U.S. Office of Personnel Management - Recruiting, Retaining and Honoring a World-Class Workforce to Serve the American People

Alternative Personnel System Program Evaluation

OPM is charged in the Chief Human Capital Officers Act of 2002 with improving strategic human capital management of the Government’s civilian workforce, including associated planning and evaluation efforts. It coordinates with agencies on human capital transformation, assesses agency efforts in implementing new human capital systems and programs, and leverages program outcomes for future agency human capital transformation.

Program evaluation is an essential part of implementing a new project or system. There are many methodologies and while OPM does not prescribe one evaluation approach, we require that demonstration projects that we oversee have, at a minimum, a sound, defensible evaluation design that protects the integrity of the evaluation process and produces reliable (repeatable) and valid (accurate) results that “measure the impact of the project results in relation to its objectives” (5 CFR 470.317(b)). These requirements are not unreasonable for any alternative personnel system evaluation plan.

More information can be found in the following links

• Why Evaluate?
• OPM’s Assessment Role
• APS Assessment Framework
• APS Assessment Handbook