Framing a Public Management Research Agenda

The IBM Center for The Business of Government hosted a forum in November 2009 to examine the Obama Administration's themes for a high-performing government and to frame a public management research agenda.

Participants included nearly 50 of the nation's top public management researchers, scholars, and distinguished practitioners. The forum was an effort to help bridge the gap between research and practice, and to collectively develop a research agenda that would help government executives move things forward.

The Role of Chief Acquisition Officers: What Should They Be Doing?

The Service Acquisition Reform Act (SARA) Legislation of 2003 (41 U.S.C. 414) established new positions of Chief Acquisition Officers to oversee Federal civilian agency acquisition operations. The expectation was that the CAO would be highly placed in the agency, advising the agency head on business strategy and focusing on acquisition in the broadest sense of the term. Many would argue that the CAO position has not lived up to its promise.

SeaPort: Charting a New Course for Professional Services Acquisition for America's Navy

The project presents a case study of the SeaPort operation, established by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) as a faster, better, and cheaper way of procuring over half a billion dollars worth of professional support services necessary to support the Navy’s mission around the world.

Performance-Based Acquisition: What is the Problem?

Since the early 1990's, the federal government has been moving toward a more results oriented, performance-based management environment. Under performance-based acquisition (PBA), agencies tell the contractor the results they want, not how to do the work and then measure whether or not the results are achieved. Uneven adoption of PBA techniques appears to be partly due to holding contracting accountable for a program responsibility, as well as a lack of staff expertise.

State Government E-Procurement in the Information Age: Issues, Practices, and Trends

This report seeks to understand how Information Technology (IT) contributes to the effectiveness of state procurement management and to increase knowledge to improve future applications of IT in state and local government procurement management systems. Technology and E-Government

 

The Acquisition Workforce: What Agency Chief Operating Officers Need to Do

Learn how agencies can put in place or enhance core processes to make the acquistion functions operate as effectively as possible.

The Procurement Partnership Model: Moving to a Team-Based Approach

The emerging partnership model of procurement is characterized by team-based approaches, new contracting vehicles, an outcome orientation, and increased emphasis on open communication and due diligence.This report describes the strategies that have worked for both achieving results and ensuring accountability. The report also outlines what still needs to be done to see these successful approaches utilized more widely in the procurement process. Contracting

Benchmarking Procurement Practices in Higher Education

This report focuses on the procurement function within higher education. Since universities are spending billions of dollars on a range of goods and services, it seemed prudent to conduct a benchmarking study of procurement practices across a broad range of colleges and universities. This study seeks to uncover leading practices that colleges and universities across the nation, as well as other nonprofit organizations, may consider adopting as they wrestle with common financial challenges.

Transforming Government: Creating the New Defense Procurement System

This report focuses on the government leaders within the Pentagon and the White House who transformed the weapons procurement process from a rule-bound, inflexible, and inefficient system to a more subjective, cost-effective, and innovative public acquisition process. The study seeks to discover how these public sector leaders injected private sector business methodologies into the traditional federal bureaucracy and offers an illustration of how this government team exemplified leading widespread change and instilling innovation. Organizational Transformation

A Vision of the Government as a World-Class Buyer: Major Procurement Issues for the Coming Decade

This report includes an analysis of the key issues facing government procurement and the steps that must be taken to address those issues. The study describes a "vision" of the government's procurement process at the end of the decade and how to efficiently and effectively transition to this "vision." Contracting

 

Pages