Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Shelli B. Rossman on Public Management, Services

The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 to help Americans start and build small businesses. Recently, the SBA commissioned the Urban Institute to look at four of the agency's loan and investment programs to assess their past performance and consider how the agency can set benchmarks for future performance management. The studies addressed three key research questions of particular interest to SBA and its constituents: 1) Does SBA assistance help the firms that receive it? 2) To what extent does SBA assistance serve its market? 3) Do SBA programs duplicate or overlap with other public sector programs?

[IBM Endowment for the Business of Government] This report, which includes 16 case studies of federal programs, finds that many program managers are using outcome information to trigger corrective actions, identify and encourage successful practices, motivate employees, and for planning and budgeting. It offers recommendations to federal managers such as: making outcome data more useful by breaking it out by customer and service characteristics; providing materials and training to managers and staff to encourage their use of outcome information; holding program review sessions with staff after outcome reports become available to identify where improvement is needed and to suggest improvement actions; identifying and rewarding offices, programs, and facilities that achieve good outcomes; and using outcome data to help identify successful practices and to help identify common problems and solutions.

In the continuing effort to improve human service programs, funders, policymakers, and service providers are increasingly recognizing the importance of rigorous program evaluations. This report lays out the basic principles of program evaluation design. It signals common pitfalls, identifies constraints that need to be considered, and presents ideas for solving potential problems. These principles are general and can be applied to a wide range of human services programs.