Performance management helps recipients develop a better understanding of what is and isn’t happening during program implementation. While not a form of evaluation—it does not assess how outcomes would differ in the absence of the program—performance management can answer important questions about outputs and outcomes. It is an essential program activity: you can’t improve performance without measuring it.
Office of Management and Budget
The White House Office of Management and Budget’s 2024 Uniform Grants Guidance Revision requires agencies to measure performance, including the achievement of program goals and objectives, and improvements in program outcomes. See Section §200.301 of the guidance for more information.
Overview
Performance management is the ongoing, systematic tracking of information relevant to programs, projects, goals, outputs, outcomes and/or activities. If you need to know how much a program is producing (e.g., how many people are served or how many hours a clinic was open) performance measurement is an appropriate tool. Programs often collect data to measure performance as part of their normal course of business and may use this data to adjust their program over time.
Identifying the Appropriate Performance Measures
Program performance measures should be driven by priorities at the program and agency level, as well as by legislative directives that authorize program funding. While much of the work of identifying the expected program outputs and outcomes should have been done through the development of a logic model, identifying what is to be measured depends on priorities and resources.