Beyond Citizen Engagement: Involving the Public in Co-Delivering Government Services

The Obama Administration’s 2009 Open Government initiative sparked innovative ways of engaging the public in government. But engagement for engagement’s sake has not been an end goal.  Trends in both the public and private sector, in the U.S. and around the world, have been to leverage new technologies available to create meaningful dialogue and relationships between citizens and their government.

Getting It Done: A Guide for Government Executives

Four years ago, the IBM Center for The Business of Government released a book to guide new government executives, especially new political appointees. The goal of the book was to quickly acclimate new government executives to the world of public service as practiced in Washington, D.C. The book, entitled Getting It Done: A Guide for Government Executives (this is the first version), contained a series of short strategic discussions about "the dos and don’ts" of Washington and presented useful insights about working with key stakeholders and constituencies.

Implementing Cross-Agency Collaboration: A Guide for Federal Managers

This report provides useful insights into how the government can proceed in creating effective cross-agency collaborations that can improve outcomes significantly.

A County Manager’s Guide to Shared Services in Local Government

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.

Fall/Winter 2012 Edition

Mitigating Risks in the Application of Cloud Computing in Law Enforcement

This report comes at an opportune time as the law enforcement community is undergoing a major transformation. Traditionally, communication within law enforcement was often linear and hierarchical. Today, communication happens in real time across jurisdictional boundaries. Because of improved communication and real-time information, the law enforcement community can plan where to place resources ahead of time, instead of only reacting to events after they have occurred.

Five Methods for Measuring Unobserved Events: A Case Study of Federal Law Enforcement

Measuring program performance is relatively straightforward in many areas of government, such as social services, visa processing, and air traffic control.  But there are instances where assessing performance and success is much harder.  One particularly difficult area involves law enforcement, where a key goal is to prevent or deter bad outcomes – which can often happen without the knowledge of law enforcement officials.

From Data to Decisions II: Building an Analytics Culture

In our 2011 report on analytics use in the federal government, "From Data to Decisions: The Power of Analytics," we wrote about the tremendous budget pressures federal agencies face at a time when there is great public demand for government to be more effective and efficient. This report’s release sparked an overwhelmingly positive response from agency leaders and federal performance management practitioners who asked, “Where do we go from here?

Forging Governmental Change: Lessons from Transformations Led by Robert Gates of DOD and Francis Collins of NIH

In Robert Gates, former secretary of defense, and Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, Professor Lambright has identified two outstanding government leaders who both led transformation initiatives in their organizations.

Best Practices for Leading Sustainability Efforts

Federal agencies are required to develop strategies, implement and report on projects, and continuously improve their processes as a model for the country. The Executive Order significantly increased the visibility of sustainability as a strategic imperative for the federal government and beyond, while potentially saving energy and taxpayer money. Given the somewhat broad and vague definitions of sustainability, some agencies may check the compliance box rather than take advantage of the full array of potentially cost-saving and performance-increasing benefits.

This report:

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