- 09 January, 2009 03:01 PM EST
- President Elect Obama Names Performance Officer
The first ever governmental performance officer was named yesterday by President Elect Obama. Nancy Kellifer will be charged with tracking how well government programs are working. She is touted as an expert in "streamlining policies and wringing out inefficiencies." What a brilliant move - and one that has the potential to yield some impressive results. Any ordinary citizen can cite pages of opportunities. The first challenge for Kellifer may be where to focus. The second and much bigger challenge will be shifting the governmental culture.
A methodical approach, a tireless enthusiasm and a careful attention to communicating will be tools that can move the governmental mountain of inefficiencies one rock at a time. Research such as "The First 100 Days of the BP Director" provides a toolkit and outline to jumpstart any performance improvement effort.
Do you think that private enterprise will more readily adopt the idea of a performance officer given the visibility it will be receiving? Will this help those of us who already work in the area of business process management to gain better traction throughout our organizations? I for one certainly hope so.
I wish Kellifer all the best.
[See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_newser_performance_auditor]
