October 7, 2008 Dear Workshop Participant, The GPPI/Accenture/OMB Watch Government Performance Workshop is just over one week away. Thank you for joining us to lend your expertise to our effort to develop recommendations for the next administration on performance management. On October 15, you will join a diverse group of policy experts, academics, government representatives, and outside stakeholders with the goal of finding areas of consensus, identifying areas of disagreement, and defining top priorities for the next administration. With the help of an advisory group, we have developed a full, but focused agenda for the day. Our goal for the workshop will be to create the opportunity for you and other experts to discuss current performance measurement systems, brainstorm ways to improve those systems, and provide other feedback and perspectives about improving performance measurement at the federal level. While we hope to emerge from this process having identified some areas of agreement, we do not seek to gloss over or ignore areas of disagreement. To prepare for the workshop, we have commissioned the following short background memos and materials on different topics related to performance measurement: Governing for Results, Harry Hatry Performance Management Recommendations, Shelley Metzenbaum Should PART Be Conintued?, Beryl Radin Accountability Through Technology, Robert Shea We would like you to review these materials before the workshop, as they are intended to get you thinking about different issues and questions related to performance measurement systems from a variety of perspectives. While not intended as authoritative statements on the topic, we hope they will enrich the discussion and stimulate ideas during the workshop. The background memos, workshop agenda, advisory group member bios, and other information are also available at the project website. We welcome any comments on the background memos, agenda, and other details before the workshop - you can send your thoughts to us at performance@ombwatch.org. Your perspective, experience, and input are crucial to the success of this workshop and our effort to develop useful and practical recommendations on this topic. We hope you will bring a willingness to dive into the discussion, share your expertise, and openness to the perspectives of other participants. Thanks again for agreeing to participate in the upcoming workshop. We look forward to seeing you next week. Sincerely, Adam Hughes Director of Federal Fiscal Policy Gary D. Bass Executive Director