B&G REPORT.

The B&G Report features newsy items relating to a wide variety of state and local government management topics, including state and local performance audit, state and local performance management, government budgeting, state and local human resource issues, and a variety of other public sector issues.

BEYOND THE DATA

Not long ago we were at a presentation by an academic about a topic that was of genuine interest to us. As is often the case, she had many interesting slides, showing all of the data she had gathered over months of research. But when one of the members of the audience inquired about the meaning behind the data, her answer was simple. “I don’t know. I only know the numbers.” This was frustrating to us, and we suspect other folks in the audience. But it’s been our experienc

greenebarrett

3 min read

THE SEATTLE SYNDROME LIVES ON

Many years ago, when we were involved in evaluating the management capacity of the nation’s largest cities, one of the areas of inquiry was performance management (which we then were calling “management for results”). This early exercise – one of the first in a line of work that ultimately led to the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Government Performance Project– was largely reliant on journalistic-style interviews, supplemented with a survey instrument. When we interviewed the people

greenebarrett

4 min read