A few years prior to the national elections in May 2005, the Federal Government had tried to introduce and shove down the throat of the otherwise change resistant civil service a "result oriented performance," a management concept that turned out to be very unpopular among the bureaucracy that was long accustomed to a kind of performance not measured by the quality of the result and the speed of the delivery.

Electoral politics dictated that reformers in the Federal Government had to slow it down, according to gossip. Soon enough though, they had to come back with another wave of jargon that is now as good as a household name to the bureaucracy. Which ever federal or state agency people go to, it is very likely that heads of these agencies are in endless meetings trying to reengineer their business process. They could also be confronted by large size billboards outlining "visions" and "strategies."

The whole concept is to reform an old bureaucracy keen to be served by the public so that it provides transparent, speedy and accountable service. There are now new business opportunities coming out from state agencies for the private sector, thanks partly to the result of BPR, which makes it necessary to acquire this product and procure that service. In some places, such as the city transport bureau, it is the reverse, disclosed gossip. It has been almost seven months since they have stopped issuing driving licences to new drivers; gossip owes it to their "business process reengineering (BPR)."

If people feel they have had enough of the BPR lingo, gossip advises them to hold their breath. Soon, they will discover that the whole talk and tone will transform to a new concept: Performance Measurement System (PMS). It is a management concept that introduces a process "whereby an organization establishes the parameters within which programs, investments, and acquisitions are reaching the desired results," according to the books.

Unlike BPR, PMS will not come in a single package. This time around, PMS will be accompanied by a Balanced Scorecard (BSC); this is what management gurus call a tool for performance management. It is a concept that helps measure whether or not an organization's lower level activities are in conformity with its long-term interests. Through the practice of BSC, managers and leaders of organizations and state agencies are encouraged to select measures from the perspective of customers, internal business process and learning, as well as growth. 

These indeed will be concepts and phrases to be used, over used and perhaps abused by leaders of state agencies and managers of state enterprises for years to come, gossip projects. But somebody of higher authority has to set the tone, though.

Gossip disclosed that members of the Council of Ministers are scheduled to meet on Tuesday, May 12, 2009, to give their blessing and endorsement to PMS and BSC. And every official down the state hierarchy will have the opportunity to enrich his or her vocabulary on acronyms, gossip anticipates.