The report brings together the knowledge and experience of Professor Zeemering, an academic, and Daryl Delabbio, a practitioner. Together, they present findings—based on both research and experience—on how local governments, specifically county governments, are today implementing a variety of shared services.

Dr. Yi Lu, Associate Professor, Department of Public Management, John Jay College, City University of New York. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Her research interests are performance management and budgeting, shared services, and MPA education.

In our last post, we introduced two of the five Cs for effective change, credibility and communication. Today, we will discuss the remaining three C's. Comprehensiveness

We’ve all heard it: Change is hard. I’m too set in my ways to change now. Can’t we just go back to the old way of getting our work done? The truth is—yes, change can be hard. It is widely reported that more than 80% of projects fail to accomplish their intended goals, mainly because of change “issues.” But change is not bad—in fact, when changing for the right reasons, change is good. Often, change is what is absolutely required for organizations to thrive, stay competitive, cut costs, and even survive. And while change may be hard, it is by no means impossible.

To achieve the potential cost savings and operational efficiencies desired, organizations must establish both an organizational structure and a governance structure that collectively support this new service delivery model. Organizational Structure

Change does not happen quickly in government institutions. Indeed, some argue that change should not happen too swiftly—that stability is more important than agility—and government should evolve slowly and deliberately rather than shift rapidly with political agendas.

Better, cheaper, faster—business process reengineering (BPR) focuses on improving process. By using a structured technique to evaluate what gets done, how it gets done, why you are doing it, and how to do it better, BPR can generate efficiency and effectiveness for an organization. For a Shared Services implementation, the primary goal of BPR is to create a standardized set of streamlined processes that can be deployed across the organization.

In our last post, we started discussions on how to implement a Shared Services model. Today we will get into some of the challenges and benefits organizations may face when implementing Shared Services internally or outsourcing.  

Over the next two blog posts, we will share some insight on how to implement a Shared Services model. What is the number one objective of a Shared Services model?  To provide services as efficiently and effectively as possible. In order to accomplish this objective, the critical first step is to define the future-state vision for the organization’s processes and technology. These activities include:

It has often been said that what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done. Performance metrics are the indicators and statistics an organization uses to gauge performance and to measure progress against desired outcomes. Performance metrics mean accountability. Leaders are accountable for the targets that are established, and supervisors, managers, and employees are accountable for meeting the metrics established by their leadership.