Measuring performance has grown immeasurably as a dominating concern of both the public and public administrators. Seventy percent of Americans ”favor creating a system of evaluating government agencies by the [objective] results they produce rather than by the programs they initiate or the money they spend" The single most important operational issue, by far, to senior public executives in five developed countries, including the United States, is “improved quality of service,” identified by a remarkable 84 percent, followed by “improved productivity, at 75 percent.