How the Postal System Can Collaborate in New Ways to Weather COVID-19

Submitted by on Wed, 05/06/2020 - 15:57

Guest Blogger, Adam Houck, IBM Global Postal Practice Leader, Academy of Technology Leadership Team

COVID-19 has and will continue to have a devastating financial effect on the world’s postal services. At the same time, postal services have significant roles to play in the response and recovery effort. However, these efforts will not be enough to offset the financial impacts of COVID-19.

To respond to this global crisis, postal services must do three things:

Measuring the Quality of Management in Federal Agencies

Submitted by on Wed, 05/06/2020 - 10:00

How well are federal agencies managed?  Currently, no commonly accepted framework exists to assess the quality of agency management. In this special report, University of Illinois—Chicago authors James Thompson and Alejandra Medina take on this question.

Are Agencies Ready to Manage in a New World?

Submitted by on Wed, 05/06/2020 - 08:24

Government needs to think about effective management both in the current historical moment, and for the longer-term. Additionally, knowing how well different which agencies are managed would be a useful baseline for new agency leaders or in setting priorities for a new administration. Developing benchmarks to measure effective management would be useful for agencies to assess how they are doing over time, in comparison to other agencies, or what best practices exist for potential adoption.

Alejandra Medina

Submitted by on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 11:33

Alejandra Medina is currently a PhD student of Public Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before joining the PhD program, she worked in the Federal Government of Mexico in areas related to international cooperation and law enforcement. Medina’s professional experience mostly rely in the design and implementation of public policies against corruption and financial crimes. Medina also has worked as an external consultant for international organizations like the International Monetary Fund.

James-Christian Blockwood

Submitted by on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 11:04

James-Christian Blockwood is the Managing Director of the Strategic Planning and External Liaison office. In this role he helps GAO strategically plan for the future, drive agency-wide innovation and transformation, and strengthen the capacity of its domestic and international accountability partners. He also helped establish and oversees both the GAO Center for Audit Excellence and the GAO Center for Strategic Foresight.

Three Grand Challenges for Government

Submitted by on Tue, 05/05/2020 - 11:01

My position in the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), often called the “congressional watchdog,” affords me with a privileged, and rather sobering, view of the toughest, most complex national concerns. If we, as a nation, want to be best positioned to influence our future, it remains vital that we vigorously and rigorously explore trends and the environmental conditions that will shape government and society.

 

The Evolution of Government Shared Services

Submitted by on Mon, 05/04/2020 - 10:13

“Shared Services” -- cross-agency approaches for delivering mission support services like human resources (HR) and financial management (FM) more effectively and efficiently, remains a key initiative for agencies.  In today’s environment, government programs must shift almost daily in response to unprecedented public health and economic stimulus priorities.  Shared services have become even more imperative as a means of enhancing reliability and outcomes in support operations and enabling agencies to focus on mission priorities.

Weekly Roundup: April 27 – May 1, 2020

Submitted by on Thu, 04/30/2020 - 21:52

John Kamensky

Chief of Staff. What is the role of a chief of staff? When does an organization need one? A great article in the Harvard Business Review.

Enhancing Decision Making with ERM

Submitted by on Tue, 04/28/2020 - 07:36
If today's pandemic has taught us anything, it is that managing risk in the public sector has taken on new significance. It has also underscored that organizations across all sectors must tackle risk and uncertainty in a more systematic and enterprise manner.

Agile Government and Agile Governance: We Need both

Submitted by on Mon, 04/27/2020 - 13:21

The new Agile Government Center (AGC) at the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) is off and running -- building a network of interested stakeholders in government, academia and industry; refining principles for how governments can apply agility in their daily activities; and developing case examples of government programs that demonstrate agile in action.  As we expand this work, a key question has arisen around clarifying the distinction between agil

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