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Best Practices for Leading Sustainability Efforts

Submitted by on Sun, 09/23/2012 - 11:25

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:

Irregular Warfare at Sea: A Case Study on National Defense Choices

Submitted by on Tue, 09/18/2012 - 10:25

National defense choices can leave a country vulnerable.  Military organizations routinely deal with risk and trade-offs.  But longer-term strategic defense choices—shaped by multiple factors including uncertainty about the future, the pressure of dominant current constituencies, and fiscal constraints that are difficult to “get right.”  Once a conflict begins a new set of options and trades emerge but the uncertainties, the pressure of constituencies and resource constraints remain (even in a national level mobilization).  In the United States, we are currently dealing with strategic choic

A Best Practices Guide for Mitigating Risk in the Use of Social Media

Submitted by on Mon, 11/07/2011 - 11:04

Read the report.

Social media continue to grow across the globe, and the United States federal government is no exception. The administration and Congress actively and increasingly use social media to communicate, to take information in, and to collaborate across boundaries. Yet the benefits of increased involvement through social media also raise new risks to the security of agency information.

The Virginia Implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act:

Submitted by on Tue, 09/06/2011 - 10:30

These funds were accompanied by a new, centralized system of strict financial accountability and perfor­mance reporting, with frequent reporting requirements. These new requirements, as well as the rapid implementation time­frame required by the Recovery Act, created an enormous implementation challenge for all the participants in our federal-state-local-non­profit intergovernmental system.

Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® Staff/Manager Alignment Scores

Submitted by on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:59

Managers play an important role in an organization; they implement policies from senior leadership and also carry concerns up the chain from staff to decision-makers. If managers and staff don’t see eye-to-eye on the key issues, then managers may be unable or unwilling to properly acknowledge and share staff concerns to leadership. Executives may be left unaware of what’s happening on the front lines, issuing policies that risk failure because they aren’t fully informed.

The Promise of Collaborative Voluntary Partnerships: Lessons from the Federal Aviation Administration

Submitted by on Fri, 09/24/2010 - 14:21

Based on his extensive research on the three programs, Mills concludes that although the programs can be improved, they are making a worthwhile contribution to airline safety. Mills argues that collaborative voluntary partnerships should be viewed as a complement to agency regulatory activities rather than as a replacement for the traditional command-and-control approach to regulation.

Strategic Risk Management in Government: A Look at Homeland Security

Submitted by on Wed, 07/29/2009 - 20:00

This report includes two papers describing how the federal government can increase its capability to undertake strategic risk management in safeguarding the nation. In recent years, the government has devoted increased attention to the use of strategic risk management. The challenge now facing government is to begin to link strategic risk management to resource allocation.

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