Quicker, Better, Cheaper? Managing Performance in American Government

Edited by Dull Forsythe (Rockefeller Institute Press: Albany)

Reviewed by Hyong Yi

 

The problem with management books, whether they are about reengineering, reinvention, or any other organizational reform or improvement initiative, is their often unambiguous proclamations of being silver bullets for troubled organizations. In many ways, they are no different from vacuous self-help books that promise a thinner you or a happier marriage in five easy steps. In reality, how many management books really fulfill the promise of their hype?

 

Not the Final Word

Fortunately, Quicker, Better, Cheaper? Managing Performance in American Government does not proclaim to be the final word on addressing an organization's performance needs. Nor does it provide detailed directions to help organizations implement a performance management system. But it is the most comprehensive work to date on this important topic.

 

QBC? is a compendium on performance management with contributions by heavyweight academics and practitioners. It is an overview of the practice of performance management at all levels of government during the last decade. If you are looking for silver bullets or a how to guide, this is not the book for you. However, if your need is for a comprehensive understanding of performance management from a historical perspective sprinkled with some lessons learned, there might be some value in this anthology. A major strength of this work is the list of contributors. While not quite a who's who of public sector performance management, the authors are definitely top rank.

 

Something for All Readers

QBC? has a broad target audience. Opening with a 1999 article by Harry Hatry, an expert in the field, that serves as a good primer on performance management, it follows with pro and con pieces about performance management and the decade old Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). This is followed by case studies on various federal programs, as well as state and local experiences, and a summary by editor Forsythe.

 

On of the more intriguing aspects of QBC? is the chapter by Allen Schick, "Getting Performance Measures to Measure Up." In many ways, Schick's contribution can be seen as the logical sequel to his 1966 The Road to PBB: The Stages of Budget Reform, which appeared in the Public Administration Review. In that message of nearly 40 years ago, he predicted how performance-based budgeting can transform an organization when resources are linked to results—funding, for example, to program performance.

 

In QBC?, he offers a retrospective on the last four decades of performance-based management and budgeting, asserting that successes are "exaggerations and the few genuine successes" are exceptions. His optimism in 1966 soured to skepticism by 2002. Alas, his contention that activity-based costing now holds the promise of transforming government is for another article, hopefully soon.

 

Use Sparingly If Ambitious

Gerald Marschke supports Schck's skepticism asserting that performance incentives are not a one-size-fits-all solution. He warns that the more ambiguous an agency's mission is, the more sparingly performance incentives should be used. If used improperly, dysfunctional outcomes are commonplace.

 

Yet, as Forsythe's tome marches on, it turns a little brighter. A decade after the legislation passed, GPRA still is talked about positively as a tool toward helping Congress manage agency performance. Virginia Thomas concludes with the theme of how accountability for performance results can improve governmental integrity as a future benefit instead of a present reality. The case study on the Social Security Administration by Walter Broadnax and Kevin Conway also reinforces the belief that GPRA can and will change government management.

 

QBC? seeks to provide greater insight into federal performance management with case studies examining welfare, food stamps, health insurance, empowerment zones, and intergovernmental relationship. Unfortunately, these will strike some as rounding up the usual suspects. Advocates of performance management have been using the same examples for a decade to prove that agencies can make performance management work.

 

States and Municipalities

The federal experience is followed with how states and municipalities have fared. Here, the case studies seem a little more balanced-in other words they show a path towards implementation that is fraught with perils. The state and local landscape, too, is littered with limited successes and limited failures.

 

The only unequivocal success is the New York City Police Department's COMPSTAT, used to revolutionize police management, a well-known example for anyone familiar with performance management. However, a decade-old sliver of success can't possibly overcome 600 pages of ambiguous successes.

 

The Final Blow

After nine case studies on performance management, Ann Blalock as well as Barnow and Forsythe deliver the coup de grace. Blalock and Barnow reinforce the message that while performance measurement has benefits, it may be misguiding decision making on social programs. Forsythe's summary only reinforces the conclusion that the jury is still out on performance measurement. Truth lies between the skeptics and the enthusiasts.

 

As history, QBC? is an excellent resource, but it falls short on current examples. Where is the next unequivocal performance management success or the next innovative application? For example, it would have been intriguing to examine how performance management could be implemented in the service delivery models that President Bush is pushing-the use of religious organizations to provide public services and the collaboration between governmental and nongovernmental agencies for service delivery. And it would have been nice to see an assessment of how performance management could change a poorly performing agency or one that has conflicting missions and contradictory mandates.

 

Perhaps the Most Intriguing

But perhaps the most intriguing issue is the question mark in the book's title. In short, is the goal of performance management in fact faster, better, cheaper? Few would debate the importance of improving governmental efficiency or the desirability of linking resources to results. But does that mean the ultimate management goal of government is an endless quest for faster, better, cheaper? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in the 1990s, made that its organizational mantra and now has abandoned it.

 

The road to better government, like the road to hell, is paved with good intentions-and missteps, failures, half-hearted implementations, and mixed success. Quicker, Better, Cheaper? is one of the latter and shows how far there is yet to go on that road to better government.

 

Hyong Yi is director of operations and policy for the District of Columbia's Office of Budget and Planning.