ThE ObAMA PERfORMANcE APPROAch

A Midterm Snapshot
JOhN M. KAMENSKY IBM Center for the Business of Government
ABSTRACT: The Obama administration has taken steps to adapt the traditional hierarchical approach to governance to a more results-focused and cross-agency collaborative approach. These steps are reflected not only in administration commitments but also in parallel initiatives that reinforce the use of results-focused and cross-agency efforts, such as the implementation of the Recovery Act and the passage of legislation revising the governments approach to performance improvement. Taken together, these initiatives will significantly influence the work of professionals in the performance community. KEYWORDS: collaboration, governance, GPRA, Obama, performance, strategy n his fiscal year 2011 budget, President barack Obama declared: The administration is committed to revolutionizing how the federal Government works on behalf of the American people (U.S.Office of Management and the budget [OMb], 2010a). but this came as a surprise to many inside and outside the government. In fact, public management expert Philip Joyces recent assessment of Obamas efforts concludes: There is less apparent progress two years into Obamas presidency than was made at a similar point in the last two administrations (2011). There has been no splash like bill clintons National Performance Review or George W. bushs Presidents Management Agenda (breul & Kamensky, 2008). So where is the revolution? In early 2010, Professor Donald Kettl of the University of Maryland observed that a series of Obama initiatives were significantly reshaping how government works. he called it a stealth revolution that was quietly reshaping both governance and performance in the federal system (Kettl, 2010). Interestingly, over the following year, a number of other, parallel initiatives and events have reinforced the revolutionary efforts being undertaken by the Obama administration to improve performance. cumulatively, these initiatives are likely to transform the governance and performance approaches traditionally used by the performance community
Public Performance & Management Review, Vol. 35, No. 1, September 2011, pp. 133148. 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. 1530-9576/2011 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/PMR1530-9576350107

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agency leaders, strategic planners, performance measurement experts, performance improvement officers, budgeters, financial managers, acquisition officers, technology executives, human capital officers, program evaluators, and program executivesin ways yet to be seen. This ambiguity offers opportunities for the community to help shape its direction.

Clinton and Bush: Creating a Foundation for Performance Management

When viewed from a broader perspective, though, the Obama efforts are actually more evolutionary than revolutionary in that they build on the foundation laid by his immediate predecessors. The clinton and bush administrations developed and extended the performance elements created by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA). Their efforts were described by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) as a solid foundation for achieving results that created a detailed performance management system focused on performance at the agency and program levels (GAO, 2004a). GPRA required agency plans, measures, and reports (U.S. congress, 1993). The OMb and the clinton administrations reinventing government initiative worked with agencies to develop the statutory foundation of agency strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annual performance reports. The reinventing government effort also piloted a number of mission-oriented cross-agency and outcome-oriented initiatives, such as the Safe cities and the 21st century Skills networks (Snyder & briggs, 2003). President bush chose not to extend the mission-oriented cross-agency pilots. Instead, he built on the GPRA planning and reporting approach. he created programlevel assessments, linked budgets to program performance, required agencies to conduct quarterly progress reviews, and tied executive pay to program performance (GAO, 2008). In his last year in office, he issued an executive order that created a network of career executivesdubbed Performance Improvement Officers (PIOs) who focus on their agencys performance initiatives (bush, 2007). basically, President bush shifted the unit of performance analysis from an agencyas reflected in the GPRA performance plans and annual reportsto a program via the creation of a Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) that was used by the OMb to individually assess more than 1,000 major government programs. This inventory of program assessments was publicly posted on the Internet (bush, n.d.). This unprecedented degree of transparency on program performance was a precursor to President Obamas Transparent and Open Government initiative launched when he took office (Obama, 2009). President bushs management and performance improvement legacy was seen by the incoming Obama administration as compliance-oriented, and it reinforced

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the traditional, hierarchical view of government. The Obama administration viewed agencies and programs as a less appropriate unit of analysis for results-oriented performance in the new environment. bushs efforts, nevertheless, created a foundation on which the Obama administration has been able to build its performance initiatives. for example, the cross-agency network of PIOs he created serves an important role in Obamas performance initiatives.

The Obama Performance Management Vision

As a presidential candidate, Obama laid out a vision in 2008 of what his performance management approach would be if he were elected. After his election, his transition team and appointees put together a set of initiatives based on that vision. There is some limited evidence that these initiatives are having an influence on how performance information is used on the front lines, but any significant effects may not be visible for several years. During the 2008 campaign, then-candidate Obama said he would take three steps to improve government performance. first, he would create a new chief performance officer who would report directly to the president. This person would work with agencies to set tough performance targets and hold managers accountable for progress. This person would also lead governmentwide and agency-by-agency performance target-setting and tracking. In addition, the president would meet regularly with cabinet officers to review the progress their agencies were making toward meeting performance improvement targets. Second, he would reconfigure the OMb PART assessment, to ensure that programs are not only measured in isolation, but are assessed in the context of other programs that are serving the same population or meeting the same goals. In addition, his performance improvement effort [would] include cross-agency performance where service delivery requires coordination across federal agencies and multiple levels of government. Third, he would implement consequences for success and failure. for failing programs, he would take steps like sending in performance teams to reform programs; replacing existing management; demanding improvement action plans; and cutting program budget or eliminating programs entirely (Obama 2008). During the transition period before Obama took office in January 2009, his government reform transition team toned down some of the campaign promises and instead focused its near-term efforts on other management priorities, such as greater government transparency, increasing the use of technology, and reforming the ethics and contracting systems. In an address at the brookings Institution two years later, Obamas chief performance officer, Jeffrey Zients (2011), highlighted a number of administration accomplishments in these other areas but was largely silent about progress in the performance arena.

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however, the performance promises of the campaign were not ignored so much as they have been stretched out. They were reiterated in the presidents fiscal year (fY) 2011 and 2012 budgets. This suggests that the commitment continues, but explicit attention to them may be deferred to a later point in the presidents term.

Obamas Initial Performance Framework

At the midpoint of his four-year term of office, President Obamas performance management agenda has been characterized as a Wheres Waldo? exercise by Dr. Kathy Newcomer, a close observer of government performance initiatives (brookings Institution, 2011)they are there, but you have to look closely to find them! President Obamas effort to fill the newly created position of chief performance officer took six months. he appointed Jeffery Zients, a successful private sector executive. Zients was also appointed to the position of deputy director for management at OMb, the traditional management capacity building job in the executive branch. his implementation team was larger than his predecessors and was in place by mid-2010. In testimony before congress in September 2009, shortly after taking office, Zients said he would
lead an effort to develop an improved federal performance management framework that aligns these high-priority performance goals, GPRA performance reporting, and many of the program-level performance measures developed for the PART. Our government-wide performance measurement framework will be focused on outcomes, allow comparisons across programs and agencies, and show trends over time. (2009)

This promise was reiterated in the fY 2012 budget in early 2011 (OMb, 2011a). The idea of reconfiguring bushs PART, as promised during the campaign, has been dropped in favor of a different approach that was detailed in early 2010 in President Obamas fY 2011 budget (OMb, 2010a). In it, Obama stated: Government operates more effectively when it focuses on outcomes, when leaders set clear and measurable goals, and when agencies use measurement to reinforce priorities, motivate action, and illuminate a path to improvement. That approach was based on three key elements:
LEAD BY HAVIng AgEnCIES COMMIT TO A HAnDFuL OF HIgH-PRIORITY PERFORMAnCE gOALS

Zients and OMb staff worked with the major agencies in late 2009 to identify a handful of goals that agencies believed they could achieve in the subsequent 18 to 24 months. consequently, the fY 2011 budget detailed 126 specific, measurable

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goals that OMb would track via a performance portal and quarterly review meetings. Examples of these goals include reducing the number of homeless veterans to 59,000 by 2012 and expanding the number of online filers for Social Security benefits to 50 percent. OMb staff methodically visit each agency once a quarter to determine progress on each of the high-priority goals.
LEARn BY uSIng PuBLIC DASHBOARDS TO FOSTER DATA-DRIVEn REVIEWS AnD DISCuSSIOnS

The fY 2011 budget praised the use of both dashboards and compStat meetings, which have been pioneered successfully in state and local governments, as tools to monitor and act on improved performance. It described how an IT Spending dashboard had already been created and was regularly posting the progress of major agency information technology projects online. It proposed creating dashboards for other projects as well, including improper payments, citizen services, hiring, and procurement. In addition, review meetings were being organized to address potential problems, such as the first TechStat meeting held by OMb at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in early 2010 to review its technology investment strategy (Kundra, 2010). These types of meetings are cross-agency, goal-focused, data-driven, and use statistics to solve problems (OMb, 2010a). This approach is being used for TechStat sessions, which have been expanded to all agencies. Zients (2011) said that more than 50 such meetings had occurred by March 2011, resulting in $3 billion in savings and cutting the delivery time of reviewed projects by half. OMb has also developed dashboards and review sessions covering acquisition and improper payments. A more widespread adoption would be a significant step toward the use of performance information in making management decisions.
LEVERAgE VIA uSE OF PROBLEM-SOLVIng nETWORKS

The budget committed the administration to build on existing cross-agency teams, or create new ones, to tackle shared problems. Some of these networks will be mission-related (e.g., reducing obesity), some will be process based (e.g., improving transaction processing or customer service), and some will focus on policy tools (e.g., block grants, conducting evaluations). The government-wide Performance Improvement council, made up of agency performance improvement officers, serves as the hub for various performance management networks. The administration has also reached out to the private sector for help. President Obama formed a Management Advisory council composed of top executives from major corporations across the country in order to engage them in identifying ways to modernize government (brodsky, 2011). In addition, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is building a government-wide technology platform to al-

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low cross-agency collaboration and permit employees to connect with one other directly (GSA, 2010). These three elements serve as the baseline for the administrations performance improvement agenda, but they are supplemented by a wide array of other performance-based initiatives from both within and outside the administration (OMb, 2011a).

Was the Initial Performance Agenda Overtaken by Events?

President Obamas approach has been to not create a separate, free-standing performance initiative but, rather, to weave performance improvements into his administrations broader governing approach. This is reflected in a range of policy statements, such as his Transparent and Open Government memorandum to agency heads, which outlines his administrations commitment to greater transparency, participation, and collaboration (Obama, 2009), and in his proposed reforms to the No child Left behind Act, where he proposes an emphasis on improving performance rather than meeting targets (Dillon, 2010). In fact, the Obama administrations emphasis on improving performance has not been confined to OMbs performance unit led by Zients. There is a wide range of separate initiatives that reinforce Obamas commitment to revolutionize the governments performance. In addition, congress undertook several steps that focus on improving government performance. Taken together, these may overshadow the initial performance agenda laid out in Obamas fY 2011 budget. The challenge will be to create some form of convergence among the various initiatives. If viewed in the context of a broader framework, they could be mutually reinforcing.
PERFORMAnCE-RELATED ADMInISTRATIOn InITIATIVES

Parallel to the development of Zientss performance management agenda, a number of other administration initiatives contained some significant performance elements. Some were woven into Zientss agenda; others were not but nonetheless have had an important influence on the administrations efforts.
Transparency of Performance Data

In his first months in office, Obama (2009) directed agencies to be more open and transparent about their data and more collaborative in their approach. This is having an important influence in how the administration approaches its performance initiatives by making some performance information more widely and readily available. for example, every agency has developed an Open Government implementation plan (White house, 2010a). Many of these plans have performance-related initiatives such as early detection and prevention of homelessness, an element of the plan developed by the U.S. Department of housing and Urban Development (hUD, 2010).

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Implementation of Recovery Act Accountability Provisions

Several provisions of the $787 billion Recovery Act created a radically different approach to collecting and reporting performance and financial information for these programs (OMb, 2009a). Recipients of Recovery Act fundsabout $275 billionwere required to submit quarterly reports on spending, progress, and results. According to the Recovery Accountability and Transparency board (2011), 209,468 awards were reported by states, localities, nonprofits, and for-profits via this new system as of December 2010. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the new reporting requirements are creating a demand among citizens for similar reporting of other funds, and organizations are beginning to use the Recovery Act data-collection requirements to monitor their own performance progress. In fact, in late June 2011, President Obama directed an expansion of the Recovery Acts data reporting requirements to all government grants, contracts, and loans, and legislation was introduced in both the house and Senate to make this approach statutory (Issa, 2011; Obama, 2011; Warner, 2011b).
Creation of Performance.Gov

Progress toward the 126 high-priority performance goals developed by agencies is reported via a single government-wide Web portal, Performance.Gov, where the various dashboards (e.g., the TechStat, AcquisitionStat, and Improper Payments portals) also can be accessed. As of June 2011, this portal was not open to the public but was being used by agencies. The new GPRA amendments (see the discussion of performance-related congressional initiatives below) require such a portal to be expanded to become the one-stop center for all government performance plans and reports.
Creation of a Cross-Agency Ability to Collaborate Around Results

Once in office, Obama also appointed a series of high-level coordinators, or czars, for key initiatives, such as health care reform, the financial crisis, implementation of the Recovery Act, and improving food safety. Obama has been criticized for appointing too many czars(harder, 2009), but he has done so in order to address the inability to get things done in the traditional agency-and-program approach to governance. As Kettl (2010) says, this is a revolutionary-in-scale move to maneuver past the permanent bureaucracy. While congress has attempted to reduce the presidents ability to designate czars, it has given him new authority, via the GPRA amendments, to create cross-agency goal owners with the responsibility of orchestrating performance around results that span agency boundaries.
Commitment to Reorganize the Government

In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama said, we cannot win the future with a government of the past. This led to a memo directing the delivery of

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a plan of action to reorganize agencies and functions associated with improving the performance of trade, exports, and competitiveness (White house, 2011a). The focus of the reorganization effortwhether it will be broad or targeted in nature nature was still unknown as of June 2011is to improve performance, especially in achieving cross-agency results.
Budget Cuts Based on Line-by-Line Reviews

In his Inaugural Address, President Obama said he would conduct a line-by-line review of the budget, based on how well each agency or program performed. In the first year, this yielded a relatively small list of programs for cuts or elimination, totaling about $20 billion in cuts. however, in each of the subsequent fiscal years, the pool gradually increased. The significant point is that the reviews are focused on program performance, resulting even in cuts in programs favored by the administration for political reasons (OMb, 2011b).
Support for Program Evaluation

While President Obama has proposed cutting poorly performing programs, he has supported investment in program evaluations in agencies to determine program effectiveness. Then-OMb director Peter Orzag wrote: Evaluations can help policymakers and agency managers strengthen the design and operation of programs. Ultimately, evaluations can help the Administration determine how to spend taxpayer dollars effectively and efficientlyinvesting more in what works and less in what does not. As part of this increased emphasis, the president proposed an investment of $100 million in such efforts in his last two budgets. (OMb 2010b, 2011a).
Expansion of Administrative Flexibility

A february 2011 presidential memo declared that the array of rules and requirements imposed by various federal programs and agencies may at times undermine their efforts to modernize and integrate program delivery. It directed agencies to work with states and localities to identify the best opportunities to realize efficiency, promote program integrity, and improve program outcomes (White house, 2011b). This allows agencies to begin to focus their strategies more on how to achieve program results and deemphasizes the traditional emphasis on compliance.
PERFORMAnCE-RELATED COngRESSIOnAL InITIATIVES

congress also undertook a number of steps to improve government performance. Its most visible step was to pass significant revisions to the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA). however, it took a number of other steps with important significance for the governments performance system, as well.

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Passage of GPRA Modernization Act

congress adopted amendments to GPRA in late 2010 that reinforced the Obama administrations efforts to set priority goals, with quarterly progress assessments based on performance data and reported via a government-wide Web site. It also formalized a governance framework by institutionalizing the use of agency performance improvement officers and included opportunities for greater congressional involvement in goal-setting and performance reviews (U.S. congress, 2010c). The laws update was based on more than 15 years of experiencedocumented through numerous GAO reports (GAO, 2004a, 2010). This experience included both the evolution of agency practices and increased access to information and collaboration via the Internet. The original 1993 law required agencies to create multi-year strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annual performance reports. The new legislation made some significant changes to existing lawabout 150 actions by one count and will take several years to implement. The new legislation creates a more defined performance framework by defining a governance structure and by better connecting plans, programs, and performance information. As described in the Senate committee report accompanying the bill (U.S. congress, 2010b), the new law requires more frequent reporting and reviews (quarterly instead of annually) that are intended to increase the use of performance information in program decision-making. The law is likely to change behaviors in the executive branch by creating a more explicitly fact-based and results-oriented decision-making framework to implement programs. Specific elements include:
Revised agency strategic planning, annual performance planning, and annual performance reporting requirements that require much tighter alignment. New requirements to designate cross-agency federal priority goals and agencylevel priority goals. New requirements for quarterly reviews and reporting of cross-agency and agency-level priority goals. New requirements that formalize the existing governance framework that evolved over the past 15 years. Specifically, it legislatively creates (1) chief operating officers, (2) program improvement officers, (3) a government-wide performance improvement council, and (4) a government-wide performance Web site. Other provisions, such as better training for program managers and a timetable for action.

however, for the law to be effective, congress too may have to change its behavior. for example, the law requires greater consultation with congress in the designation of cross-cutting and agency-level priority goals, as well as in the development of agency strategic plans. To achieve this, congress will have to find new ways to coordinate its own efforts across committee jurisdictions.

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The EPA and the Department of homeland Security, for example, each report to more than 70 committees and subcommittees, often with differing priorities, so congress will have to find a way to coordinate internally in order to provide meaningful input. This will only increase when the laws provisions for obtaining congressional input on cross-agency goals become effective.
Senate Task Force on Government Performance

The Senate budget committee created a Task force on Government Performance in late 2009. Led by Senator Mark Warner, the task force will examine the federal governments management framework and identify opportunities to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and services. The task force will also examine how performance and program evaluation information is used during the budget process and draw on best practices from public, private, and nonprofit experience, and from previous federal performance reform efforts (U.S. Senate budget committee, 2010). To date, the task force has played a significant role in the crafting and adoption of the GPRA Modernization Act and has held oversight hearings that reinforce some of the Obama administrations efforts, such as its July 2009 memo to agencies to foster the use of program evaluation and evidence-based decision-making (OMb, 2009b).
Creation of a Key National Indicator System

The health insurance reform legislation adopted in early 2010 contains a provision creating and funding a bipartisan commission to oversee the development and implementation of a Key National Indicator System by the National Academies of Science. The project is authorized $70 million, through fiscal year 2018, to develop and maintain the Indicator System (U.S. congress, 2010a). funding, however, was not appropriated as of June 2011. Once operational, however, this effort could become an independent, nonpartisan, nongovernmental source of information about how well our country is doing. The sponsors of the legislation hoped that it would help provide a factual basis for policy decisions and would moderate ideological approaches to deciding on the nations future. As GAO puts it: A well-informed nation is an essential component of a healthy democracy (2004b). With the adoption of the GPRA Modernization Act, the indicator system could provide the basis for monitoring progress, if the administration decides to establish broad cross-cutting outcome goals (Peterson-Pew, 2010).
Creation of Recovery Act Accountability System

congress created a novel accountability system in early 2009 to oversee the $275 billion in grants and contracts embedded in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This accountability systemcomprising a Web site, data-collection

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requirements, and an oversight board of agency inspectors generalwas funded with about $84 million. The system tracks the dollars associated with the grants and contracts provided under the act, and collects some rudimentary performance information (mainly jobs created and the progress of funded projects). As a firsttime government-wide accountability system, it offers lessons for future performance efforts (Recovery Accountability and Transparency board, 2011).
Focus on Program Overlaps and Duplication

The statutory provision requiring GAO to report annually on programs that overlap and duplicate efforts begins to underline an emphasis on what results these programs are trying to achieve. Its initial report identified 34 areas where agencies, offices, or initiatives have similar or overlapping objectives or provide similar services to the same populations; or where government missions are fragmented across multiple agencies or programs. These areas spanned the policy spectrum from agriculture to social services. Addressing these areas, GAO (2011a) concluded, would help agencies provide more efficient and effective services. A focus on program performance, by the way, is a radically different approach than congress used to cut costs in the 1980s via across-the-board methods. Its current cutting efforts seem to place greater weight on prioritizing cuts based on their levels of performance.

Challenges to the Performance Community

Obamas evolving performance revolutionif the various administration and congressional initiatives can be included under that rubriccould significantly change the world of those involved in strategic planning, performance measurement, performance assessment, and reporting. It would also be likely to change the approach federal executives and other decision-makers take. Senator Mark Warner (2011a) said about the GPRA Modernization Act: This is the biggest little bill nobody ever heard of . . . if we implement this the right way, noting that it could be one of the most significant pieces of legislation from the 111th congress. The new law requires that OMb for the first time develop a small handful of long-term cross-agency priority goals, in consultation with at least a dozen named congressional committees, at least every two years. There is no precedent for this. It will require new institutional procedures in both OMb and congress. how this will evolve will be of interest to those involved in performance management implementation in federal agencies and at the state and local levels. Similarly, federal agencies will need to consult with congress as well as with OMb on their priority goals. In testimony before Senator Warners taskforce, former White house chief of staff John Podesta (2011) said: The new law also asks for cross-government

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goals, which I believe is its most important feature. President Obama should use this opportunity to communicate what his entire administration is trying to accomplish, setting no more than five goals that are presented as a contract between himself and the American people. . . . former british Prime Minister Tony blair did something similar to great effect. The shift from a traditional performance model organized around agencies and programs to one premised on portfolios of services and results will likely result in different executive and legislative branch roles and relationships. for example, a major change in the executive branch would be to create roles for individuals to serve as goal leaders around cross-cutting outcomes. These goal leaders would be responsible for collaborative activities and accountability spanning the boundaries of agencies and programs. On the legislative side, one possible institutional change might be the adoption of a congressional performance resolution. Originally proposed by GAO, this would involve setting goals for cross-cutting outcomes, such as climate change, rather than the traditional approach where dozens of congressional committees independently set their own subgoals for executive agencies to act upon (GAO, 2005, p. 86). In the authors opinion, these changes in institutional governance structures will probably lead to changes in accountability structures. Again, this could occur in both the executive and the legislative branch. for example, agencies are now being directed to move away from standardized, static performance measures reported annuallysuch as the current Performance and Accountability Reports prepared to comply with the chief financial Officers Act and GPRAto near-real-time, more granular performance information available to both government employees and the public (OMb, 2010c). This is likely to unsettle politicians as well as senior career leaders by allowing independent interpretations of performance information generated directly by agency programs. finally, the shift to a governance model that spans agency and program boundaries has the potential to change the role of citizens. In this new model, they would have new opportunities to become far more involved in defining accountability, developing solutions, and analyzing data via ever-evolving social media tools. The Obama administrations emphasis on transparency, engagement, and collaboration reinforces this. As a result, internal government performance analysts will not be able to control the external use of the data and its analysis. They will have competition in creating meaningful and actionable knowledge from the data. Again, this will likely be an unsettling prospect for managers in many agencies.

Conclusions
The implications of the Obama administrations performance initiatives for the broader government performance community are profound. To remain relevant,

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the performance community will need to transition from its traditional emphasis on standardized, periodic reporting models, where analysis is performed by a central staff, to a new model that embraces collaborative elements. for example, the performance community will need to embrace the use of greater transparency, open data standards, and shared data elements, and to develop ways to allow near-real-time reporting of performance information in a form readily understandable to targeted stakeholders. In some cases the stakeholders will be specialists, and in other cases the stakeholders will be ordinary citizens. The performance community will also need to develop new approaches to share and report performance information around a strategic outcome (e.g., climate change) and not just agencies and programs. This will require the development of cross-agency and cross-program information gathering and reporting mechanisms, as was done successfully in the case of the Recovery Act by using common standards and reporting methods. The new performance model, based on real-time, cross-program transparent data, also implies that the collection, analysis, and reporting of public performance information will be highly distributed across sectors without a central owner of the system. for example, health-related outcomes may rely on data drawn from federal, state, local, for-profit, and non-profit sources. To do this successfully, though, the performance community will have to find new ways to validate the quality and legitimacy of its data, even if they do not reside on a government Web site, so that others cannot distort them. This also means that third parties may apply their own analytic and visualization tools for users, and mash up or combine government data from different sources or with data from nongovernment sources to aid in interpretation. for example, the National Obesity comparison Tool, developed by Tableau Software (http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/ contributorstoobesity/Eatyourvegtables?:embed=yes&:toolbar=yes/), is based on federal data from the centers for Disease control and Prevention but uses its own visualization software to display it using mapping data from other sources. If successfully implemented, these new ways of creating, collecting, sharing, interpreting and reporting performance data in near real time could become the foundation for new results-oriented governance models of the future. The path for doing this is not clear, and in the interim there will be a great deal of uncertainty and many opportunities for experimentation. The good news is that the performance community will have an important role in shaping this new future!

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John M. Kamensky is a senior fellow of the IBM Center for the Business of Government and is also a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.