Performance Measurement

Long before "reinventing government" came into vogue, the Urban Institute pioneered methods for government and human services agencies to measure the performance of their programs. This book, by a leader in the field, synthesizes more than two decades of work into a comprehensive guide to performance measurement. Hatry explains every component of the process, from identifying the program's mission, objectives, customers, and trackable outcomes, to finding the best indicators for each outcome, the sources of data, and how to collect them. The author explains the selection of indicator breakouts and benchmarks for comparisons to actual values and suggests a number of uses for performance information. Joseph Wholey contributes a chapter on maintaining the quality of the performance measurement process. All these, along with numerous charts, tables, real-life examples, and clear definitions, make this the performance measurement bible.