Michael J. Keegan

Long, long overdue': An oral history of the Government Performance and Results Act. GPRA was a cornerstone of the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Government initiative, led by Vice President Al Gore. But over the years, it became part of not only the structure but also the culture of the federal government. As GPRA reaches its 30th anniversary, Professor Don Kettl recognized it’s a great time to look back at how it evolved.

 Pentagon launches new task force to map future of generative AI. The Pentagon wants to start taking advantage of recent advances in generative artificial intelligence. But to embrace it responsibly, officials think they first need to take a deep dive into the specific use cases and implications of inserting the rapidly evolving technology into defense applications.

DoD CIO Points Agencies to JWWC for Future Cloud Wants. The Pentagon’s top technology official is pushing defense agencies and components to use the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract for all future cloud acquisitions and top-secret cloud capabilities.

"The City of Boston uses innovation and technology to help deliver better public services, programs and products to every constituent," notes Santiago Garces, chief information officer, City of Boston. Innovation and technology enable equity effectiveness and efficiency. The Department of Innovation and Technology creates accessible, reliable, scalable, secure, and dignified experiences for Boston residents.  "Innovation and technology," explains Garces, allow us to embrace new possibilities to connect public servants to our constituents."

Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus John Kotter has proposed that business organizations develop networks internally to help their traditional hierarchies function in today’s fast-changing environment. Government too finds itself increasingly beset by difficult problems that challenge the ability of departments and agencies to respond promptly and appropriately.

The Leap to Leader: To succeed as a senior executive, you need more than just special skills and competencies. You need a new mindset.  The author has conducted in-depth interviews with hundreds of CEOs. In this article, he shares the lessons that emerged about the mental shifts needed to make a successful transition to a senior leadership position. The process involves identifying and communicating your core values and learning how to approach tough decisions.

How can governments better prepare for supply chain disruptions. Supply chain interruptions and slowdowns linger as an effect of the pandemic. They make purchasing and acquisition difficult for both the private sector and government. Recently thinkers put their heads together to come up with ways governments can become more resilient on the supply chain front.

Explore the June 2023 Agency Priority Goal Updates. Agency Priority Goals, or APGs, are an agency’s near-term, implementation-focused priorities that the heads of each major federal agency set every two years. On June 29th, the Office of Management and Budget published the FY 2023 Q2 updates on Performance.gov. These goals serve as steppingstones towards long-term objectives outlined in the agency’s strategic plan.

GAO Claims $600B of Savings, Points to Billions More Possible. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is helping Federal agencies to save taxpayer money on duplicative programs, offices, and initiatives, saving roughly $600 billion since GAO began this work in 2011 – with more cost-saving opportunities available.

 NEW GAO SCIENCE & TECH SPOTLIGHT: GENERATIVE AI. Generative AI systems—like ChatGPT and Bard—create text, images, audio, video, and other content. This Spotlight examines the technology behind these systems that are surging in popularity. These systems are trained to recognize patterns and relationships in massive datasets and can quickly generate content from this data when prompted by a user. These growing capabilities could be used in education, government, medicine, law, and other fields.