Many people have contributed directly or indirectly to this book by providing opportunities for me to develop performance management systems, allowing access to existing systems, or serving as mentors by sharing with me their knowledge and experiences regarding the design, implementation, and use of performance measures to manage more effectively. These individuals, many of them long-time friends, include the late Thomas D. Larson, former secretary of transportation in Pennsylvania and former administrator of the Federal Highway Administration; the late Richard H. Harris Jr., director of the Center for Performance Excellence in the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT); Joe Robinson Jr., former director of PennDOT's Performance Improvement and Metrics Division; David Margolis, director of the Bureau of Fiscal Management at PennDOT; William E. Nichols Jr., general manager of River Valley Transit (RVT) in Williamsport, Pennsylvania; Kevin Kilpatrick, planning and grants administrator at RVT; James Lyle, former director of business process improvement at the Georgia Department of Administrative Services and executive director of Georgia Public Television; Gerald Gillette, former principal operations analyst in the Office of Child Support Enforcement of the Georgia Department of Human Resources; the late Terry Lathrop, former deputy director of the City of Charlotte, North Carolina, Department of Transportation; the late Patrick Manion, former deputy city manager of Phoenix, Arizona; Stuart Berman, former chief of the Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, Division of STD Prevention of the US Centers for Disease Control; Earl Mahfuz, former treasurer of the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT); Jim Davis, former director of strategic development at GDOT; Amy DeGroff, program evaluation team leader, and Janet Royalty, data manager, at the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Prevention, and Kristy Joseph, unit manager in the Division of GLobal Health Protection at the Centers for Disease Control; Joey Ridenour, executive director of the Arizona State Board of Nursing; and Lindsey Erickson, project manager at the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), and all the members of the CORE Committee at NCSBN. I have enjoyed working with all these people and appreciate all I have learned from them regarding performance management.
In addition, numerous students in the master's program in public administration at Georgia State University over the years, as well as participants in numerous professional development programs I have conducted for the Evaluators' Institute in San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto, and Washington, DC, have provided insight regarding problems, challenges, and strategies for success in working with performance measures. I have also enjoyed and benefited from collaborating with good friends John Thomas and David Van Slyke, a colleague and former colleague at Georgia State, respectively, as well as former and current graduate students at Georgia State, including Lauren Edwards, Obed Pasha, Anita Berryman, and Robert Weishan, on a number of performance management–related projects. I wish them all well in their future endeavors in this area.
Finally, I express my sincere appreciation for Maria Aristigueta and Jeremy Hall, who have joined me in writing this second edition. I marvel at their heroic efforts in meeting demanding deadlines, lacking the head start that I had with this project, and, more important, their fresh perspective and differing orientations, exposures, and insights have made many meaningful contributions to this edition. I have enjoyed working with them both, and I look forward to the prospect of further collaboration with them on performance management or related topics in the future.
Ted Poister
Alpharetta, Georgia
August 2014
I am deeply grateful to Ted Poister for the opportunity to collaborate with him on the second edition of this book. He is a wonderful role model for those of us interested in performance and a wealth of knowledge. He is also exemplary in bridging the theory-practice divide so important to the advancement of this field. In addition, Ted Poister and Jeremy Hall are a pleasure to work with.
In the early 1990s, I was fortunate to have Joseph Wholey as a professor and dissertation adviser at the University of Southern California. Because he is firm believer in the use of performance for program improvement and a leader in the field of performance management, I benefited greatly from the chance to work with him. Like Ted, he saw great value in practice and considered it the laboratory for the field.
I am also indebted to my colleagues and staff at the University of Delaware who provide the environment and encouragement for excellence every step of the way. I am particularly grateful to the graduate students in my performance management course who have participated in case studies and contributed to my knowledge of current practices in the field. I have especially benefited from the assistance from Lorelly Solano, Christopher Kelly, and William Morrett.
Finally, I express gratitude to my family for their patience as I spent many weekends and evenings writing to meet the tight deadlines for this book. I am particularly grateful to my husband, Don Coons, for his unwavering love and support and to whom I dedicate my contributions to this book.
Maria P. Aristigueta
Newark, Delaware
August 2014
I express my sincere gratitude to a number of individuals who shaped my interest in performance management and have facilitated my work along the way. Of particular note, Ed Jennings (University of Kentucky Martin School) helped me to develop my first analytical framework from the performance perspective. I also extend thanks to Merl Hackbart, also at the Martin School, for providing me with a solid foundation in public budgeting; although I may not use it as often as I would like, that background certainly came in handy on this project. I owe a debt of gratitude to my dean, Marc Holzer, for supporting this endeavor and, more important, allowing me the opportunity to carry my interests in performance management into the classroom. I thank Michael Hail for introducing me to the world of grant management in 1998 and working with me to develop those skills over the fifteen years since then. And I thank my family for their enduring support during many long nights and weekends as this project came together. Most of all, I appreciate Ted Poister for being a supportive voice in the field for those of us who study performance issues and for allowing me the opportunity to join him and Maria Aristigueta on this project.
Jeremy L. Hall
Science Hill, Kentucky
August 2014