.3
Traditionally, federal agencies have used the amount of money
directed toward their programs, or the level of staff deployed, or
even the number of tasks completed as some of the measures of their
performance. But at a
1Improving Government: Need to Reexamine Organization and
Performance (GAO/T-GGD-93-9,
Mar. 11, 1993). 2Government Reorganization: Issues and
Principles (GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-166, May 17, 1995).
3Food Safety: A Unified, Risk-Based Safety System Needed to
Enhance Food Safety
(GAO/T-RCED-94-71, Nov. 4, 1993).


Legislative Requirements Support Managing for Results
time when the value of many federal programs is undergoing
intense public scrutiny, an agency that reports only these measures
has not answered the defining question of whether these programs
have produced real results. Today's environment is
results-oriented. Congress, the executive branch, and the public
are beginning to hold agencies accountable less for inputs and
outputs than for outcomes, by which is meant the results of
government programs as measured by the differences they make, for
example, in the economy or program participants' lives. A federal
employment training program can report on the number of
participants. That number is an output. Or it can report on the
changes in the real wages of its graduates. That number is an
outcome. The difference between the two measures is the key to
understanding government performance in a results-oriented
environment.
Congress' determination to make agencies accountable for their
performance lay at the heart of two landmark reforms of the 1990s:
the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990 and the Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). With these two laws,
Congress imposed on federal agencies a new and more businesslike
framework for management and accountability. In addition, GPRA
created requirements for agencies to generate the information
congressional and executive branch decisionmakers need in
considering measures to improve government performance and reduce
costs.
The CFO Act was designed to remedy decades of serious neglect in
federal financial management operations and reporting. It provided
for chief financial officers in the 24 largest federal departments
and agencies, which together account for about 98 percent of the
government's gross budget authority. In 1994, Congress followed up
on the CFO Act with the Government Management Reform Act of 1994.
The latter extended to all 24 CFO Act agencies the requirement,
beginning with fiscal year 1996, to prepare and have audited
financial statements for their entire operations.
While the CFO Act established the foundation for improving
management and financial accountability among the agencies, GPRA is
aimed more directly at improving their program performance. GPRA
requires first that agencies consult with Congress and other
stakeholders to clearly define their missions. It requires that
they establish long-term strategic goals, as well as annual goals
that are linked to them. They must then measure their performance
against the goals they have set and report publicly on how
Page 7 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results Act


Experiences of Leading Organizations Show a Way
well they are doing.4 Federal agencies also are to apply these
principles-goal setting, performance measurement, and reporting-to
their information technology efforts, under the Information
Technology Management Reform Act of 1996. For example, agencies are
to establish performance measures to gauge how well their
information technology supports their program efforts.
At the request of Congress, we studied a number of leading
public sector organizations that were successfully pursuing
management reform initiatives and becoming more results-oriented.5
We studied state governments, such as Florida, Oregon, Minnesota,
North Carolina, Texas, and Virginia; and foreign governments, such
as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Many of
these organizations found themselves in an environment similar to
the one confronting federal managers today-one in which they were
called upon to improve performance while simultaneously reducing
costs. Congress asked whether the experiences of these
organizations could yield worthwhile lessons for federal agencies
as they attempt to implement GPRA.
Each of the organizations we studied set its agenda for
management reform according to its own environment, needs, and
capabilities. Yet despite their differing approaches to reform, all
these organizations were seeking to become more result-oriented,
and they commonly took three key steps. These were to (1) define
clear missions and desired outcomes,
(2) measure performance to gauge progress, and (3) use
performanceinformation as a basis for decisionmaking. Although the
organizations we studied were not acting under GPRA, their three
key steps were consistent with GPRA's requirements. That is, the
first step-define mission and desired outcomes-corresponds to the
requirement in GPRA for federal agencies to develop strategic plans
containing mission statements and outcome-related strategic goals;
the second step-measure performance-corresponds to the GPRA
requirement for federal agencies to develop annual performance
plans with annual performance goals and indicators to measure
performance; and the third step-use performance
4For a more detailed description of GPRA's requirements, see
appendix I. 5See, for example, Transforming the Civil Service:
Building the Workforce of The Future, Results Of A
GAO-Sponsored Symposium (GAO/GGD-96-35, Dec. 26, 1995); Managing
for Results: Experiences Abroad Suggest Insights for Federal
Management Reform (GAO/GGD-95-120, May 2, 1995); Managing
For Results: State Experiences Provide Insights for Federal
Management Reforms (GAO/GGD-95-22,
Dec. 21, 1994); Government Reform: Goal-Setting and Performance
(GAO/AIMD/GGD-95-130R, Mar. 27,
1995); Executive Guide: Improving Mission Performance Through
Strategic Information Management
and Technology (GAO/AIMD-94-115, May 1994). Also see our reports
and testimonies included as footnotes and the Related GAO Products
section of this guide.
Page 8 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results Act
information-although much broader, includes the requirement in
GPRA for federal agencies to prepare annual performance reports
with information on the extent to which the agency has met its
annual performance goals.
Along with each step, certain practices proved especially
important to the success of their efforts. In addition to these
steps, these organizations also found that certain top leadership
practices were central to making the changes needed for the
organizations to become more results-oriented.
Taken together, the key steps and practices drawn from the
organizations we studied provide a useful framework for federal
agencies working to implement GPRA. The key steps and practices are
shown in figure 1.

In this executive guide, we discuss the three key steps and
their relationship to GPRA, along with the practices associated
with each step.6 In the final section of this executive guide, we
discuss the role of top leadership and the practices it can follow
if it hopes to make GPRA a driving force in an organization.
Accompanying the discussion of each practice is a case illustration
involving a federal agency that has made progress in incorporating
the practice into its operations. The fact that an organization is
profiled for a particular practice is not meant to imply success or
lack of success in other dimensions. Moreover, underscoring the
fact that implementing management changes required by GPRA will not
come quickly, most of the agencies profiled began their
results-oriented management before GPRA was enacted.
The experiences of leading organizations suggest that the
successful implementation of GPRA may be as difficult as it is
important. For example, obtaining agreement among often competing
stakeholders is never easy, particularly in an environment where
available resources are declining. In addition, measuring the
federal contribution to outcomes that require the coordinated
effort of numerous public and private entities-such as improvements
in education, employment, or health-can require sophisticated and
costly program evaluations.
To help ensure the success of GPRA, the CFO Council, which the
CFO Act created to provide the leadership foundation necessary to
effectively carry out the Chief Financial Officers'
responsibilities, established a GPRA Implementation Committee. The
Committee is providing guidance and information to Chief Financial
Officers and managers in the 24 agencies covered by the CFO Act.
The Committee recognized that uncertainty or fear of failure may
immobilize an agency's efforts to implement GPRA and that its
implementation is evolutionary in that proficiency comes with time
and experience. To assist federal managers, the Committee published
guiding principles and key issues for implementing GPRA.7 Our guide
is intended to complement the Committee's work in assisting
managers as they implement GPRA. Our work has shown that although
the steps and practices discussed in this guide don't come quickly
or easily, they can serve as the fundamental building blocks to
creating a results-oriented organization.
6For a detailed discussion of our objectives, scope, and
methodology, see appendix II.
7Implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act
(GPRA), A Report on the Chief Financial Officer's Role and Other
Issues Critical to the Governmentwide Success of GPRA, Chief
Financial Officers Council, GPRA Implementation Committee, May
1995.

GPRA requires that federal agencies, no later than September 30,
1997, develop strategic plans covering a period of at least 5 years
and submit them to Congress and the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB). OMB provided guidance on the preparation and submission of
strategic plans as a new part of its Circular No. A-11-the basic
instructions for preparing the President's Budget-to underscore the
essential link between GPRA and the budget process. OMB required
agencies to submit major parts of their strategic plans by June 7,
1996.
Strategic plans are intended to be the starting point for each
agency's performance measurement efforts. Each plan must include a
comprehensive mission statement based on the agency's statutory
requirements, a set of outcome-related strategic goals, and a
description of how the agency intends to achieve these goals. The
mission statement brings the agency into focus. It explains why the
agency exists, tells what it does, and describes how it does it.
The strategic goals that follow are an outgrowth of this clearly
stated mission. The strategic goals explain the purposes of the
agency's programs and the results they are intended to achieve.
In crafting GPRA, Congress recognized that federal agencies do
not exist in a vacuum. As agencies develop their mission statements
and establish their strategic goals, they are required by the act
to consult with both Congress and their other stakeholders.
Further, agencies must be alert to the environment in which they
operate; in their strategic plans, they are required to identify
the external factors that could affect their ability to accomplish
what they set out to do.
We found that leading results-oriented organizations
consistently strive to ensure that their day-to-day activities
support their organizational missions and move them closer to
accomplishing their strategic goals. In practice, these
organizations see the production of a strategic plan-that is, a
particular document issued on a particular day-as one of the least
important parts of the planning process. This is because they
believe strategic planning is not a static or occasional event. It
is, instead, a dynamic and inclusive process. If done well,
strategic planning is continuous and provides the basis for
everything the organization does each day.
For strategic planning to have this sort of impact, three
practices appear to be critical. Organizations must (1) involve
their stakeholders; (2) assess their internal and external
environments; and (3) align their activities, core processes, and
resources to support mission-related outcomes.
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Practice 1: Involve Stakeholders
Successful organizations we studied based their strategic
planning, to a large extent, on the interests and expectations of
their stakeholders. These organizations recognize that stakeholders
will have a lot to say in determining whether their programs
succeed or fail. Among the stakeholders of federal agencies are
Congress and the administration, state and local governments,
third-party service providers, interest groups, agency employees,
and, of course, the American public.
In the federal government, stakeholder involvement is
particularly important as federal agencies face a complex political
environment in which legislative mandates are often ambiguous.
Thus, the basic questions that must be answered in crafting a
mission statement-what is our purpose, what products and services
must we deliver to meet that purpose, and how will that be
done-will present a significant challenge for many agencies. While
statutory requirements are to be the starting point for agency
mission statements, Congress, the executive branch, and other
interested parties may all disagree strongly about a given agency's
mission and goals. GPRA seeks to address such situations by
requiring agencies to consult with Congress and other stakeholders
to clarify their missions and reach agreement on their goals. Full
agreement among stakeholders on all aspects of an agency's efforts
is relatively uncommon because stakeholders' interests can differ
often and significantly.
Still, stakeholder involvement is important to help agencies
ensure that their efforts and resources are targeted at the highest
priorities. Just as important, involving stakeholders in strategic
planning efforts can help create a basic understanding among the
stakeholders of the competing demands that confront most agencies,
the limited resources available to them, and how those demands and
resources require careful and continuous balancing. Because of its
power to create and fund programs, the involvement of Congress is
indispensable to defining each agency's mission and establishing
its goals.8 This may entail identifying legislative changes that
are needed to clarify or modify Congress' intent and expectations
or to address differing conditions and citizens' needs that have
occurred since the initial statutory requirements were established.
Congressional consultations also may include additional guidance on
Congress' priorities in those frequent cases where agencies have
more than one statutory mission.
8Managing for Results: Achieving GPRA's Objectives Requires
Strong Congressional Role
(GAO/T-GGD-96-79, Mar. 6, 1996).


Case Illustration: Environmental Protection Agency
Involving customers is important as well. An agency's customers
are the individuals or organizations that are served by its
programs. This is not to say that contact between a federal agency
and its customers is always direct. Many federally mandated or
federally funded services are dispensed through third parties, such
as state agencies, banks, or medical insurance providers. In such
cases, federal agencies face the particularly challenging task of
balancing the needs of customers, service providers, and other
stakeholders, who at times may have differing or even competing
goals.
In our reviews of successful results-oriented organizations, we
found numerous examples of organizations that achieved positive
results by involving customers and other stakeholders in defining
their missions and desired outcomes.9 Oregon, for one, developed
consensus on its statewide strategic plan by bringing together such
diverse stakeholders as legislators, state agency officials, county
and local government officials, and community group
representatives. The Minnesota Trade Office, for another, used
surveys to obtain its stakeholders' views on the degree to which
the office was contributing to its customers' export activities. On
the basis of the data it obtained, the Trade Office made program
changes and improved both its performance and its
responsiveness.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established in
1970 under a presidential reorganization plan in response to public
concerns over unhealthy air, polluted rivers, unsafe drinking
water, and haphazard waste disposal. Congress gave EPA
responsibility for implementing federal environmental laws. From
the start, however, EPA lacked an overarching legislative mission,
and its environmental responsibilities have yet to be integrated
with one another. As a result, EPA could not ensure that it was
directing its efforts toward the environmental problems that were
of greatest concern to citizens or posed the greatest risk to the
health of the population or the environment itself. Therefore, EPA
decided in 1992 to launch the National Environmental Goals Project,
a long-range planning initiative under which it would involve its
stakeholders in developing measurable goals for EPA to pursue in
improving the quality of the nation's environment.
EPA designed its National Environmental Goals Project to produce
a set of long-range environmental goals, including milestones to be
achieved by 2005. The agency recognized that while environmental
goals should be
9GAO/GGD-95-22, Dec. 21, 1994.


Practice 2: Assess the Environment
grounded in science and factual analysis, they should be based,
as well, on the needs and expectations of the nation's citizens. In
1994, EPA initiated a series of nine public meetings to hear their
views. The meetings were held around the country and included
environmental organizations, businesses, state and local
governments, tribal governments, and other stakeholders. To provide
a basis for discussion, EPA drafted and distributed to participants
a set of goal statements and descriptive information on the 13
broad environmental goal areas that its staff considered to be of
the greatest national importance.
EPA used the information it received at these public meetings to
revise and better define these goals. For example, the agency added
milestones for managing and cleaning up radioactive waste,
restoring contaminated sites to productive use, and slowing habitat
losses. Further, it added the goal of improving its dissemination
of environmental information and its other education efforts. EPA
found that its stakeholders' interests included how EPA does its
core processes-for example, the amount of flexibility it can offer
to the regulated community. EPA recognized these stakeholder
interests in a summary report of its revised goals that it sent to
Congress and its other stakeholders in February 1995.
EPA continued to involve stakeholders in the National
Environmental Goals Project by soliciting comments on the summary
report. Many of EPA's stakeholders are businesses or other
regulated entities that wanted the agency to address such matters
as the procedural costs of environmental regulations. EPA responded
with a discussion of the overall costs and benefits of controlling
pollution. At its stakeholders' request, it provided trend data and
laid out strategies for achieving its environmental milestones. EPA
recognizes that involving stakeholders is an ongoing effort that
needs to be continued. The proposed goals are to be sent again to
federal, state, local, and tribal government stakeholders for
another round of review later this year, and plans are being made
for public review.
Good managers have understood for a long time that many
forces-both inside and outside their organizations-can influence
their ability to achieve their goals. But even managers who try to
stay alert to these forces often gather their information
anecdotally or informally. In contrast, the successful
organizations we studied monitor their internal and external
environments continuously and systematically. Organizations that do
this have shown an ability to anticipate future challenges and to
make


Case Illustration: United States Customs Service
adjustments so that potential problems do not become crises.10
By building environmental assessment into the strategic planning
process, they are able to stay focused on their long-term goals
even as they make changes in the way they intend to achieve
them.
Both the external and internal environments are important, and
neither can be viewed independently of the other. Assessing the
external environment is particularly important, in part because so
many external forces that fall beyond an organization's influence
can powerfully affect its chances for success. For organizations
both public and private, external forces can include newly emerging
economic, social, and technological trends and new statutory,
regulatory, and judicial requirements. An organization's internal
forces include its culture, its management practices, and its
business processes. Today, federal agencies find that monitoring
these internal forces is especially important, given the effects of
funding reductions and reorganizations. The tools available to
organizations assessing the internal environment include program
evaluations, employee surveys, independent audits, and reviews of
business processes.
The missions of the Customs Service-the oldest federal
agency-are to ensure that goods and persons entering and exiting
the United States comply with all U.S. laws and regulations, while
also facilitating the legitimate movement of goods and persons
through U.S. ports. But long-standing management problems,
including weaknesses in strategic planning, had threatened the
agency's ability to adapt to changing demands. Customs' strategic
planning efforts now focus on the dramatic changes occurring in its
external and internal environments and on the equally dramatic
changes the agency will need to make in response.
Recognizing that the international trade environment has
undergone many changes in recent years, the Customs Service
identified the new challenges these changes brought it in its 1993
strategic plan. The clearest challenge for Customs would be to
manage a workload that was growing rapidly and that could not be
expected to taper off. From fiscal year 1986 to 1995, for example,
total import entries increased by 242 percent, from 11.1 million to
38.0 million. During the same period, passenger arrivals increased
by 42 percent, from 304 million to 431 million. Customs anticipated
that world trade would also continue to accelerate. During 1995
alone, approximately
10For a discussion of environmental monitoring as a critical
aspect of strategic thinking, see Henry Mintzberg, The Fall and
Rise of Strategic Planning (New York: Free Press and Prentice Hall
International, 1994).
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Practice 3: Align Activities, Core Processes, and
Resources
$761 billion in merchandise was imported into the United States.
For the rest of the decade, Customs expects that figure to grow by
more than 10 percent each year.
Customs anticipated that trade issues would assume greater
prominence in the coming years as developing countries continue to
industrialize, corporations continue to expand internationally, and
trade barriers continue to fall. Further, the proliferation of
international trade agreements, such as the U.S.-Canada Free Trade
Agreement of 1989, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, should lead to further
increases in trade and travel volume.
Internally, Customs anticipated that as public pressures to
reduce the federal deficit continued, no real growth would occur in
the agency's funding. Customs also anticipated attrition among its
staff and a loss of valuable expertise due to that attrition. It
determined that by 1998 about 10 percent, or about 2,000 employees,
would be eligible to retire.
All of these forces-external and internal-have caused the
Customs Service to begin to reengineer its core processes,
including those related to the movement of people and cargo into
the United States and the movement of cargo out of the United
States. For example, the agency is undertaking a major
reorganization structured from the ground up, using its 301 ports
as its foundation. While headquarters staffing is to be
streamlined, the staffing levels at the ports are to be maintained
or increased. Under the reorganization, port directors are to be
given some of the authority previously exercised at the district or
regional levels.
It is too soon to tell how effective Customs' reorganization
will be in responding to the pressures it faces. But by assessing
its external and internal environments, the agency came to see that
its traditional ways of pursuing its mission were no longer viable
and that major changes would be needed.
Leading organizations recognize that sound planning is not
enough to ensure their success. An organization's activities, core
processes, and resources must be aligned to support its mission and
help it achieve its goals. Such organizations start by assessing
the extent to which their programs and activities contribute to
meeting their mission and desired outcomes. As the organizations
became more results-oriented, they often
Page 18 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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found it necessary to fundamentally alter activities and
programs so that they more effectively and efficiently produced the
services to meet customers' needs and stakeholders' interests. For
example, we have traced the management problems of many federal
agencies to organizational structures that are obsolete and
inadequate to modern demands.11 As federal agencies become more
outcome-oriented, they will find that outmoded organizational
structures must be changed to better meet customer needs and
address the interests of stakeholders.
As agencies align their activities to support mission-related
goals, they should also make better linkages between levels of
funding and their anticipated results. Under a series of
initiatives called Connecting Resources to Results, OMB is seeking
to adopt a greater focus on agencies' goals and performance in
making funding decisions. For example, OMB fiscal year 1996 budget
preparation guidance said agencies were to identify key features of
their streamlining plans (e.g., increased span of control, reduced
organizational layers, and/or milestones for full-time equivalents)
and encouraged agencies to include performance goals and indicators
in their budget justifications.12 Whereas the agencies' fiscal year
1995 documents discussed streamlining primarily in terms of the
number of positions to be eliminated, the fiscal year 1996 budget
documents included discussions about how proposed staff reductions
could affect the agencies' performance. Under OMB's guidance,
agencies' fiscal year 1997 budget requests were to contain a
significantly greater amount of performance information to help
define funding levels and projected program results. For the fiscal
year 1998 budget, OMB plans to continue to increase the role of
performance goals and information in guiding funding decisions.
We also have found that leading organizations strive to ensure
that their core processes efficiently and effectively support
mission-related outcomes. These organizations rely increasingly on
a well-defined mission to form the foundation for the key business
systems and processes they use to ensure the successful outcome of
their operations. For example, many successful public and private
organizations integrate their human resource management activities
into their organizational missions, rather than treating them as an
isolated support function.13 This sort of integrated approach may
include tying individual performance management, career
11Government Management Issues (GAO/OCG-93-3TR, Dec. 1992).
12Office of Management and Budget: Changes Resulting From the OMB
2000 Reorganization
(GAO/GGD/AIMD-96-50, Dec. 29, 1995). 13GAO/GGD-96-35, Dec. 26,
1995.
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Case Illustration: Federal Emergency Management Agency
development programs, and pay and promotion standards to
organizational mission, vision, and culture.
Information management is another activity that organizations
must address in aligning their activities and processes.14 Modern
information management approaches, coupled with new information
technology, can make success more or less likely-depending on the
way they are handled. We found that successful organizations pursue
something called strategic information management-that is,
comprehensive management of information and information technology
to maximize improvements in mission performance. Strategic
information management will be an important part of any federal
agency's attempt to implement GPRA successfully. Managing better
requires that agencies have, and rely upon, sound financial and
program information. Strategic information management would lead to
systems that would better provide federal agencies the data they
need in considering ways to realign their processes, reduce costs,
improve program effectiveness, and ensure consistent results with a
less bureaucratic organization. Lacking these data, the agencies
would be missing one of the indispensable ingredients of successful
management.
Established in 1979, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) is responsible for the coordination of civil emergency
planning and mitigation as well as the coordination of federal
disaster relief. FEMA is responsible for responding to floods,
hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. Hurricane
Hugo and the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 generated intense
criticism of the federal response effort. Hurricane Andrew, which
leveled much of South Florida in 1992, raised further doubts as to
whether FEMA was capable of responding to disasters. In 1993,
FEMA's new Director refocused the agency on meeting its mission and
aligning its activities to better serve the public.
Since FEMA issued its mission statement in April 1993, it has
been reexamining its approach to limiting deaths and property
losses from disasters. Traditionally, FEMA had concentrated its
efforts on post-disaster assistance. But after taking a hard look
at its performance, FEMA concluded that it could better fulfill its
mission by addressing the range of activities available before,
during, and after disaster strikes.
14GAO/AIMD-94-115, May 1994.
As part of its first agencywide strategic planning effort, FEMA
comprehensively reviewed its programs and structures and initiated
a major reorganization in November 1993. FEMA concluded that all
emergencies share certain common traits, pose some common demands,
and ought to be approached functionally. FEMA's new, "all-hazard"
mission takes a multifaceted, sequential approach to managing
disasters: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.
FEMA now focuses its disaster planning and response processes on
steps that need to be taken, not just during and after the event,
but in advance. To build preparedness, FEMA now seeks to build
partnerships with other federal, state, and local organizations.
For example, the agency is working with local governments and the
building industry to strengthen building codes so that structures
will be better able to withstand disasters. It has also launched an
effort to increase the number of flood insurance
policyholders-something that had not been a traditional focus of
the agency but that is now understood as being critical to helping
individuals recover from disasters. By more closely aligning its
activities, processes, and resources with its mission, FEMA appears
today to be better positioned to accomplish that mission.

The second key step that successful results-oriented
organizations we studied take-after defining their missions and
desired outcomes-is to measure their performance. Measuring
performance allows these organizations to track the progress they
are making toward their goals and gives managers crucial
information on which to base their organizational and management
decisions. Leading organizations recognize, as well, that
performance measures can create powerful incentives to influence
organizational and individual behavior.
GPRA incorporates performance measurement as one of its most
important features. Under the act, executive branch agencies are
required to develop annual performance plans that use performance
measurement to reinforce the connection between the long-term
strategic goals outlined in their strategic plans and the
day-to-day activities of their managers and staff. The annual
performance plans are to include performance goals for an agency's
program activities as listed in the budget, a summary of the
necessary resources to conduct these activities, the performance
indicators that will be used to measure performance, and a
discussion of how the performance information will be verified. For
the first time, GPRA requires that agencies' annual program
performance planning efforts be linked directly to their budget
estimates and obligations. This linkage is achieved by requiring
performance goals and measures for agencies' program activities
that are included in their budget requests. Congress recognized
that the activity structure in the budget of the United States
government is not consistent across various programs. As a result,
Congress expects agencies to consolidate, aggregate, or
disaggregate the lists of program activities appearing in the
budget accounts.
The first of these annual performance plans is to cover fiscal
year 1999; each agency is to submit its plan to OMB in the fall of
1997. However, OMB is requiring descriptions of the proposed
performance goals and indicators for fiscal year 1999 with the
agency's fiscal year 1998 budget request.
In developing GPRA, Congress recognized that federal
agencies-unaccustomed as they are to the practice-may find that
developing performance measures is a difficult and time-consuming
task. As a result, it provided for selected agencies and programs
to pilot GPRA's goal-setting and performance measurement
requirements before these are applied governmentwide. Our work with
leading results-oriented organizations confirmed that many agencies
may need years to develop a sound set of performance measures.
Page 23 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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Practice 4: Produce a Set of Performance Measures at Each
Organizational Level That Demonstrate Results, Are Limited to the
Vital Few, Respond to Multiple Priorities, and Link to Responsible
Programs
We learned, as well, that agencies that were successful in
measuring their performance generally had applied two practices.
First, they developed performance measures based on four
characteristics. These measures were (1) tied to program goals and
demonstrated the degree to which the desired results were achieved,
(2) limited to a vital few that were considered essential for
producing data for decisionmaking, (3) responsive to multiple
priorities, and (4) responsibility-linked to establish
accountability for results. Second, recognizing that they must
balance their ideal performance measurement systems against
real-world considerations, such as the cost and effort involved in
gathering and analyzing data, the organizations we studied made
sure that the data they did collect were sufficiently complete,
accurate, and consistent to be useful in decisionmaking.
As the leading organizations we studied strive to align their
activities and resources to achieve mission-related goals, they
also seek to establish clear hierarchies of performance goals and
measures. Under these hierarchies, the organizations try to link
the goals and performance measures for each organizational level to
successive levels and ultimately to the organization's strategic
goals. They have recognized that without clear, hierarchically
linked performance measures, managers and staff throughout the
organization will lack straightforward roadmaps showing how their
daily activities can contribute to attaining organizationwide
strategic goals and mission. Federal agencies that are developing
such hierarchies for their organizations are finding that
organizationwide performance measurement efforts take time and
require the active involvement of staff at all organizational
levels.
The experiences of leading state, foreign, and federal
governments show that at least four characteristics are common to
successful hierarchies of performance measures.15 These
characteristics include the following:
Demonstrate results: Performance measures should tell each
organizational level how well it is achieving its goals. Yet,
simple as this principle may appear, it poses an especially
difficult challenge for federal managers, for whom the link between
federal efforts and desired outcomes is often difficult to
establish and may not, in fact, be apparent for years. Research
programs provide one example. So do many health and
15Managing for Results: Critical Actions for Measuring
Performance (GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-187,
June 20, 1995).
welfare programs that are delivered jointly with state and local
governments and third-party service deliverers.
Limited to the vital few: The number of measures for each goal
at a given organizational level should be limited to the vital few.
Those vital few measures should cover the key performance
dimensions that will enable an organization to assess
accomplishments, make decisions, realign processes, and assign
accountability. Organizations that seek to manage an excessive
number of performance measures may risk creating a confusing excess
of data that will obscure rather than clarify performance issues.
Limiting the number of performance measures to the vital few at
each organizational level will not only keep the focus where it
belongs, it will help ensure that the costs involved in collecting
and analyzing the data do not become prohibitive. As a result,
lower organizational levels may use different measures and goals
from those meaningfully or appropriately included in the
organization's annual performance plan. Likewise, agencies will
have more goals and measures than can be meaningfully or
appropriately included in the governmentwide performance plan OMB
will develop under GPRA. However, as performance plans are compiled
for higher organizational levels, the consolidation and possible
exclusion of some goals and measures does not mean that those goals
and measures are not important to guide the efforts of the lower
levels and should still be monitored.
Respond to multiple priorities: Government agencies often face a
variety of interests whose competing demands continually force
policymakers and managers to balance quality, cost, customer
satisfaction, stakeholder concerns, and other factors. Performance
measurement systems must take these competing interests into
account and create incentives for managers to strike the difficult
balance among competing demands. Performance measurement efforts
that overemphasize one or two priorities at the expense of the
others may skew the agency's performance and keep its managers from
seeing the whole picture.
Link to responsible programs: Performance measures should be
linked directly to the offices that have responsibility for making
programs work. A clear connection between performance measures and
program offices helps to both reinforce accountability and ensure
that, in their day-to-day activities, managers keep in mind the
outcomes their organization is striving to achieve. This connection
at the program office helps to lay the groundwork for
accountability as measures advance through the agency. By helping
to lay the groundwork for accountability, a connection between
Page 25 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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Case Illustration: National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration
performance measures and program offices also provides a basis
for determining the appropriate degree of operational authority for
various organizational levels. Managers must have the authority and
flexibility for achieving the results for which they are to be held
accountable.
The mission of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) is to describe and predict changes in the
earth's environment, as well as to conserve and manage the nation's
coastal and marine resources to ensure sustainable economic
opportunities. NOAA concluded in its 1995 strategic plan that the
nation's ability to prepare for severe weather events, including
tornadoes, thunderstorms, hurricanes, and flash flooding, depends
on the quality and timeliness of the agency's observations,
assessments, and information delivery. Through strategic planning,
NOAA evaluated how best to accomplish its mission and then put into
place those performance measures essential to demonstrating the
extent to which it was attaining its desired outcomes.
NOAA determined that the most important business of its
short-term warning and forecast weather services was to predict the
time and location of weather events and to do so with accuracy.
Rather than simply count the number of forecasts it made-that is,
to simply gather data on its activity level-NOAA began to measure
the extent to which it could increase the lead time or advance
notice it gave the public prior to severe weather events. It
decided, in other words, to measure what counts.
NOAA reported that from fiscal year 1993 to fiscal year 1995,
its lead time for predicting tornadoes increased from 7 minutes to
9 minutes, and the accuracy of its predictions increased from 47
percent of the time to 60 percent of the time. For fiscal year
1996, NOAA has set targets of 10 minutes and 64 percent,
respectively.
NOAA also measured how accurately it could predict the range
where hurricanes would reach land, given a 24-hour lead time. From
fiscal year 1993 to fiscal year 1995, its accuracy improved from
185 kilometers (115 miles) to 134 kilometers (83 miles). It
credited the improvement to its installation in June 1995 of a new
hurricane tracking model. On the basis of fiscal year 1995
performance, NOAA revised its fiscal year 1996 target from 155
kilometers (96 miles) to 150 kilometers (93 miles). Although the
new fiscal year 1996 target of 150 kilometers is higher than the
fiscal year 1995 actual performance of 134 kilometers, NOAA wants
to test the new
Page 26 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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Practice 5: Collect Sufficiently Complete, Accurate, and
Consistent Data
model through at least another hurricane season before radically
revising its targets for future years.
The significance of earlier and more accurate hurricane warnings
is enormous. Most importantly, they help prevent deaths and
injuries. But they also save money, because earlier and more
accurate predictions of hurricane tracks and intensities can reduce
the size of the warning areas in which people are advised to
prepare for the event. NOAA calculated that for each hurricane, the
public's preparation and evacuation costs exceed $50 million, but
improved predictions can cut that cost by $5 million. In addition,
NOAA officials believe that the public takes more accurate
forecasts more seriously-which helps lessen loss of life and
property.
As the organizations we examined developed their performance
measures, they paid special attention to issues relating to data
collection. Although they recognized that adequate and reliable
performance data are indispensable to decisionmaking, they were
also aware that collecting the data can be costly and difficult. As
a result, as agencies implement GPRA, they will have to balance the
cost of data collection efforts against the need to ensure that the
collected data are complete, accurate, and consistent enough to
document performance and support decisionmaking at various
organizational levels.
As the experiences of these organizations demonstrated, managers
striving to reach organizational goals must have information
systems in place to provide them with needed information.16 In
Texas, for example, officials said that the state restructured its
statewide information systems to include the missions and goals of
its agencies, specific strategies for achieving objectives, and
measures of progress. The system also linked budgeted expenditures,
accounting information, and performance data.
Our work has shown consistently that the federal government's
basic financial and information management systems are woefully out
of date and incapable of meeting modern needs for fast, reliable,
and accurate information-particularly as these needs relate to
financial reporting and program costs. As the leading organizations
we studied became more results-oriented, many of them made
significant investments in their information management systems.
Many federal agencies will need to do the same. But agencies can
keep costs down by applying the performance measurement principles
these leading organizations have employed and
16GAO/GGD-95-22, Dec. 21, 1994.


Case Illustration: National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration
also-where they can-by building performance data collection into
the processes that govern daily operations, rather than creating
entirely new and separate data collection systems.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA)
mission is to reduce casualties and economic losses resulting from
motor vehicle crashes. To accomplish its mission, NHTSA pursues two
main strategies: setting and enforcing safety performance standards
for motor vehicles and promoting safe driving behavior. After it
was established in 1970, NHTSA concluded that reliable crash
statistics databases were needed. The need was twofold: to help in
identifying and analyzing traffic safety problems and for
evaluating the effectiveness of motor vehicle safety standards and
highway safety initiatives. To fill this need, NHTSA developed data
collection systems derived from existing data sources and has taken
steps to ensure the completeness, accuracy, and consistency of
these data.
NHTSA has developed two data systems that, taken together, serve
as a single source of motor vehicle crash statistics. The Fatal
Accident Reporting System has enabled NHTSA to document that the
rate for one of its desired outcomes-reduction in the fatality
rate-decreased from 2.3 to an estimated 1.7 per 100 million vehicle
miles of travel from 1988 to 1995.17 Also, NHTSA has used data from
the General Estimates System to document another one of its desired
outcomes-a reduction in injury rates-from 169 to an estimated 138
injuries per 100 million vehicle miles of travel from 1988 to
1995.
The Fatal Accident Reporting System contains accident data
provided by the 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of
Columbia. According to NHTSA documents, throughout the states,
Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, trained state employees
gather and transmit these data to NHTSA's central computer database
in a standard format. State employees obtain data solely from each
state's existing documents-including police accident reports,
vehicle registration files, and vital statistics records-and then
enter them into a central computer database. NHTSA analysts
periodically review a sample of the cases.
The General Estimates System contains data from a nationally
representative sample of police-reported accidents. To compile
the
17Vehicle miles of travel is published by the Federal Highway
Administration, as reported by state highway agencies, and is based
on formal guidance provided by the Administration.
Page 28 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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database, NHTSA data collectors randomly sample about 48,000
reports each year from approximately 400 police jurisdictions in 60
sites across the country, according to NHTSA documents. NHTSA staff
then interpret and code the data directly from the reports into a
central electronic data file. The data are checked for consistency
during both coding and subsequent processing.
NHTSA has recognized that its data have limitations. For
example, the General Estimates System is based on police reports,
but various sources suggest that about half of the motor vehicle
crashes in the country are not reported to police, and the majority
of these unreported crashes involve only minor property damage and
no significant injury. A NHTSA study of the costs of motor vehicle
injuries estimated the total count of nonfatal injuries at over 5
million compared to the General Estimates System estimate for that
year of 3.2 million. NHTSA intends to study the unreported injury
problem.

The third key step in building successful results-oriented
organizations- after establishing an organizational mission and
goals and building a performance measurement system-is to put
performance data to work. Managers should use performance
information to continuously improve organizational processes,
identify performance gaps, and set improvement goals.18
When the CFO Act and GPRA are fully implemented, decisionmakers
are to routinely receive the performance and cost information they
need to assess their programs and make informed decisions.
Congressional decisionmaking should also benefit. GPRA was
intended, in part, to improve congressional decisionmaking by
giving Congress comprehensive and reliable information on the
extent to which federal programs are fulfilling their statutory
intent. The act requires that each agency report annually to the
President and to Congress on its performance-specifically, on the
extent to which it is meeting its annual performance goals and the
actions needed to achieve or modify those goals that have not been
met. Annual performance reports are intended to provide important
information to agency managers, policymakers, and the public on
what each agency accomplished with the resources it was given. The
first of these reports, covering fiscal year 1999, is due by March
31, 2000.
In crafting GPRA, Congress recognized that different information
users would have differing information needs. Federal agencies must
determine what information is both relevant and essential to
different internal and external information users and include only
the information the users require.19 Most important, agency
managers need performance information to ensure that programs meet
intended goals, assess the efficiency of processes, and promote
continuous improvement. Congress needs information on whether and
in what respects a program is working well or poorly to support its
oversight of agencies and their budgets.20 Agencies' stakeholders
need performance information to accurately judge program
effectiveness.
In short, we have found that leading organizations that
progressed the farthest to results-oriented management did not stop
after strategic planning and performance measurement. They applied
their acquired knowledge and data to identify gaps in their
performance, report on that
18GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-187, June 20, 1995.
19Chief Financial Officers Council, Streamlining Governmentwide
Statutory Reports (Jan. 17, 1995).
20Managing for Results: Status of the Government Performance and
Results Act (GAO/T-GGD-95-193,
June 27, 1995); and Program Evaluation: Improving the
Information Flow to the Congress
(GAO/PEMD-95-1, Jan. 30, 1995).


Practice 6: Identify Performance Gaps
performance, and finally use that information to improve their
performance to better support their missions.
Performance data can have real value only if they are used to
identify the gap between an organization's actual performance level
and the performance level it has identified as its goal. Once the
performance gaps are identified for different program areas,
managers can determine where to target their resources to improve
overall mission accomplishment. When managers are forced to reduce
their resources, the same analysis can help them target reductions
to keep to a minimum the threat to their organization's overall
mission.
The leading organizations we studied recognized that improvement
goals should flow from a fact-based performance analysis and be
rooted in organizational missions.21 Such organizations typically
assess which of their processes are in greatest need of improvement
in terms of cost, quality, and timeliness. By analyzing the gap
between where they are and where they need to be to achieve desired
outcomes, management can target those processes that are in most
need of improvement, set realistic improvement goals, and select an
appropriate process improvement technique.22 One technique these
organizations used is benchmarking-comparing their processes with
those of private and public organizations that are thought to be
the best in their fields. By benchmarking its own processes against
those of the best in the business, an organization can learn how
much change it needs to make and what changes might be the right
ones.


Case Illustration: Veterans Health Administration
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in the Department of
Veterans Affairs runs one of the nation's largest medical care
delivery systems, consisting of a network of medical centers,
nursing homes, domiciliaries, and outpatient clinics that provide
health care services to nearly 2.8 million patients each year. VHA
recognizes that its ability to survive growing market pressures,
answer criticisms of health care quality, and sustain and improve
services to an aging veteran population depends on its ability to
analyze data to pinpoint areas needing change and improvement. VHA
has initiated numerous studies
21Government Reform: Using Reengineering and Technology to
Improve Government Performance
(GAO/T-OCG-95-2, Feb. 2, 1995). 22GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-187, June
20, 1995.
Page 32 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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to identify performance gaps. With better data in hand, VHA is
taking actions to improve its products and services.
VHA has provided medical care to veterans for over 60 years.
Traditionally, however, the agency has lacked the sort of data
needed to assess the quality, cost, and effectiveness of its care.
VHA's current data analysis efforts are structured to provide
caregivers with improved data on medical outcomes. It has begun to
use this performance information to improve service to
veterans.
An example is VHA's effort to benchmark the success of cardiac
surgeries in VHA facilities. VHA's database, which contains over
51,000 records on cardiac surgical outcomes, is risk-adjusted for
severity of illness on the basis of 54 variables, including age and
previous medical history, collected prior to surgery. VHA was able
to identify the differences in surgical outcomes among the 43 VHA
medical centers performing cardiac surgery. On the basis of these
analyses, VHA recommended a number of techniques and processes for
shortening the postoperative hospital stay, decreasing excessive
diagnostic testing, and reducing the risk of postoperative
infections or complications. According to VHA, because it adopted
these and other techniques, the performance data show that cardiac
teams lowered their mortality rates for all cardiac procedures over
the last 8 years by an average of 13 percent.
Another VHA data analysis effort is the External Peer Review
Program. The program compares VHA medical centers' performances
against established community standards. As part of the effort,
panels composed of physicians not affiliated with VHA review
medical records to determine if community standards have been met.
One performance gap VHA identified through this benchmarking was
the low vaccination rate of elderly and chronically ill VHA
patients who are at high risk for contracting one type of
potentially fatal pneumonia. VHA has worked with the National
Institute on Aging in the Department of Health and Human Services
and the American Lung Association to raise its pneumonia
immunization rate for these patients from 19 percent to 29 percent
over the past 2 years.
VHA also is analyzing performance data to switch some of its
focus from inpatient to ambulatory care. For example, according to
VHA, after careful data analysis, its medical center in Little
Rock, Arkansas, determined that only a small percentage of the
patients admitted to its 28-day inpatient detoxification program
needed acute medical attention. As a result, the program was
converted in fiscal year 1995 to an outpatient program with
Page 33 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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only a small inpatient capacity. The center reportedly now
serves more patients with eight fewer full-time staff members and
anticipates that savings from the first year of the new outpatient
program will be $600,000-with no lessening in the quality of
patient care.
No picture of what the government is accomplishing with the
taxpayers' money can be complete without adequate program cost and
performance information. But this information must be presented in
a way that is useful to the many audiences who rely on it to help
them assess and manage federal programs.23 Viewing program
performance in light of program costs-for instance, by establishing
the unit cost per output or outcome achieved-can be important on at
least two levels. First, it can help Congress make informed
decisions. Second, it can give the taxpayers a better understanding
of what the government is providing in return for their tax
dollars.
Consistent with GPRA's requirement that annual performance plans
be tied to budget requests, the annual performance reports, which
are to report progress toward achieving the goals established in
the plans, are to link levels of performance to the budget
expenditures. Directly calculating unit cost information will
likely become more widespread when the Government Management Reform
Act of 1994 (GMRA) is implemented. GMRA authorized OMB, upon proper
notification to Congress, to consolidate and simplify management
reports. The CFO Council has proposed that agencies prepare two
annual reports: a Planning and Budgeting Report and an
Accountability Report. The two consolidated reports would be used
to present each agency's past financial and program performance and
provide a roadmap for its future planning and budgeting actions. At
present, OMB is having six agencies produce Accountability Reports
on a pilot basis. The Accountability Report would eliminate the
separate requirements under various laws-such as GPRA, the Federal
Managers' Financial Integrity Act, the CFO Act, and the Prompt
Payment Act.
Practice 7: Report Performance Information


Case Illustration: GPRA Pilot Projects' Fiscal Year 1994
Performance Reports
GPRA requires that each federal agency report annually on its
performance-specifically, on the degree to which the agency is
meeting its annual performance goals and on the actions needed to
achieve those goals that have not been met. Under GPRA, OMB was
required to select agencies to pilot GPRA performance planning and
reporting
23Financial Management: Continued Momentum Essential to Achieve
CFO Act Goals
(GAO/T-AIMD-96-10, Dec. 14, 1995).
requirements. Forty-four pilot projects submitted reports for
the first round of performance reporting in 1995. We identified
some individual features that when viewed as a whole, appear to
have the potential for enhancing the general usefulness of future
performance reports in providing decisionmakers and the public with
the information needed to assess progress.24 These features would
also be appropriate for GMRA accountability reports.
Our initial observations suggest that GPRA performance reports
are likely to be more useful if they


•
describe the relationship between the agency's annual
performance and its strategic goals and mission,


•
include cost information,


•
provide baseline and trend data,


•
explain the uses of performance information,


•
incorporate other relevant information, and


•
present performance information in a user-friendly
manner.


By describing how the annual performance information it has
reported relates to its strategic goals and mission, an agency can
help its customers and stakeholders understand the relationship
between the year's accomplishments and the agency's long-range
goals and reason for existence. By including cost
information-ideally, unit cost per output or outcome-the agency can
demonstrate the cost-effectiveness and productivity of its program
efforts. In addition, by providing baseline and trend data-which
show the agency's progress over time-the agency can give
decisionmakers a more historical perspective within which to
compare the year's performance with performance in past years.
Similarly, by explaining the uses of the performance
information-such as the actions the agency has taken or identified
as needed, based on the data-the agency can help decisionmakers
judge the reasonableness of its performance goals and decide upon
actions they may need to take to improve the agency's performance.
The report should include any other information that is
relevant-such as the limitations in the quality of the reported
data-that users of the report may need to help them better
understand the performance data and its context. It is important,
as well, that the text be understandable to the nontechnical
reader-that it use clearly defined terms and appropriate,
user-friendly tables and graphs to convey information as readily as
possible.
24GPRA Performance Reports (GAO/GGD-96-66R, Feb. 14, 1996).


Practice 8: Use Performance Information to Support Mission
As efforts continue to reduce federal spending, policymakers and
the public alike are reexamining the federal government's spending
priorities. Federal agencies are feeling the pressure to
demonstrate that they are putting the taxpayers' money to sound
use. They are expected to demonstrate improved performance even as
they cut costs-two simultaneous demands that are driving the trend
toward results-oriented government.
As they focus on the outcomes they hope to achieve, federal
managers increasingly are finding that the traditional ways they
measured their success-and thus the traditional ways they did
business and provided services-are no longer appropriate or
practical. For example, the new focus on outcomes is prompting some
federal agencies to alter the approach of their programs, including
working more closely with states and local governments and
businesses. As agencies create information systems to provide them
with cost and performance data, they discover that having the facts
gives them a basis for focusing their efforts and improving their
performance.


Case Illustration: Coast Guard
The mission of the Coast Guard's Office of Marine Safety,
Security and Environmental Protection is to protect the public, the
environment, and
U.S. economic interests through the prevention and mitigation
ofmarine incidents. In the past, the Coast Guard's marine safety
program concentrated on the physical condition of vessels, through
activities such as inspections and certifications. The program
focused less attention on the human factors that contribute to
marine safety. But as the office became more outcome-oriented and
made more extensive use of performance information, it began to
redirect its safety efforts. Coast Guard data indicate that its
mission-effectiveness is now dramatically improved.
Traditionally, the Coast Guard based its marine safety efforts
on inspections and certifications of vessels. It measured its
performance by counting outputs, such as the number of prior
inspections and outstanding inspection results. But the data on
marine casualties indicated that accidents were often caused, not
by deficiencies in the vessels or other factors, but by human
error. For example, towing industry data for 1982 through 1991
showed that 18 percent of reported casualties were caused by
equipment and material failures, 20 percent by environmental and
other factors, and 62 percent by human factors.
Page 36 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
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Putting this information to use, the Coast Guard changed the
focus of its marine safety program from outputs to outcomes in its
first business plan, dated January 1994. After all, it came to
recognize, the mission of the marine safety program was not to do
more and better inspections of vessels, but to save lives. As a
result, the Coast Guard shifted its resources and realigned its
processes away from inspections and toward other efforts to reduce
marine casualties. In addition, it identified a significant role
for the towing industry in the marine safety program and looked for
opportunities to work with its stakeholders in the towing industry
to reduce casualties in their field.
The Coast Guard and the towing industry worked to build the
knowledge and skills of entry-level crew members in the industry.
The Coast Guard and the towing industry jointly developed training
and voluntary guidelines to reduce the causes of fatalities. This
joint effort contributed to a significant decline in the reported
towing industry fatality rate: from 91 per 100,000 industry
employees in 1990 to 27 per 100,000 in 1995.
The marine safety program apparently not only improved its
mission effectiveness, but did so with fewer people and at lower
cost. Since the Coast Guard's marine safety program became a GPRA
pilot program in fiscal year 1994, the number of direct program
personnel declined and its budget was reduced by 2 percent.
According to the Coast Guard, the program achieved its results by
giving field commanders greater authority and by investing in
activities and processes that went most directly to the goal of
reducing risks on the water.

GPRA will not succeed without the strong commitment of the
federal government's political and senior career leadership. Only
they can ensure that each agency's strategic planning and
performance measurement efforts will become the basis for its
day-to-day operations. Moreover, only they can ensure that
results-oriented management will endure despite the customarily
high rate of turnover among political appointees.25 Some of the
practices they can take to reinforce results-oriented management
are to


•
devolve decisionmaking authority within a framework of
mission-oriented processes in exchange for accountability for
results,


•
create incentives to encourage a focus on
outcomes,


•
build expertise in the necessary skills, and


•
integrate management reforms.


If GPRA is to thrive over the long run, its concepts need to be
made a part of organizational culture. For that to happen, the top
leadership in each agency has to initiate results-oriented
management, keep the agency focused on it, and embed its principles
in the organization's basic approach to doing business.26


Practice 9: Devolve Decisionmaking With Accountability
Leading organizations we studied create a set of mission-related
processes and systems within which to operate, but they then give
their managers extensive authority to pursue organizational goals
while using those processes and systems. These organizations invest
the time and effort to understand their processes and how those
processes contribute to or hamper mission accomplishment. They then
seek to ensure their processes provide managers at each
organizational level with the authority and flexibility they need
to contribute to the organization's mission. Allowing managers to
bring their judgment to bear in meeting their responsibilities,
rather than having them merely comply with overly rigid rules and
standards, can help them make the most of their talents and lead to
more effective and efficient operations.
In our work with foreign countries that have adopted
results-oriented management, we found that two reforms in
particular were aimed at enhancing accountability among line
managers: simplifying the rules for such things as budgeting and
human resource management while
25Political Appointees: Turnover Rates in Executive Schedule
Positions Requiring Senate Confirmation
(GAO/GGD-94-115FS, Apr. 21, 1994). 26Organizational Culture:
Techniques Companies Use to Perpetuate or Change Beliefs and
Values
(GAO/NSIAD-92-105, Feb. 27, 1992).


Case Illustration: Army Corps of Engineers
devolving decisionmaking authority.27 These two reforms were
undertaken in exchange for managers assuming greater accountability
for the results of their programs. Managers generally welcomed
their new authority to make spending, personnel, and operational
decisions that had formerly been made by central authorities. But
although these countries were generally satisfied with the progress
they had made, they continued to struggle with a number of
important issues, such as the acceptable level of risk and the
extent to which decisionmaking authority should be devolved to a
given organizational level.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Civil Works Directorate's
Operation and Maintenance Program is responsible for the
stewardship of dams, levees, and other parts of the water resources
infrastructure constructed by the Corps. Operation and maintenance
expenditures had become by fiscal year 1990 the single largest
individual program item in the Corps' budget. In 1991, faced with
rising budget pressures, a growing project inventory, and the need
to become more results-oriented, the Corps initiated a
comprehensive review of its civil operation and maintenance
program.
One major finding of the Corps' 1993 plan of improvement was the
burdensome number of internal levels of review. At the majority of
project sites, for example, procurement of items costing less than
$25,000 required between one and five signatures; each approval
beyond the first one added to the time required for the procurement
and created inefficiency, revenue loss, and a potential danger to
the staff and public when safety corrections were delayed.
To remedy this situation, the Corps changed its processes by
decentralizing its organizational structure and giving project
managers new decisionmaking authority to help them achieve the
desired outcomes. The intent of these changes was to put key
operational decisions in the hands of the managers who were closest
to the point of customer service. These managers could now focus
on, and be held accountable for, achieving goals instead of merely
complying with rules. Now procurements of up to $25,000 can be
approved by a single individual.
As part of this new approach, the Corps reformed its processes,
revising its policies and procedures to ensure that only those that
were necessary remained. It achieved this reduction, by and large,
by indicating "what"
27GAO/GGD-95-120, May 2, 1995.


Practice 10: Create Incentives
was to be accomplished and leaving the "how" to the initiative
of project staff. Eighty-nine engineering regulations were thereby
consolidated into 7, and the number of pages of Corps' regulations
was reduced from 1,596 to 306.
This streamlining of its organization and processes allowed the
Corps to reduce the number of its management levels. By the Corps'
estimate, the savings created amounted to about $6 million annually
and a reduction of 175 full-time equivalent staff years.
Across government, the best incentive Congress and the executive
branch can apply to foster results-oriented management is to use
performance measurement data in their policy, program, and resource
allocation decisions and to provide agencies with the authority and
flexibility to achieve results. Like Congress and the executive
branch, an agency's top political and career leadership can
encourage a greater accountability for results by providing
managers at each level in the organization with the appropriate
authority and flexibility to obtain those results.
Successful organizations we studied defined their missions
clearly and communicated them to their employees-particularly to
their managers-so that each one would understand his or her
contribution. At both the organizational and managerial levels,
accountability requires results-oriented goals and appropriate
performance measures through which to gauge progress. Our study of
several leading foreign governments, however, showed that although
there was general agreement on how to hold organizations
accountable for results, there was as yet no such agreement on how
best to hold individual managers accountable.28 New Zealand and the
United Kingdom held their program managers accountable for
efficiently providing specific goods and services. Australia and
Canada, on the other hand, hold their program managers accountable
for evaluating the overall effectiveness of their programs.
Congress and the executive branch continue to explore formal
ways to hold individual managers accountable for results. At the
agency level, however, informal incentives are available to leaders
to encourage results-oriented management. Through meetings and
personal contacts, for example, leaders can let managers and staff
know of their commitment to achieving the agency's goals and to
keeping these goals in mind as they pursue their day-to-day
activities.
28GAO/GGD-95-120, May 2, 1995.


Case Illustration: Department of Veterans Affairs
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) comprises three agencies
that provide services and benefits to veterans. The elevation of VA
to cabinet-level status in 1989 spurred the department to make
internal management improvements. To recognize and reinforce
results-oriented management, VA instituted in 1992 a formal
recognition program for quality achievement.
The Robert W. Carey Quality Award is VA's most prestigious award
for quality achievement. It is named for Robert W. Carey, who, as
the Director of VA's Philadelphia Regional Office, was a "Quality
Leader" and champion of excellence in the federal government. The
Carey Award helps promote quality management within VA by giving
the department a prominent means of recognizing high-performing
offices, encouraging outcome-oriented practices, and educating VA
employees about the benefits of results-oriented management and
customer service. According to a VA official, the Carey Award is
valuable, in part, because VA offices that want it must apply for
it and the application itself becomes a useful self-assessment
tool.
VA announced its first Carey Award in 1992. There is one overall
trophy winner annually along with several category winners. There
have been 20 winners to date.
Practice 11: Build Expertise
To make the most of results-oriented management, staff at all
levels of the organization must be skilled in strategic planning,
performance measurement, and the use of performance information in
decisionmaking. Training has proven to be an important tool for
agencies that want to change their cultures.29 Australian
government employees, for example, cited training as one of the
factors that contributed the most to making reforms succeed in
their areas.30
Results-oriented managers view training as an investment rather
than an expense. And as human resource management experts at
leading private and public organizations have pointed out,
organizational learning must be continuous in order to meet
changing customer needs, keep skills up to date, and develop new
personal and organizational competencies.31 But at
29Organizational Culture: Use of Training to Help Change DOD
Inventory Management Culture
(GAO/NSIAD-94-193, Aug. 30, 1994). 30GAO/GGD-95-120, May 2,
1995. 31GAO/GGD-96-35, Dec. 26, 1995.
Page 42 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
Act


Case Illustration: Department of Defense
a time when overall agency budgets are under pressure, training
budgets are unlikely to increase. Therefore, it is important that
agencies develop innovative and less costly ways to train their
staffs-remembering as well that the level of return for investing
in the skills needed for results-oriented management will depend
largely on how well employees are encouraged to put those skills to
use.
Recognizing the value of training, especially for the people at
the top of the organization, the CFO Council's GPRA Implementation
Committee has begun an outreach effort directed toward senior
managers in the 24 CFO Act agencies. The council's goals are to
familiarize these leaders with GPRA's fundamentals and with the
importance of these fundamentals for the future of federal
management.
In addition, in response to an initiative of the American
Society for Public Administration and with the encouragement of
OMB, over 30 case studies are being developed on the agencies' use
of strategic planning or performance measurement. These case
studies, to be completed in the summer of 1996, are to be made
publicly available.
The Department of Defense (DOD) is responsible for the military
forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our country.
DOD's major service branches-the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air
Force-consist of about 1.5 million men and women on active duty, 1
million members of the reserve components, and about 900,000
civilian employees. As with other federal agencies, performance
information is becoming an increasingly important part of DOD's
budget process. DOD's leadership has come to recognize that if the
Department is to make results-oriented management a success, it
must train its employees in strategic planning, performance
measurement, and the use of performance information.
DOD officials recognized when they were considering various
methods to deliver GPRA training that the costs-in both money and
time-of providing training through traditional, live classroom
instruction would be prohibitive. As an alternative, DOD is now
testing the feasibility of training staff at its GPRA pilot
agencies via satellite. This interactive approach can reach widely
dispersed audiences less expensively than traditional methods. The
GPRA course originates out of a studio and has been broadcast
simultaneously to up to 20 sites around the country. Since the
Practice 12: Integrate Management Reforms
first class in September 1995, the GPRA training has been
delivered 3 times via satellite to 38 sites and has reached 760
people.
In developing its GPRA training, DOD decided to go beyond the
traditional lecture approach to instruction. GPRA training has
included exercises and panel discussions designed to make trainees
think the way they will need to when the training is over and the
real work of implementing GPRA begins. Participants have been
asked, for instance, to develop mission statements for their home
organizations and to develop strategic goals and performance
measures. According to a DOD official, the classes have been well
received.
DOD is also developing a self-paced GPRA course accessible on
the Internet and is considering the use of CD-ROM technology.
Within a given federal agency, the management reforms now under
way may spring from various sources. Some of these reforms may be
self-initiated, others may have been mandated by legislation, still
others may be the result of administration initiatives such as the
National Performance Review. All of this reform activity needs to
be integrated, as the CFO Council urged in May 1995:
Existing planning, budgeting, program evaluation and fiscal
accountability processes should be integrated with GPRA
requirements to ensure consistency and reduce duplication of
effort. In addition, other management improvement efforts, such as
implementation of the CFO Act, and FMFIA [Federal Managers'
Financial Integrity Act], customer service initiatives,
reengineering, and Total Quality Management, etc., should be
incorporated into the GPRA framework to capitalize on the synergy
and availability of key information and to improve responsiveness
to customers and other stakeholders.32
Another management reform initiative that provides a legislative
basis for measuring performance is the Information Technology
Management Reform Act of 1996, which requires each federal agency
to ensure that performance measures are prescribed for information
technology that it will use or acquire and that the performance
measures assess how well the information technology supports agency
programs. In addition, the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of
1994 requires the head of each executive agency to approve or
define the cost, performance, and schedule goals for major agency
acquisition programs.
32Implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act
(GPRA), Chief Financial Officers
Council, May 1995.


Case Illustration: Army Research Laboratory
Taken together, these reforms can help redirect an
organization's culture from the traditional focus on inputs and
activities to a new focus on defining missions and achieving
results.33 Our work has shown, however, that the top leadership of
each federal agency needs to meld these various reforms into a
coherent, unified effort.34 Top leadership-both political and
career-needs to make clear its commitment to the fundamental
principles of results-oriented management and ensure that managers
and staff at all levels recognize that they must do the same.
Traditionally, the danger to any management reform is that it can
become a hollow, paper-driven exercise. Leaders who integrate
results-oriented management into the culture and day-to-day
activities of their organizations will help avoid that danger.
The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) was established in October
1992 as a result of a realignment of a number of Army research and
development organizations. It is now the central laboratory of the
Army Materiel Command. At a time when both staffing levels and
funding had been in decline since fiscal year 1989, ARL was given a
major technological challenge-digitizing the battlefield for the
U.S. Army. ARL concluded that to ensure that it had the capability
to meet the new challenge and continue to conduct its mission of
basic and applied research, it had to work in partnership with
universities and the private sector, as well as operate more
effectively and efficiently. This "Federated Laboratory" concept
guided ARL as it integrated the various management reforms.
As a GPRA pilot program, ARL developed a strategic plan that
included a mission statement and long-range goals. In addition, it
has produced two yearly products: a performance plan with key
measures and a report detailing its progress in meeting its goals.
The annual reports have been integrated into ARL's planning and
budgeting processes and are discussed by agency leadership at the
Director's quarterly meetings. In addition, the reports have been
tied into DOD's Planning, Programming, Budget, and Execution
System. ARL's performance measures gauge the relevance of ARL's
current work to the agency's long-term goals and give ARL's leaders
indicators of productivity and quality. As part of its
performance
33Improving Government: Actions Needed to Sustain and Enhance
Management Reforms
(GAO/T-OCG-94-1, Jan. 27, 1994). 34See, for example, Managing
IRS: Important Strides Forward Since 1988 but More Needs to Be
Done
(GAO/GGD-91-74, Apr. 29, 1991); General Services Administration:
Status of Management Improvement Efforts (GAO/GGD-91-59, Apr. 3,
1991); and Management of VA: Implementing Strategic Management
Process Would Improve Service to Veterans (GAO/HRD-90-109, Aug. 31,
1990).
measurement efforts, ARL established customer service standards
and sent surveys to its customers to obtain feedback on the quality
of its work.
As a National Performance Review "reinvention laboratory," ARL
has been granted waivers by DOD and the Army from internal
regulations in order to streamline its processes. For example, one
such waiver allowed ARL to eliminate redundant reviews of certain
procurements, thereby saving 5 workdays on each procurement. Saving
time on administrative processes frees staff to perform the
principal mission of the laboratory.
Facing pressures similar to those confronting federal managers
to reduce costs and improve performance, leading state and foreign
governments have responded by implementing management reform
efforts consistent with GPRA. The experiences of these
governments-and those of the federal GPRA pilots-demonstrate that
each federal agency will need to chart its own course in response
to its specific environment as it seeks to implement GPRA and
become more results-oriented. Nonetheless, the experiences of the
leading organizations suggest that the steps and practices
discussed in this guide can assist agencies in successfully
implementing GPRA. Federal agencies that apply the practices may
find that their transition to a results orientation is quicker,
smoother, and, most important, more successful in providing the
effective and efficient government the American people deserve.
Appendix I



Overview of the Government Performance and Results Act
The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) is the primary
legislative framework through which agencies will be required to
set strategic goals, measure performance, and report on the degree
to which goals were met. It requires each federal agency to
develop, no later than by the end of fiscal year 1997, strategic
plans that cover a period of at least 5 years and include the
agency's mission statement; identify the agency's long-term
strategic goals; and describe how the agency intends to achieve
those goals through its activities and through its human, capital,
information, and other resources. Under GPRA, agency strategic
plans are the starting point for agencies to set annual goals for
programs and to measure the performance of the programs in
achieving those goals.
Also, GPRA requires each agency to submit to the Office of
Management and Budget (OMB), beginning for fiscal year 1999, an
annual performance plan. The first annual performance plans are to
be submitted in the fall of 1997. The annual performance plan is to
provide the direct linkage between the strategic goals outlined in
the agency's strategic plan and what managers and employees do
day-to-day. In essence, this plan is to contain the annual
performance goals the agency will use to gauge its progress toward
accomplishing its strategic goals and identify the performance
measures the agency will use to assess its progress. Also, OMB will
use individual agencies' performance plans to develop an overall
federal government performance plan that OMB is to submit annually
to Congress with the president's budget, beginning for fiscal year
1999.
GPRA requires that each agency submit to the President and to
the appropriate authorization and appropriations committees of
Congress an annual report on program performance for the previous
fiscal year (copies are to be provided to other congressional
committees and to the public upon request). The first of these
reports, on program performance for fiscal year 1999, is due by
March 31, 2000, and subsequent reports are due by March 31 for the
years that follow. However, for fiscal years 2000 and 2001,
agencies' reports are to include performance data beginning with
fiscal year 1999. For each subsequent year, agencies are to include
performance data for the year covered by the report and 3 prior
years.
In each report, an agency is to review and discuss its
performance compared with the performance goals it established in
its annual performance plan. When a goal is not met, the agency's
report is to explain the reasons the goal was not met; plans and
schedules for meeting the goal; and, if the goal was impractical or
not feasible, the reasons for that and the actions recommended.
Actions needed to accomplish a goal could
Page 48 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
Act
include legislative, regulatory, or other actions or, when the
agency found a goal to be impractical or infeasible, a discussion
of whether the goal ought to be modified.
In addition to evaluating the progress made toward achieving
annual goals established in the performance plan for the fiscal
year covered by the report, an agency's program performance report
is to evaluate the agency's performance plan for the fiscal year in
which the performance report was submitted (for example, in their
fiscal year 1999 performance reports, due by March 31, 2000,
agencies are required to evaluate their performance plans for
fiscal year 2000 on the basis of their reported performance in
fiscal year 1999). This evaluation will help to show how an
agency's actual performance is influencing its plans. Finally, the
report is to include the summary findings of program evaluations
completed during the fiscal year covered by the report.
Congress recognized that in some cases not all of the
performance data will be available in time for the March 31
reporting date. In such cases, agencies are to provide whatever
data are available, with a notation as to their incomplete status.
Subsequent annual reports are to include the complete data as part
of the trend information.
In crafting GPRA, Congress also recognized that managerial
accountability for results is linked to managers having sufficient
flexibility, discretion, and authority to accomplish desired
results. GPRA authorizes agencies to apply for managerial
flexibility waivers in their annual performance plans beginning
with fiscal year 1999. The authority of agencies to request waivers
of administrative procedural requirements and controls is intended
to provide federal managers with more flexibility to structure
agency systems to better support program goals. The nonstatutory
requirements that OMB can waive under GPRA generally involve the
allocation and use of resources, such as restrictions on shifting
funds among items within a budget account. Agencies must report in
their annual performance reports on the use and effectiveness of
any GPRA managerial flexibility waivers that they receive.
GPRA calls for phased implementation so that selected pilot
projects in the agencies can develop experience from implementing
GPRA requirements in fiscal years 1994 through 1996 before
implementation is required for all agencies. As of June 1996, 68
pilot projects for performance planning and performance reporting
were under way in 24 agencies. OMB also is required to select at
least five agencies from among the initial pilot agencies to
pilot
Page 49 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
Act
managerial accountability and flexibility for fiscal years 1995
and 1996; however, as of June 1996 it had not done so.
Finally, GPRA requires OMB to select at least five agencies, at
least three of which have had experience developing performance
plans during the initial GPRA pilot phase, to test performance
budgeting for fiscal years 1998 and 1999. Performance budgets to be
prepared by pilot projects for performance budgeting are intended
to provide Congress with information on the direct relationship
between proposed program spending and expected program results and
the anticipated effects of varying spending levels on results.
Appendix II


Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
Our objectives were to (1) identify and describe the practices
most helpful to successfully implementing GPRA and related
results-oriented management initiatives and (2) provide case
illustrations of federal organizations that have made progress in
implementing each practice. This report builds on (1) our 1994
report profiling leading private and public sector organizations
that have successfully improved mission performance and program
outcomes through the innovative use of information management and
technology and (2) our 1995 report on the human resource management
principles employed by selected public and private organizations to
build and sustain high levels of organizational performance.35
Together, these reports are intended to suggest frameworks for
Congress and federal agencies to use in implementing GPRA and
related results-oriented management initiatives.
To meet our first objective, we reviewed the experiences of
leading public sector organizations that were successfully changing
their management and accountability practices to be more
results-oriented. As part of that effort, we issued separate
reports on the experiences of six leading U.S. state and four
foreign governments.36 We also reviewed the management studies of
23 large federal departments and agencies that we did during the
last decade as well as a broad array of our other management and
program work. To supplement our work looking at leading
organizations, we identified and reviewed a large body of
literature on management reform, strategic planning, and
performance measurement. From our work, we identified a number of
practices common to successful efforts to become more
results-oriented. We obtained input from a wide range of federal
executives and managers and experts in public sector strategic
planning, performance measurement, and program and policy
evaluation, including those from the Departments of Defense,
Commerce, Transportation, and the Treasury; OMB; the Office of
Personnel Management; the National Academy of Public
Administration; the Urban Institute; and the University of Southern
California. On the basis of their comments and our continuing
reviews of leading organizations, we consolidated and refined the
list of practices to those presented in this guide.
To meet our second objective, we identified those federal
agencies that were instituting results-oriented management from our
ongoing work on the implementation of GPRA at 24 departments and
large agencies (covering about 98 percent of the federal
government's fiscal year 1994 outlays) and
35GAO/AIMD-94-115, May 1994; and GAO/GGD-96-35, Dec. 26, 1995,
respectively.
36GAO/GGD-95-22, Dec. 21, 1994; and GAO/GGD-95-120, May 2, 1995.
The methodologies for selecting these leading governments are
detailed in the respective reports.
Page 51 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
Act
OMB's identification of agencies making early progress in
implementing selected aspects of GPRA. In this way, we targeted our
work toward agencies that would provide examples illustrating each
of the practices. The fact that an organization is profiled for a
particular practice is not meant to imply the organization's
success or lack of success in meeting other practices. Moreover,
underscoring the fact that implementing management changes required
by GPRA will not come quickly, most of the agencies profiled began
their results-oriented management before GPRA was enacted. We
interviewed agency officials in program offices, strategic planning
and quality management offices, and planning and evaluation
offices. We also reviewed agency documents, such as strategic
plans, performance plans, performance reports, program descriptions
and documentation, and other related documents.
We did our work on this guide from January 1995 to March 1996 in
Washington, D.C., in accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. The steps and practices presented in this
executive guide are largely a synthesis of previously published
information and analysis.
We provided a draft of this guide to OMB, the CFO Council's GPRA
Implementation Committee, and to the individual agencies profiled
in the case illustrations for their review and comment. OMB noted
that the guide and the practices suggested in it will help federal
agencies as they implement GPRA. OMB also expressed support for the
guide's focus on agency use of performance information to improve
management and program performance and to demonstrate that federal
agencies are using taxpayers' money effectively. OMB concurred with
our observation that the federal government is at the beginning,
rather than the end, of the process of turning itself into a more
accountable, better managed, more effective organization. Finally,
OMB noted that the development and refinement of performance
measures will be an ongoing process.
We also provided copies of a draft of this guide for comment to
the agency representatives on the CFO Council's GPRA Implementation
Committee and incorporated their individual comments as
appropriate. Generally, their comments suggested that the steps and
practices we identified from the leading organizations studied were
valid and complete, and that the case illustrations were accurate
to the best of their knowledge. We also asked officials in each of
the agencies profiled as case illustrations to verify the accuracy
of the information presented on their respective agencies;
Page 52 GAO/GGD-96-118 Government Performance and Results
Act
however, we did not independently verify the accuracy of that
information.
Appendix III


Major Contributors to This Executive Guide
L. Nye Stevens, Director, Federal Management and Workforce
Issues,
[phone] Michael Brostek, Associate Director, (202)
512-9039
J. Christopher Mihm, Assistant Director, [phone]Lisa R.
Shames, Project Manager, [phone] Stephen Altman Thomas M.
Beall Barbara H. Bordelon Janet C. Eackloff Carolyn J. Hill Donna
M. Leiss Victoria M. O'Dea Dorothy L. Self Katherine M. Wheeler


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Managing for Results: Achieving GPRA's Objectives Requires
Strong Congressional Role (GAO/T-GGD-96-79, Mar. 6, 1996).
GPRA Performance Reports (GAO/GGD-96-66R, Feb. 14, 1996).
Office of Management and Budget: Changes Resulting From the OMB
2000 Reorganization (GAO/GGD/AIMD-96-50, Dec. 29, 1995).
Transforming the Civil Service: Building the Workforce of the
Future, Results of a GAO-Sponsored Symposium (GAO/GGD-96-35, Dec.
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Financial Management: Continued Momentum Essential to Achieve
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Block Grants: Issues in Designing Accountability Provisions
(GAO/AIMD-95-226, Sept. 1, 1995).
Managing for Results: Status of the Government Performance and
Results Act (GAO/T-GGD-95-193, June 27, 1995).
Managing for Results: Critical Actions for Measuring Performance
(GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-187, June 20, 1995).
Managing for Results: The Department of Justice's Initial
Efforts to Implement GPRA (GAO/GGD-95-167FS, June 20, 1995).
Government Reorganization: Issues and Principles
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Managing for Results: Steps for Strengthening Federal Management
(GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-158, May 9, 1995). Managing for Results:
Experiences Abroad Suggest Insights for Federal
Management Reforms (GAO/GGD-95-120, May 2, 1995). Government
Reform: Goal-Setting and Performance (GAO/AIMD/GGD-95-130R,
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Block Grants: Characteristics, Experience, and Lessons Learned
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Program Evaluation: Improving the Flow of Information to the
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Performance Budgeting: State Experiences and Implications for
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