Organizational Performance Management: A Tool for Enhancing Effectiveness in Public Service Delivery in Nigeria

Growing concerns with efficiency of public services rendered by governmental organizations inform the development of mechanisms that evaluates as well as enhance the performance of these organizations. This paper intends to examine the concept of performance management as a process aimed at monitoring, measuring and adjusting aspects of performance of public sector organizations, and in the broader Nigerian context to focus on how performance management would foster control this involved verifying whether everything occurs in conformity with the plan adopted, instructions issued, and the principle established. To address the issues raised by this paper, an appropriate review of related literature on general concept of performance management and related explanatory terms was conducted. To thoroughly evaluate this phenomenon a content analysis of secondary data on performance management techniques and performance management in governmental context in Nigeria was carried out. The paper concluded that entrenching performance management principles and practices will guarantee attainment of organizational goals by equipping managers with skills to appraise and review organizational and individual performance. The paper recommends that performance management techniques need to be institutionalized and perfected in Nigerian public sector to ensure that officials have the capacity to derive goals from the mission statement and use target setting, accountability, performance standards and measures to enhance both organizational and employee performance. Keywords: Performance Management, Public Service Delivery, Nigeria