Performance Management in Government Departments

PM in Government Departments
Graeme Dobson, Manager, Australia, Member
Mashukudu, performance management can (should) be used to create alignment and to increase consistency and accountability. Unfortunately my experience shows most government departments focus on the performance review rather than performance planning and feedback/coaching. This almost guarantees that their performance management systems under deliver.

PM in Government Public Sevices
Yoke S. Fabianto, Management Consultant, Indonesia, Member
In government management PM can be implemented as well as in business. The difference is just the objectives: - The business objective is profit, and - The government objective - especially public services - is good service or public satisfaction.

Objectives in Performance Management at Government Departments
Denis Nixon, Business Consultant, Philippines, Member
Let's not be blinded by a thought that it cannot be done in government. Graeme has it right in that the objectives for a department / area need to be clear.
"Issue license in accordance with regulations, so that applicants are handled quickly, fairly and with respect" might be the objective of one department. In that case measures for compliance, cycle time, customer satisfaction can all be developed.
This does link to strategy as a govt dept is basically set up to implement laws and mandates.

Performance Management in Government Service
Ikeanyi Cordelia, Management Consultant, Nigeria, Member
Performance management is practicable in any form of organisation. The success of the system however is dependent on senior management commitment and accountability.

How to Introduce Performance Management in Government Departments
Ceferino Dulay, Jr., Philippines, Member
One way of introducing performance management is using a project management approach to all programs. The approach is very organized and planning, implementation, performance monitoring and evaluation are already within the system.
People are familiar with the concept since I would think that government departments have projects. Introduce the concept of an organized way of working and when people get used to it, you can easily introduce the full concept of performance management after they realize that they have been using performance management already while they were using the project management approach.

Problem with Performance Management in Government Departments
Motimele, HR Consultant, South Africa, Member
It is possible to implement performance management in government.
Firstly establish what are the major objectives of the department and break them in small chunks to determine which unit will be responsible for what in the department.
I agree with you Mashukudu, at times this becomes problematic, because you have managers who do not know what they are doing, but it is doable.

Performance Management in Government Departments
Ceferino Dulay, Jr., Philippines, Member
In private organizations, the most important business result desired is profit. In government, I would like to believe is service.
If we focus on this end result, all the various processes needed to get and later use a service can be streamlined.
For example, in a group tasked with making official maps, one important criterion is accuracy. This is important in resolving conflicting claims on land property, a basis for a GPS system that will help people navigate efficiently so that there is fuel savings, driving safety and efficiency, etc. Or boats can navigate safely even at night or during a storm. So, this government department's processes can be designed for accuracy and speed especially, for example, when the information need to be current and accidents are to be avoided.
Performance can be measured in terms of speed and accuracy of service since it is currently difficult to measure performance at the national or society level.

Problem with Performance Management in Government Departments
Mario Croes
Because the concept of performance management is mostly alien to government departments you will have to deal with culture change. The feedback/coaching as mentioned by Graeme will become essential. But ultimately it will be possible when there is a leadership commitment because change starts at the top.

PM in Government Departments
Ndwapi William, teacher, Botswana, Member
In government PM is quite a challenge because in our case it tends to take all the focus of core service because it is so demanding. When in the teaching profession the number of workshops and the reviews thereof, all take a lot of valuable time for teaching. Yes I sound a bit negative but I really believe in it, for now in our case, it is not effective at all more needs to be done. Private organisations seam to be better placed to effectively use it, I just wonder how best the education system can implement it without much hassles?

PM in Government
Ceferino Dulay, Jr., Philippines, Member
I have used PM concepts in many projects, services and continuous operations although not really all the detailed PM processes. For example, I focus on end results and identifying resources and procedures needed and having a start and an end.
In operations, I take the month's end as the end of a cycle and we take the lessons learned and bring it to the next which should result into a process of continuous improvement.
This is actually applicable in any organization, be they for profit or a government service. I used this concept also in training first-time part-time technical trainers in a government security plant where training is one venue for competency development not only for the trainer but also for the rest of the workforce.
The continuity in training is having these trainers as workplace coaches where they perform a leadership role in technical and work management. Their managers also act as their advisers and so on, so that a learning organization is built.

Performance Management in Government
Malebati Matome J, Director, South Africa, Member
PM in puiblic services is often build on a transactional approach (in which managers are concerned with control and supervision instead of with delegation, empowerment) rather than on a transformational approach Iin which PM is providing the basis for the future direction / strategic vision / strategy).