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Performance Accountability

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:

Background Performance accountability questions
Getting Started Who are your customers?
Introduction to performance accountability measures How can you measure if your customers are better off?
How can you measure if your program is delivering services well?
Select the most important measures How are you doing on the most important of these measures?
Who are the partners that have a role to play in doing better?
What works to do better, including no-cost and low-cost ideas?
What do you propose to do?

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.


Return to Results Accountability page Step 2 - Performance Accountability Measures


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