Managing for Results: Leading Practices Should Guide the Continued Development of Performance.gov
Highlights
What GAO Found
The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (GPRAMA) requires Performance.gov to provide program and performance information accessible to the public and members and committees of Congress. GAO used leading practices from HowTo.gov, a key source of guidance for federal website development and management, to assess the website and found that although Performance.gov incorporates some leading practices, opportunities exist to further incorporate them through continued development. For example, consistent with leading practices, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), working with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Performance Improvement Council (PIC), provided information about the purposes and audiences for the website, but they have made limited efforts to clarify how audiences can use the information provided. If the specific uses of Performance.gov are not clarified, while taking into consideration what the law requires, it could lead to varying ideas and expectations for how Performance.gov should be developed.
Leading practices also recommend that developers engage potential users through focus groups and other outreach and regularly conduct usability tests to gather insight into areas such as navigation and the organization of website content. Efforts to collect input and feedback from potential audiences of Performance.gov, however, have been limited to the collection of suggestions through the website's "Feedback" page and briefings for selected audiences. Similarly, OMB has not yet conducted any usability tests of the website, although staff said that usability testing is being planned for September 2013. Without this information, the needs of the audiences and how they are using or want to use the website cannot guide further improvements.
In addition, leading practices recommend that agencies collect, analyze, and report on a baseline set of performance, customer satisfaction, and other metrics. Of the 24 recommended metrics, 15 are currently tracked for Performance.gov. Leading practices also recommend setting goals for metrics and making sure these align with the website's objectives to help prioritize and guide design changes. These goals can be identified based on prevailing practices or the desire to improve a particular metric over time. Except for the area of customer satisfaction, OMB has not established performance metric goals, which may make it more difficult to analyze the effectiveness of the website.
OMB staff stated that, thus far, the specific legal requirements of GPRAMA have been the primary framework used to guide efforts to develop Performance.gov. They said they have been focused on compliance with these requirements by providing information on agency and cross-agency priority goals and by establishing a phased development plan for integrating additional information from agency strategic plans, performance plans, and performance reports. OMB and GSA staff members said, however, that the leading practices provided by HowTo.gov will help guide the development of Performance.gov. They also noted that as the phased development of Performance.gov unfolds, they expect to use broader outreach to a wider audience, including members of the public, to make Performance.gov more "public-facing" and "citizen-centric."
Why GAO Did This Study
Congress took steps to improve federal performance reporting through GPRAMA by requiring that OMB provide performance information via a publicly-available central website, Performance.gov. GAO is mandated to review GPRAMA's implementation at several junctures; this report is part of a series doing so. The report examines the extent to which Performance.gov incorporates leading practices for the development of federal websites. To address this objective, GAO compared the design of Performance.gov to GSA's Top 10 Best Practices for federal websites on HowTo.gov; reviewed performance reporting literature and OMB guidance; collected information from 13 national, state, and local performance reporting website practitioners; and interviewed federal and nonfederal groups most likely to use the information on the website because of their management, oversight, advocacy, or academic interests. These groups included officials from five selected agencies, staff from 13 U.S. Senate and House of Representatives congressional committees, and representatives from 10 transparency organizations and academic institutions.
Recommendations
GAO recommends that OMB should work with GSA and the PIC to (1) clarify specific ways that intended audiences could use Performance.gov and specify changes to support these uses; (2) systematically collect information on the needs of intended audiences; and (3) collect recommended performance metrics and, as appropriate, create goals for those metrics. OMB staff agreed with these recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Office of Management and Budget | To enhance the value of Performance.gov for intended audiences and improve the ability to identify and prioritize potential improvements, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget--working with the Performance Improvement Council and the General Services Administration--should clarify the ways that intended audiences could use the information on the Performance.gov website to accomplish specific tasks and specify the design changes that would be required to facilitate that use. |
In February 2018, the Office of Management and Budget and General Services Administration launched an updated version of Performance.gov. A "Get Started" page outlines specific tasks that visitors can accomplish on the site, including how to access agency performance information, learn more about the President's Management Agenda and cross-agency goals, and download data from agency performance reports.
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| Office of Management and Budget | To enhance the value of Performance.gov for intended audiences and improve the ability to identify and prioritize potential improvements, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget--working with the Performance Improvement Council and the General Services Administration--should seek to more systematically collect information on the needs of a broader audience, including through the use of customer satisfaction surveys and other approaches recommended by HowTo.gov. |
In the fall of 2017, the Office of Management and Budget and Performance Improvement Council asked staff from the General Services Administration (GSA) to identify the needs of Performance.gov audiences. As part of this study, and consistent with approaches recommended by HowTo.gov, GSA staff interviewed and tested new Performance.gov prototypes with different user groups to identify ways to improve user engagement. GSA staff used the results of the interviews to better understand the information different audiences were seeking, and how Performance.gov could more effectively meet those needs. They also used the interviews and user testing to identify specific ways to improve navigation, visual communication, and the accessibility of performance data in future iterations of the site.
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| Office of Management and Budget | To enhance the value of Performance.gov for intended audiences and improve the ability to identify and prioritize potential improvements, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget--working with the Performance Improvement Council and the General Services Administration--should seek to ensure that all performance, search, and customer satisfaction metrics, consistent with leading practices outlined in HowTo.gov, are tracked for the website, and, where appropriate, create goals for those metrics to help identify and prioritize potential improvements to Performance.gov. |
As of July 2024, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and General Services Administration (GSA) had taken some actions toward addressing this recommendation. According to information that OMB staff provided in April 2021, OMB and GSA are tracking 15 out of 24 metrics for Performance.gov that are recommended for federal websites, and they are working to collect information related to the remaining 9 metrics. In addition, in March 2021 they began using a Google Analytics account. OMB staff told us in April 2021 that the features and information available through that account should allow them to establish performance goals for the website. In July 2022, OMB staff told us that they were continuing to take action to address this recommendation, but did not provide any further information. By establishing goals, OMB and GSA would have tools to understand whether the website is performing as expected, and what actions may be needed to achieve desired results. In July 2024, we reached out to OMB for updates, but they provided no additional information on actions to address this recommendation. We will continue to monitor OMB's actions.
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