FCW Insider: Feedback on musings about Obama's CPO

Michael Lent, editor and publisher of Government Services Insider, sent along his thoughts on Nancy Killefer, whom President-elect Barack Obama has named chief performance officer (as well as OMB's deputy director for management). Here's what he had to say:

"Nancy Killefer's work for companies (the majority of her career) and for government suggests that she's practical. She doesn't appear to be consumed with compliance thinking. Rather, she dwells on performance expressed as productivity, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. In good McKinsey style, she'll insist on an agency or program knowing where it's heading and unafraid to make a penetrating examination of results. She's not likely to favor a "no-rules" operating method or believe that what's needed to prove value in mission achievement is a lot more time and studies in search of innovation in the basic blocking and tackling of service delivery. There's nothing that suggests she favors the gotcha approach to management. The kind of issues surfaced and amplified by auditors, the Congress, and the media (informed or just target-shooting) intersect clearly with her work with the IRS Oversight Board and her management initiatives at Treasury. Of course, she may well prefer that line employees and executive management (political and career) make improvement a constant activity, as in successful companies, that never ends."

Lent was commenting on a blog post by Steve Kelman. Read that post here.