On October 7, the IBM Center for the Business of Government published a blog post report by Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene (publishers of greenebarrett.com) titled “Performance Management: A Multi-Pronged Approach”.

The general theme of the piece was that “For many years, people have been using the words performance management as a sort of synonym for performance measurement.”

But it goes on to make the point that performance measurement is only part of the field. 

As Kathryn Newcomer, a professor in the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at the George Washington University, explained, “government performance means different things to different people. Some people talk about measuring specific items like outputs and outcomes, which people call performance measurement. But there are different communities of practice that don’t necessarily speak with one another. They don’t even recognize that they’re in the same enterprise with a similar goal – improving government.”

Some of the other areas – beyond measurement – that the IBM Center piece explores are:

Performance Audits – “Many local and state governments have an office of some kind that issues performance audits about very specific issues that are of consequence to their residents or their legislators. While these audits may not necessarily wind up changing practices, in a number of instances they do – and it’s only reasonable to think of them as part of the big picture of performance management.”

Evaluations – “Evaluations are similar in many ways to performance audits, though they are done by a different group. Though the difference between the two have been blurring over the course of time, auditors issue reports with specific actionable recommendations, while evaluators are more inclined to publish research papers, policy briefs or assessments of the impact of a program.”

Evidence-based practices --“States and counties spend billions of dollars on critical services and programs to help protect and improve public health, support reentry for individuals who were formerly incarcerated, and protect children from abuse and neglect—yet many state and county leaders lack comprehensive information about the impact of those expenditures,” explained the Pew Charitable Trusts several years ago.

“One way around this issue has been to rely on proven practices from other entities before embarking on a new policy or program – thus heightening the likelihood that it will perform well when actually put into action.”

Process Improvement – “One approach that can easily be considered as part of the body of work that comprises performance management is LEAN and other similar approaches, which have been used for decades --- first in the private sector and subsequently in the world of government. 

As Michael Jacobson, owner of Jacobson Consulting LLC. and former deputy director of King County’s Office of Performance Strategy and Budget, explains, ‘It’s about examining processes, mapping the processes, identifying unnecessary steps, getting agreement, establishing consensus about all the steps in the process and who’s responsible for it, then clarifying that and basically reducing redundancy and making the process more efficient and more time responsive.’”

As the piece concludes: “I think calling it performance management is part of the problem. What we’re really looking for is results driven management,” says John Bernard, founder and president of America’s Pulse, “and I don’t use those words without a great deal of thought, because performance management is a vague generalized concept.

When you describe it as results-driven management, we begin with what result do you want, and then we develop a system of management that essentially pulls all the various pieces together.”

(Barrett and Greene, the publishers of this website, are visiting fellows with the IBM Center of the Business of Government and contracted with the center this year to produce four blog post reports. This one was published on October 7, 2026. The first was titled, “AI In State Government: Lessons, Challenges and Expansions,” and was published on August 24, 2026.)

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