Collaboration

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Collaboration

Harnessing Informal Networks

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 - 17:52
Another Harvard Business Review article in the March 2010 issue is worth highlighting.  A piece by Richard McDermott and Douglas Archibald examines informal and formal networks in companies, such as Fluor and ConocoPhillips, but their insights are relevant to public agencies as well.  And they may be helpful to the Obama Administration’s efforts to create its proposed set of “problem solving networ
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The OMB Prize Memo

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 - 23:29
OMB deputy director for management ,Jeff Zients, released a 12-page memo, “Guidance on the Use of Challenges and Prizes to Promote Open Government.”
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Why Execution Stalls

Monday, March 8th, 2010 - 18:33
Don Sull, of the London Business School writes about “why execution stalls,’ in the March 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review.  He also offers a set of steps to take to ensure successful execution of programs.  While he focuses on the private sector, the lessons seem equally relevant to the public sector!
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Topic 4: Technology, Transparency, and Participatory Democracy

Friday, February 26th, 2010 - 17:36
President Obama issued a memorandum on Transparency and Open Government following his inauguration in early 2009.  The memo outlined his commitment to greater transparency, increased citizen participation, and more collaboration.  This commitment acknowledges that government cannot solve by itself the challenges facing our nation.
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Topic 3: Federal Contracting and Acquisition

Thursday, February 25th, 2010 - 19:14
Over the past two decades, a series of trends have resulted in a chorus of voices in Congress, the media and the public concluding that the current federal contracting system is broken.  Between 1989 and 2000, Congress mandated deep cuts in the Defense acquisition workforce.  During the 1990s, the federal government shifted its contracting approach from one focused on buying supplies to one buying services, using new flexible contracting vehicles.  Beginning in 2000, federal contracting increased from $220 billion to o
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gregg gullickson

I like the "key challenges" and "research questions" format.

02/26/2010 - 17:31
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Topic 1: Performance Improvement and Analysis

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 - 19:14
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.
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Doing What Works

Thursday, February 18th, 2010 - 23:16
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: Eliminating or redesigning misguided spending programs and tax expenditures focused o priority areas such as health care, energy, and education;
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Managing Guerrilla Employees

Friday, February 12th, 2010 - 23:13
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?”
3 comments
Norman M. Macdonald

When Doug Farbrother came by my hole in the wall over in Rosslyn to talk to "ole mole" he said "my boss (Al Gore) would call this "guerrilla management." I said "you have met Marshall Tito." In alliance with some others of my type, plus the the stealth managers, we could keep the Fed running and do public service. John, you are one of first people to call these ad hoc organizations: "the back room networks" and you liked them. I got into trouble many times when I was given an off-the-wall and maybe illegal direction, and during the argument I said I took an Oath when I entered the Federal Service to uphold the Constitution.

02/13/2010 - 02:44
John Kamensky

Thanks, Norm. I thought of you and your colleagues when I saw this article. There were a number of entrepreneurial "reinventors" who probably fit this mold, especially in the Reinvention Labs piloting new ideas that may not have been popular, but made a difference for citizens, customers and fellow employees.

02/14/2010 - 02:04
Robert Last

Terminate them! The biggest mistakes I have made as a leader is allowing such employees to undermine my leadership. Happily as I grew older and more experienced, this became less of a problem

If they can't help you, that's one thing; if they refuse to help you, that's another thing. There can be only on leader with the responsibility for the work of the organization. With responsibility comes accountability and that cannot be shared.

02/16/2010 - 00:36
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Obama's Stealth Management Revolution

Thursday, February 11th, 2010 - 21:27
“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."
2 comments
Edward Stern

John,
One way the government can improve services, with little cost, is to improve the government's understanding of the people it affects. This came up in discussions of EPA's Second Compliance Assistance Advisor Committee, CAAC (a Federal Advisory Committee), on which I served in 2002 to 2004 as a private citizen. The CAAC recommended, among other things, that EPA build better understanding of the regulated community among the people who write and enforce regulations. The value of putting regulators "in the shoes of small business" was not and is not limited to EPA.
Of course, the CAAC focused on how to improve compliance assistance, but an expanded version of their idea would put government policy makers and implementers in the shoes of the communities they affect. All too often policies and procedures are developed by smart, knowledgeable people who have little if any experience of the reality facing the people they regulate, influence, help, or give benefits to. It should be possible create some exercises that would open eyes to the difficulty of finding out what rules apply to me, or what benefits I am eligible for, or what the Government advises given my situation. That should prompt some improvement in the writing and communicating of policies, and I hope in their implementation.

02/11/2010 - 22:33
John Kamensky

Hi Ed - There are lots of other ways of improving government's understanding of how its programs affect people. The "Conversations with America" initiative run by the National Partnership for Reinventing Government asked each agency and bureau head to go out into the field and talk with both their employees as well as those receiving services from those agencies -- and regulatory agency heads found they learned the most! Today, with the on-line dialogues possible, and the Obama Adminstration experimenting with new ways to engage citizens, there could be a resurgence in two-way understanding.

02/12/2010 - 00:27
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Making Sense of Open Gov Dialogues

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 - 18:24
By: 
John M. Kamensky
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
2 comments
Bev Godwin

Here is a list/links to all the federal agency dialogs. Share your idea, or comment and vote on others ideas to help agencies create their Open Government plans.
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/open/tool_poc.shtml

02/10/2010 - 19:11
John Kamensky

Thanks, Bev. This should be helpful!

02/12/2010 - 00:27
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