B&G REPORT.

When we think about timeliness in police, fire and EMS, we often think of response times. And even though it’s recently been pointed out to us that there are other important measures, like timely evidence processing and timely release of information on high-profile events, ultimately response times are the metric you’re most likely to hear about – and the ones that are primarily the difference between safety and tragedy. For emergency services, particularly, every moment can

In January 2022, a little more than a year before his death at the age of 92, we had the honor of working with Harry Hatry on an Urban Institute report titled “ Dos and Don’ts Tips for Strengthening Your Performance Management Systems. ” While we’d been writing about this broad topic for years, what made this special was that we were working once again with one of the giants in the realm of performance management. Contributions to this report were also made by well-known figu

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

Last Tuesday in our Management Update Section, we announced the publication of a study titled “2025 State and Local Workforce Survey...

Many years ago, when we were first introduced to the world of performance management, we became zealots, believing that cities and states...

Way back in 2015, we wrote a cover story for Governing  about bad data. (And by the way, we’re delighted to report that after a few...

We don’t have a degree in statistics. Nor are we data specialists. But after 30-plus years of using data as a basic tool in our quest to...

For years, we’ve been writing about the importance of good data, based upon which states, counties and cities can make good decisions....

As we approach the last several weeks of December, our plan is to take a full vacation starting on December 14, continuing through New...

A couple of weeks ago, our B&G Report published a series of answers to the question: “What should members of the press know in order to...

Last week’s B&G Report included the second in a series of lists, compiled by experts, about managing performance. The first such list,...

We received a tremendous response a few weeks ago when we published “A Reader’s Guide to Government Performance”  by John Kamensky, a...

Several decades ago, when we first developed a passion for performance management, we leaned upon a cadre of people who were pioneering...

When we attend social gatherings like weddings and are seated with people who don’t know us, one of the obligatory first questions...

We’re not scared of AI. It doesn’t take much historical memory to know that pretty much any new technology brings out fear and...

About a year ago, we wrote a B&G report titled “ Is Speedy Government Good Government? ” in which we made the case that the pressure for...

Typically, when we hear about a city or state choosing not to gather more potentially useful data because it’s too time consuming, we...

Back in 2020, then President Donald Trump proclaimed that “The murder rate in Baltimore and Detroit is higher than El Salvador, Guatemala...

Several years ago – right before the start of the pandemic -- our book, The Promises and Pitfalls of Performance-Informed Management was...

by Dr. Ellen Harpel, Founder of Smart Incentives and Randall Bauer, Director, PFM Group Consulting ​ Randall Bauer Ellen Harpel As...