Topic 1: Performance Improvement and Analysis

Since the enactment of the Government Performance and Results Act in 1993, all agencies now have strategic plans and performance measures supported by an infrastructure of staff and processes build to collect and deliver performance data. The Obama Administration took office promising to appoint a “chief performance officer” to improve performance.

Framing a Public Management Research Agenda

The IBM Center for The Business of Government hosted a forum in November 2009 to examine the Obama Administration’s themes for a high-performing government and to frame a public management research agenda.

Participants included nearly 50 of the nation’s top public management researchers, scholars, and distinguished practitioners.  The forum was an effort to help bridge the gap between research and practice, and to collectively develop a research agenda that would help government executives move things forward.

Doing What Works

The Obama Administration’s favorite think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP), has launched a new project, “Doing What Works.” Led by Reece Rushing and Jitinder Kohli, it has three objectives:

Leading the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

 

A Conversation with W. Craig Fugate, FEMA Administrator

In the last decade, whether as a result of natural or manmade disasters the nation’s emergency response apparatus has faced enormous challenges. Overcoming these challenges and forging a national emergency response network for the 21st Century requires innovation and teamwork.

Recovery Act Reporting

The Recovery Transparency and Accountability Board posted its second set of updates onto its Recovery.Gov website last week. The new data covered Recovery Act spending in the last quarter of 2009 (October – December).

Managing Guerrilla Employees

Do you have “guerilla employees” in your organization who work around (or against) their leadership? How do you deal with them?

This is the focus of a provocative article in the current issue of the Public Administration Review by Maxwell School professor Rosemary O’Leary, “Guerilla Employees: Should Managers Nurture, Tolerate, or Terminate Them?”

Obama's Stealth Management Revolution

“Where is Obama’s big-bang reform of government?” laments an insightful article by University of Maryland public administration dean, Donald Kettl, in a forum on President Obama’s management initiatives in the current issue of The Public Manager. He says that President Obama is quietly reshaping the way government works and dubs it a "stealth revolution."

Making Sense of Open Gov Dialogues

Two dozen federal agencies are running on-line dialogues between now and March 19th to gather insights on what citizens would like to seen them include in their OMB-required Open Government Plans. These first-ever open dialogues are an important symbolic step toward better engaging citizens in their government. But in the end, how will agencies make sense of thousands of comments and ideas?

The Open Government Dialogue

With little fanfare, the While House announced that 29 agencies launched their Open Government weblinks on schedule (per an OMB directive), on Saturday, February 6th. Virtually all of them also invited citizens to participate in a dialogue on how they could improve their approaches to transparency, participation, collaboration, and innovation.

Leaders Speak - A Conversation on Human Service Delivery in New York City

We are introducing a Special Edition of The Business of Government Hour -- Leaders Speak -- focusing on human service delivery: the challenges being faced and innovations being forged in our local communities.

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