The General Accounting Office (GAO) examined the status and scope of total quality management (TQM) in federal organizations by mailing questionnaires to the heads of 2,800 civilian and Department of Defense installations. According to the 2,277 usable responses, approximately 68% of federal installations are working on various phases of TQM. Although TQM was being initiated on a fairly wide scale, only about 13% of employees at the installations reporting implementing TQM were involved in TQM activities at the time of the survey. Employee issues and funding issues were cited as the biggest barriers to greater implementation of TQM. Installations that reported being further along in implementation also reported more involvement in TQM activities, such as training, improvement teams, and measuring performance than those installations that were in the early phases of implementing TQM. Although many respondents reported achieving benefits as a direct result of their TQM activities, the level of reported benefits achieved both externally and internally increased substantially for those installations that have progressed further in TQM implementation. (Twenty-one figures are included. Appendixes constituting more than 90% of this document contain the following: a detailed report summarizing the results of a GAO survey of federal TQM activities, a survey instrument, and a list of major contributors to the report.) (MN)