CDFM Performance Management and Metrics 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The DoD Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) Plan uses performance metrics primarily to track progress toward which overarching goal?
- Reducing the number of appropriation accounts
- Achieving and sustaining clean audit opinions on financial statements (Correct answer)
- Eliminating undistributed adjustments in Treasury reporting
- Consolidating comptroller functions across military departments
Correct answer: Achieving and sustaining clean audit opinions on financial statements
FIAR metrics measure the Department's progress in achieving auditability of financial statements, with clean opinions as the ultimate performance target mandated by law.
Question 2: When constructing a Logic Model for a defense program, which element represents the resources (dollars, personnel, equipment) invested to conduct activities?
- Outputs
- Outcomes
- Inputs (Correct answer)
- Impacts
Correct answer: Inputs
In a Logic Model, inputs are the resources committed to a program, which are then converted through activities into outputs and ultimately outcomes.
Question 3: A CDFM analyzing a balanced scorecard for a defense installation would expect which perspective to capture metrics like 'training hours per employee' and 'system upgrade completion rate'?
- Financial perspective
- Customer perspective
- Internal process perspective
- Learning and growth perspective (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Learning and growth perspective
The learning and growth perspective of a balanced scorecard captures workforce development and organizational capacity metrics such as training hours and technology modernization rates.
Question 4: Which OMB guidance requires defense agencies to establish 'cross-agency priority goals' and report progress quarterly on a public website?
- OMB Circular A-123
- OMB Circular A-11, Part 6 (Correct answer)
- OMB Circular A-136
- OMB Bulletin 01-09
Correct answer: OMB Circular A-11, Part 6
OMB Circular A-11, Part 6 implements GPRAMA requirements for Priority Goals, including cross-agency goals with quarterly public reporting on Performance.gov.
Question 5: In the context of DoD performance measurement, 'obliquity' refers to the risk that:
- Managers optimize measured metrics while missing the underlying mission objective (Correct answer)
- Performance data is submitted late to OMB
- Cost estimates systematically understate true program costs
- Agencies select only easily achievable targets to appear successful
Correct answer: Managers optimize measured metrics while missing the underlying mission objective
Obliquity describes the phenomenon where pursuing measurable proxies causes managers to lose sight of the true goal they were originally meant to achieve.
Question 6: Under DoD Instruction 7045.14, which document formally presents the resource requirements associated with achieving program performance goals across a six-year period?
- Program Objectives Memorandum (POM)
- Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) (Correct answer)
- Budget Estimate Submission (BES)
- Comptroller's Adjustment Brief
Correct answer: Future Years Defense Program (FYDP)
The FYDP is the authoritative database linking DoD forces, programs, and resources across a six-year planning horizon, connecting performance goals to multi-year funding levels.
Question 7: A defense finance office reports a 'timeliness rate' of 94% for vendor payments. To determine whether this represents satisfactory performance, the most appropriate benchmark would be:
- The office's own prior-year rate
- The Prompt Payment Act statutory requirement of paying within 30 days (Correct answer)
- The DoD-wide average timeliness rate published in the CFO Act report
- The rate established in the service-level agreement with the vendor
Correct answer: The Prompt Payment Act statutory requirement of paying within 30 days
The Prompt Payment Act sets a statutory standard (typically 30 days) for federal vendor payments; compliance with this legal requirement is the primary performance benchmark for payment timeliness.
CDFM Performance Management and Metrics 5
The DoD Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) Plan uses performance metrics primarily to track progress toward which overarching goal?