Dashboards, dashboards, dashboards!

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.”