The Costs of Budget Uncertainty: Analyzing the Impact of Late Appropriations

Submitted by on Sun, 09/29/2013 - 10:43

This report comes at an especially opportune time, calling attention to the increasingly unpredictable federal budget process and the many challenges it creates for efficient and effective management of federal operations. But even in this environment, federal managers must still deliver services and programs as effectively and efficiently as possible. What steps can they take to do so?

Collaboration Between Government and Outreach Organizations: A Case Study of the Department of Veterans Affairs

Submitted by on Wed, 09/11/2013 - 13:40

In this report, Drs. Lael Keiser and Susan Miller examine the critical role of non-governmental outreach organizations in assisting government agencies to determine benefit eligibility of citizens applying for services.  Many non-profits and other organizations help low-income applicants apply for Social Security, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps). 

A Guide for Agency Leaders on Federal Acquisition

Submitted by on Fri, 08/30/2013 - 11:57

This report has been prepared to assist government executives in understanding one of the most complex bureaucratic processes in government: the federal procurement system. Understanding this system is one of the key ingredients to a successful tenure in government. In the past, some government executives have run into significant issues related to a lack of knowledge about federal contracting.

Using Crowdsourcing In Government

Submitted by on Tue, 08/13/2013 - 10:37

The growing interest in “engaging the crowd” to identify or develop innovative solutions to public problems has been inspired by similar efforts in the commercial world.  There, crowdsourcing has been successfully used to design innovative consumer products or solve complex scientific problems, ranging from custom-designed T-shirts to mapping genetic DNA strands. 

Rulemaking 2.0: Understanding and Getting Better Public Participation

Submitted by on Fri, 07/19/2013 - 11:12

This report provides important insights in how governments can improve the rulemaking process by taking full advantage of Rulemaking 2.0 technology. The report’s findings and recommendations are based on five experiments with Rulemaking 2.0 conducted by CeRI researchers, four in partnership with the Department of Transportation and one with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Controlling Federal Spending by Managing the Long Tail of Procurement

Submitted by on Wed, 07/03/2013 - 10:25

In this report, Professor Wyld provides the first quantitative analysis of tail spend in the federal government.  In short, tail spend is procurement outlays that are outside of an organization’s core spending and core supplier groups, covering many miscellaneous expenditure categories that are not managed as part of an organization’s core operations.

Summer 2013 Edition

Submitted by on Thu, 06/27/2013 - 14:08

The Use of Data Visualization in Government

Submitted by on Mon, 06/10/2013 - 10:26

The concept of visualization recalls a pivotal scene in the movie A Beautiful Mind which showed the protagonist, mathematician John Nash, looking at an expansive table of numbers. Slowly, certain numbers seemed to glow, suggesting that Nash was perceiving a pattern among them, though no other researcher had been able to draw any meaning from the table.

Fast Government: Accelerating Service Quality While Reducing Cost and Time

Submitted by on Tue, 05/21/2013 - 13:39

This report is a follow-on to a 2012 book edited by Mr. Prow, Governing to Win: Enhancing National Competitiveness Through New Policy and Operating Approaches, in which he introduced the concept of fast government as a key to increasing the mission value of government organizations.

Developing Senior Executive Capabilities to Address National Priorities

Submitted by on Wed, 05/08/2013 - 12:05

This report is intended to spark a discussion of how to create a cadre of experienced career senior executives who can lead major, cross-agency initiatives on national priorities. The Senior Executive Service (SES) corps today is chiefly composed of highly skilled professionals in specific mission functions, with relatively few having cross-agency expertise.

Recent trends in government have created a new demand for cross-agency capabilities. This report attempts to offer a practical, targeted approach for meeting this demand. It is divided into two parts:

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