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management
Obama Workforce Agenda
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 - 16:15
A lot of people have been asking me – what is Obama’s human capital agenda? I think it’s still evolving. But in conversations over the past few weeks with friends and colleagues who are at the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget, and who are agency chief human capital officers – and reading the new budget proposals – I’m beginning to see an outline.
378 recommendations
Recovery Act Implementation: A State-Local View
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 - 15:16
A small group representing federal, state, and local governments met to discuss challenges associated with implementing the Recovery Act, largely from the perspective of states and localities. The meeting was co-hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration and the IBM Center.
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479 recommendations
The "New" Transparency
Friday, May 15th, 2009 - 13:46
A couple weeks ago, I attended the Mercatus Center’s 10th annual ceremony releasing their assessment of how transparent agencies were in reporting their performance via their annually-required performance report under the Government Performance and Results Act. It made me think about how far the whole transparency movement has come.
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623 recommendations
Transparency: Promising Practices
Thursday, May 14th, 2009 - 16:08
If you haven’t read the GSA Intergovernmental Solutions’ Spring 2009 newsletter, it’s worth downloading and reading. It’s about 40 pages of articles.
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587 recommendations
Lessons Learned: Past Political Appointees
Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 - 15:14
If you had a high level job, what advice would you leave for your successor?
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604 recommendations
High Performance Government
Monday, May 11th, 2009 - 13:44
People have been asking me when I was going to blog on the President’s new budget. I wasn’t interested in jumping in on the program cuts, etc. because everyone else covered that with more depth. But I was interested in seeing the outline for the management elements in the budget. That was released today as a short chapter in the Analytical Perspectives segment of the budget, entitled: “Building a High-Performance Government.”
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480 recommendations
Web 2.0: Leading by Example
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 - 9:33
With the White House using new Web 2.0 tools with some fanfare, this is beginning to create the informal “permission” to expand its use in agencies. It is leadership by example. While agencies and employees have been increasingly, yet tentatively, piloting Web 2.0 tools over the past two years, adoption of their use seems to be picking up quickly. In addition, there seems to be a new energy around tackling some of the legal, administrative, and cultural barriers to their use.
2 comments
Adriel Hampton
Go, GovLoop!
Norman M. Macdonald
Finally the "back room" networks and their various allies have become legitimate. This is a real act liberation and a gift to collaborative governance.
373 recommendations
Anticipatory Governance
Monday, May 4th, 2009 - 11:28
I was on a panel last week at the annual Washington forum of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the topic “Anticipatory Governance of Emerging Technologies.” I was probably the only one in the room without a PhD and without a science background. I was the designated “outsider” and felt a bit intimidated but was fascinated by the topic.
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Ray Quay
I found your comments here, at the Forum, and publications very helpful. The literature of anticipation and foresight in governance is still very sparse so you links to some of the ideas you present is also very helpful.
I have an oberservation. Most of the work you have cited, including Chi's work, though is based on long term visions still seems rooted in a system of prediction rather than on anticipation. This is evedent in your first step of broad context agreement. All of the examples uner this are actions to monitor the present with the anticipation that one can predict the result of a policy or command. Even in the actions section the florida disaster planning is based on a single scenario and the anticipation is more what are the factors that must be considered to respond. Yet the challenges of nanotechnology and climate change are different. We are finding the more we learn the less we are confident about the future. For example though our confidence in climate models increased between the 3rd and 4th assessment, for many regions the range in variance of results increased. The CBP process you mention (by the way your link has now gone stale, here is one I found at the same site http://www.mors.org/UserFiles/file/meetings/06cbpII/bankston_key.pdf) would include in its first step agreement on a wider set of possible future conditions (or threats) which is followed by a narrowing to most likely or dangerous. This seems more inline with anticipation. Recent assessments of climate change, ie the feds US assessment, seem to be moving away from anticipation back to prediction by using words like "will happen" instead of the IPCC assessment langauge of "likely" and they are using the mean values rather than discussing the range.
Any coments on this?
John Kamensky
Ray -- Thanks for the insightful comment and the link update!
John Kamensky
Ray -- While I've not got a science background, I think your emphasis on the fact that "anticipation" is more like risk assessment than "prediction" which is more of a judgement. The main thing is the willingness to use foresight. Foresight is the process of identifying and interpreting information and data by looking ahead. It's also important to engage others in the process -- citizens, policymakers, and professional managers. The notion of focusing on a range of scenerios is also important since predictions are often wrong. That's why scenerio-based planning is being increasingly used by many federal agencies.
Geraldo Coant
I definitely appreciate your site. Thank you for your insights and guidance.
471 recommendations
Legislating Good Program Performance
Friday, May 1st, 2009 - 9:37
Congressmen Dennis Moore (D-KS) and Henry Cuellar (D-TX) have introduced legislation (H.R. 2142) that would require an effort equivalent to the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) and make Program Improvement Officers a statutory role
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496 recommendations
Changing Washington: Obama's First 100 Days
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 - 11:20
On his first day in office, President Obama began acting on his campaign promise to “change the way Washington does first directive to agencies articulated a set of principles of h
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570 recommendations
Very interesting post. I pretty much agree with everything you have said.
Maybe an interesting point? But do you not think that Obama should provide a detailed outline of this agenda so the public can know, instead of guessing and speculating?
Are there any inherent disadvantages of communicating the agenda to the people?
Regards,
Elley
Elley - Typically the Administration releases its detailed agenda along with its budget proposals in February of each year. In the first year of an Administration, this generally does not happen because they have been in office only a few weeks. So look for details come February!