Performance accountability highlights the impact that a program, service or activity may
have had. To work well, it must:
- Make sense to users
- Provide useful information to managers
- Focus on the most important measures of customer well-being
- Not waste paper or depend on heavy reports, and
- Help you move from talk to action to improve performance
Programs exist to improve the well-being of a specific group of people, or target
population. Most programs can only help a small portion of their target
population. Although program managers are accountable for changes directly
connected to their programs, they share responsibility for the well-being of the
entire target population with other programs and resources.
The performance accountability process is presented using Mark Friedman’s seven
questions. On this page, background information is added at three stages.
The step-by-step discussion follows this path:
Getting Started
Before you can answer the first question, you need to describe exactly what you are going to
evaluate. You could focus on a program, function or part of an organization.
Since this process is designed to hold managers accountable, you might use an organizational
chart as you define the scope of your evaluation.
Who are your customers?
Your customers are the people who could be made better or worse off by your program or
activity.
If your program causes change, it will affect some people directly and then, as their
lives change, it will affect a larger group as well. For example, if your program
helps people stop smoking cigarettes, it will help both the people who quit (your
customers) and those who breathe less second hand smoke because those people quit.
Your program will have helped both groups become healthier.
Many programs have more than one group of customers, and the grouups may have different
interests. For example, a clean indoor air coalition may include advocates who
want to reduce exposure to second-hand smoke and advocates who want to help people with
asthma reduce dust, mold and mildew in their homes and worksites.
