Results Based Management (RBM)

Results Based Management (RBM) is a management strategy by which all actors, contributing directly or indirectly to achieving a set of results, ensure that their processes, products and services contribute to the achievement of desired results (outputs, outcomes and higher-level goals or impact). The actors, in turn, use information and evidence regarding actual results to inform decision-making on the design, resourcing and delivery of programs and activities. This information and evidence is also used for accountability and reporting.

RBM is an example of a tool used for strategic control. It uses feedback loops to help managers monitor and then (hopefully) achieve strategic goals. These goals may take the form of physical outputs, organizational or behavioral changes, workflow changes, or form contribution to some other higher level goal. Information (evidence) of the actual results is used for accountability, reporting, communication and to feedback into the design, resourcing and delivery of projects and operational activities. During the design of an RBM system all people and organizations (actors) who contribute directly or indirectly to the result, map out their business processes, products and services, showing how they contribute to the outcomes being pursued, and this information is used to identify appropriate measures of progress. Results Based Management has been shown to have strong similarities in its design and use to the third-generation balanced scorecard. The framework is largely used in government and charitable organizations, where purely financial measures are not the key drivers and there is no competition to benchmark against, such as the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. However, it has also started to be used in semi-commercial organizations such as the Asian Development Bank. At the United Nations, an in-depth results-based approach to programme development and implementation across the majority of all agencies has been applied since 2000 based on the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s reform programme of 1997. Results-based budgeting, which is the term for RBM throughout the UN Secretariat, was first applied in the planning of the biennium 2002-2003 and in all programming cycles thereafter.