Abstract:
erformance management aims at attaining operational effectiveness which in a broader
sense refers to a number of practices that allow an organization to better utilize its resources.
The need for productivity, quality and speed has spawned a remarkable number of
management tools and techniques; total quality management, benchmarking, re-engineering
and change management. All these, if pursued from the strategy point of view may lead to
emphasis being put on the wrong place. Lack of clarity can be attributed to the fact that most
public agencies have to deal with multiple principals who have multiple interests (Triveldi
2000). This leads to fuzziness in what is expected from implementing agencies. Performance
management is therefore gaining momentum in many public sector organizations. Reforming
the public sector in developing countries has come a long way with the progressive shift
towards operational effectiveness, which entails doing what one is doing better. With defined
outcomes and appropriate benchmarks to measure the outcomes, the rampant lack of focus is
brought into the open. This paper addresses the issues related to performance management in
public sector organizations in Kenya and its contribution to the service delivery process.
