Policymakers wanting to improve their government’s performance are often presented with a rich menu of choices by their advisers. They are told that they could choose from several options: Budgeting Reforms, Performance Budgeting, Outcome Budgeting, Performance Agreement, Project Management, Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E), ISO 9000, Lean Sigma and so on. Alas, as we shall see, this advice is misplaced.