Since the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) was passed requiring agencies to establish, monitor, and report performance metrics, agencies have been developing performance scorecards for their organizations, with many based on a Balanced Scorecard approach. Although the quality has improved dramatically over the past several years, there are still some areas for improvement. Scorecards are strengthened if they:

• Align goals and measures with agency and department-wide goals. Performance goals and measures are often only partially aligned with agency and department-wide goals and may not be cascaded to lower organizational levels.
• Assign accountability for achieving results. Ensure that individuals responsible for accomplishing the goal and achieving results are identified.
• Demonstrate results. Use a combination of clearly defined output and outcome goals accompanied by trend data.
• Provide a comprehensive view of agency performance. Ensure that scorecards include measures that provide a comprehensive view of factors that drive organizational performance such as financial, customer, and internal business processes.
• Link resource needs to performance. Discuss the relationship between resource needs and performance outcomes.
• Discuss data quality. Scorecards need to address whether data is reliable, valid, or verifiable, and identify data sources.
• Provide contextual information. Include contextual information to help executives assess the significance of factors that affect reported performance, such as how performance measures help achieve mission and department-wide goals or the impact of contingency operations on achieving performance goals.

One of the best ways to improve agency and organizational scorecards is to collaborate with other government organizations.