Summary:

A simple reading of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) suggests that this legislation is fairly straightforward and responds to many of the recommendations that have come from students of public management over the years. Written in the language of the good government tradition, this legislation shares much with earlier reform efforts. However, unlike past management reform initiatives, GPRA takes the form of legislation, not simply pronouncements from the executive branch.
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Although the legislation was enacted in 1993, 1997 was the first year that its requirements actually came to life and the first year that its requirements for strategic plans as well as the first performance plans became tangible. During the past few months, the Washington press (which is rarely interested in management issues) has focused unusual attention to the implementation of GPRA, reporting various pronouncements from the General Accounting Office (GAO), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Republican leadership in Congress about the relative success or failure of federal agencies to comply with its initial requirements related to strategic planning.
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Both the press accounts and the institutional response to the legislation indicate that there is a wide divergence of views about this management reform effort. What appeared on first reading to be a fairly clear effort has emerged as a tangled set of expectations and experiences that reflect quite different and often competing views about the process. This article attempts to explicate some of the reasons for this tangled reality by focusing on three elements of the still developing experience. First, it provides some background on the legislation itself. Second, it discusses the context in which the implementation is placed. And third, it includes a preliminary analysis of the early experience with the requirements of GPRA. This critique emphasizes the problems involved in implementing a government-wide management strategy; it is not focused on similar reform efforts that take place within specific agencies (Radin, 1997).