Upcoming event on performance measurement

[Dean Mead <dmmead@gasb.org>]

This just came across my desk:

CAP Co-Sponsors Performance Measurement Lunches

ASPA's Center for Accountability and Performance in conjunction with George
Washington University and the US General Accounting Office are sponsoring a
series of brown bag lunches on Performance Measurement and Evaluation.


Join us April 19, 2000 for the 11th in a series of Brown Bag Lunches on
Performance Measurement

You are invited to attend the CAP/GAO/GWU Brown Bag Lunch Series on
Wednesday, April 19, 2000 from Noon-1:30 pm at the George Washington
University, Monroe Hall Room 101A, 2115 G Street, NW.

Michael Hendricks, Independent Consultant, will discuss "Attribution: How
much credit (or blame) do we deserve for our performance scores?" More
information on Mr. Hendricks' discussion is provided below.

Kathryn Newcomer, GWU, and Allen Lomax, GAO, will moderate the discussion.
For more information, please contact Emily Christensen at (202) 994-6295.

Attribution: How much credit (or blame) do we deserve for our performance
scores?

When an agency starts to report performance, an inevitable question will be
"But did you cause this performance?" If your agency's scores have improved,
do you deserve the credit? If your scores have gotten worse, should you be
blamed? Sooner or later, every agency will have to address this question of
attribution.

We all know that the tool of performance measurement (PM) is
methodologically unable to prove causality (i.e., we know that PM can tell
What is happening, but not Why it is happening). To prove causality we need
a rigorous evaluation design. But where does that leave us? Do we simply
throw up our hands? Is there no "middle way" between doing a rigorous
program evaluation and doing nothing?

In fact, yes there is. Several people have been thinking about a "middle
way," and they have some interesting notions about plausible association
(Cooley), contributory analysis (Mayne), relationships among variables
(Scheirer), reverse threats to validity 
(Hendricks), and the like.

Attend the April Brown Bag lunch and learn about these new ideas -- but more
importantly, come prepared to join a roll-up-your-sleeves, working session
and help us develop even more ideas for this "middle way" ... and be on the
cutting edge of a 
critically important issue.


Dean Michael Mead
Project Manager
Governmental Accounting Standards Board
203/847-0700, ext. 294
dmmead@gasb.org
www.gasb.org and www.seagov.org

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