The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been acclaimed for its performance-based reinvention efforts, an achievement that required solid measures of its baseline performance at the commencement of reinvention, followed by post-reinvention measurement. Here are two of the agency's many achievements:

• In fiscal 1998, FEMA took an average of 8 days to get relief checks to disaster victims, down from 10 days in 1997 and a high of 20 days in 1992.
• State, local, and nonprofit officials who have received disaster aid from FEMA give the agency positive ratings in the 70-80 percent range, exceeding baselines of 60-75 percent.

Assisting in its turnaround, FEMA had a clear mission, discrete performance objectives, and a baseline of current performance from which to judge future efforts.