Fast Government: Accelerating Service Quality While Reducing Cost and Time

Through fast government, public-sector leaders make time a key performance metric in government efficiency and effectiveness.

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By

Charles L. Prow

Managing Partner

IBM Global Business Services, charles.l.prow@us.ibm.com

This report is a follow-on to a 2012 book edited by Mr. Prow, Governing to Win: Enhancing National Competitiveness Through New Policy and Operating Approaches, in which he introduced the concept of fast government as a key to increasing the mission value of government organizations. Through fast government, public-sector leaders make time a key performance metric in government efficiency and effectiveness initiatives—time saved by streamlining operations, improving the quality of government services, and reducing barriers to citizen engagement.

Fast Government includes 11 essays by experts in the field. The report is divided into two parts. Part One presents strategies to lay a foundation for a fast government. Part Two presents five key tools that can be used in moving to fast government, including gaming technologies, mobile technologies, supply chains, predictive analytics, and a No Wrong Door approach to speeding government.

This report is one of several new IBM Center publications being issued at the start of the second term of the Obama administration. The goal of these publications is to assist government leaders and managers as they continue to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and speed of government. A revised edition of The Operators Manual for the New Administration is now available and Rowman & Littlefield Publishers have released the 2013 edition of Getting It Done: A Guide for Government Executives. In addition, the Fall/Winter 2012 edition of The Business of Government contains a Forum on “Governing in the Next Four Years.”