Dashboards, dashboards, dashboards!

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The Obama administration has yet another dashboard on the way.

Dan Gordon, head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, told Federal Times in a statement that the administration will launch a dashboard to track agencies’ progress on acquisition reform later this summer.

The administration has had its much-ballyhooed IT dashboard up and running for about a year, and is working on another dashboard to track agencies’ progress toward “high priority performance goals.” Dave McClure at GSA is also working on something called a “citizen dashboard” that we probably won’t see until sometime next year. Some agencies, apparently realizing that the administration thinks dashboards are the wave of the future, have set up internal dashboard systems to track certain areas like IT spending, cyber security, or overall agency progress toward strategic goals.

OMB’s dashboards typically provide public information on how well federal agencies are performing in certain areas, so I assume the acquisition dashboard will rate agencies’ progress toward identifying contracting savings in an effort to hold them accountable for progress toward the president’s goal.

Gordon said in his statement to Federal Times:

“This is just one step to ensure agencies remain vigilant in their efforts to maintain fiscal discipline and achieve the best value for our taxpayers.  We will be meeting with agencies periodically to review their progress against their savings plans and risk reduction goals – helping those who are achieving success to sustain and build on those results and working closely with those who are having difficulties to identify actions that can be taken to improve results.”

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  1. I have to tip my hat to the administration because they really seem to be making the idea of open government and government for the people a reality with these excellent dashboard projects. What I think the next step is giving the public a voice that is heard when people see something they don’t like in the performance that is reflected in the dashboard.

  2. Interesting comment … I’m not sure what mechanisms they have in place for the public to comment on the information that’s presented. Given the administration’s stated desire to engage the public in a two-way conversation, I’d expect there to be some sort of feedback form. I know that on data.gov users are encouraged to take the data, mash it up, and send the results to the administration, and they’re paying attention to the data sets that are submitted.

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