The Role of Goals in Setting the Measurement System's Scope

What effect will goals have on performance measurement system design?

Goals may be defined as broad, general statements of desired conditions external to programs. Goals provide the basic purposes for which programs were authorized and funded. If performance measurement were to be based upon a rational model of decision-making, the first step in developing a performance measurement system would be identifying the goals against which performance is to be compared.

Though this step seems easy, there are several questions to be considered before the performance measurement system is built around a set of goals.

First among these questions is "Whose goals should be recognized?" Section one suggested that potential users of performance information included public interest groups, legislators, chief executives, agency heads and administrators, program managers, planners, budgeters, employees, and clients.

These groups, if asked to agree upon a single set of goals for a program, would probably be unable to do so. For example, the public might be primarily interested in a correction program's ability to incarcerate and punish offenders and make the community safer, while the offender might be primarily interested in the quality of the program's services available to him.