This paper examines the Ethiopian public sector's journey in implementing a result-oriented performance management approach as part of ongoing public sector reforms. Ethiopia's civil service has undergone continuous organizational changes aimed at enhancing its performance by adopting various management models. These include strategic planning and management, quick wins, total quality management (TQM), business process reengineering (BPR), management by objectives (MBO), integrated performance management systems, the balanced scorecard (BSC), kaizen, and the civil service change army, all promoted by the Ethiopian government (MoCS, 2013). The current performance management system within the civil service is the culmination of various institutional reforms from the past. Excluding the study of these reforms from the evaluation of Ethiopia's public sector performance management system would provide an incomplete picture of the country's civil service