Performance Measurement in the Public Sector, Van Dooren, Wouter; Bouckaert, Geert; and Halligan, John

Performance Measurement and the real world must meet just as the economic man and the satisficing man must meet. The discussion starts with setting the goal of identifying performance measurement, performance information and performance management as parts of the same process. The author believes that you must be able to identify each, understand why you feel it will benefit the organization and who your audience will be when presenting the information.
The author states that the information will not be used by the organization if just specific individuals believe that the information has value. There is still reasonable resistance to performance management because it measures the past and fails to adjust to changing conditions.
The key is in understanding how the information is used. Each category must include flexibility in the use of the information. The author states that the soft uses related to learning are the most flexible, steering and controlling has moderate flexibility and giving account has the least flexibility.
The book helps focus on the value of the information, the uses and the expected results. It ends with the idea that management needs to be able to react to changing conditions and that rigid performance numbers can lead to serious problems. They use the example of Wall Street when the market stop reacting the way the models said it would.