U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Ensuring the Federal Government has an effective civilian workforce

Performance Management Program Design Handbook

The Performance Management Program Design Handbook is designed to assist agency personnelists, managers, employees and their representatives in working through the redesign of their performance management programs. It is the second helpful guidebook issued by the Interagency Advisory Group (IAG) Committee on Performance Management and Recognition. The Handbook was written by the Performance Management Program Design Working Group.

The working group determined that there are at least three significant challenges in designing performance management systems: deciding on centralized or decentralized controls, dealing with conflicting program design objectives, and achieving ownership of the performance management process. Members of the working group developed a process for designing a performance management program that embodies the following principles:

• There is no one right answer.
• Centralized systems do not always work.
• Flexibility needs to be built in.
• Employee involvement is crucial to success.
• Employee feedback and linkages to other systems may have to be addressed by separate programs.
• No system will work without good communication.

• Background
• Working Group Members
• Obtaining a Copy

Background. The Handbook addresses the need for organizational support, gives pointers on determining organizational readiness for change, and helps readers develop a design approach that fits the culture of their agencies. The process outlined can be used to revise existing performance management programs or design new ones. Readers can adapt it to fit their own agencies and use it again and again as the agency mission evolves, the workforce changes, the budgetary climate fluctuates, laws and regulations are revised, and as the Government continues to meet new challenges.

The Performance Management Program Design Handbook not only helps the reader develop a design approach, but also provides some useful resources. It has examples of existing demonstration projects, a sample agency design plan, reference materials, and information on OPM resources.

Working Group Members. The members of the Performance Management Program Design Working Group include: Marsha Scialdo Boyd, U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board; Curtis Brookshire, Department of the Treasury; Susan Fonte, Department of Agriculture; Kim L.H. Green, Department of Labor; Evelyn Guerra, Department of Energy; Steve Klink, National Endowment for the Arts (currently at the Federal Quality Institute); Michael McClure, Department of the Army; Janis Nash, U.S. Geological Survey; Joy Savage, Export Import Bank of the United States; Phil Seneschal, Department of the Air Force; Janet Smith, Office of Personnel Management; Janice Smith, Department of Commerce; Ken Smith, Department of Defense; and Joyce Sowa, U.S. Secret Service.

Obtaining a Copy. The Handbook is available here in PDF [421 KB] or WordPerfect [73 KB] format.

Originally published on December 1994.