The Sorry State of Federal Program Management

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The Sorry State of Federal Program Management
(September 30, 2008)

Americans are unhappy with a lack of transparency and accountability on federal government programs, but federal managers say real improvement will require better standardized systems to collect and share data.

With the public’s approval ratings of the current U.S. Administration and Congress at all-time lows, it may not qualify as shocking to also find that only 10 percent of Americans are satisfied with federal management practices. What may be surprising, however, is that only 17 percent of federal managers give their own agencies an “A” for effectiveness.

Those discouraging sentiments come from “Government 2.0: The Performance Opportunity,” a new survey by Primavera Systems and O’Keefe & Co. of some 3,800 Americans and 380 federal managers about the perceived value of federal government programs and what can be done to improve them.

The survey, conducted this summer, found that 75 percent of Americans want to know when a program is overbudget, why it is overbudget, and what the agency plans to do to get it back on track. More than two thirds (68 percent) of federal managers say this could be accomplished, but that there is not a system in place to support the collection and dissemination of this type of data.

Currently, 44 percent of federal managers say their standardized system consists of a homegrown spreadsheet-based project management system developed in house.

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