The Public Manager articles from December 1999

The Public Manager archives from December 1999

Corn is always available.
December 22, 1999... I'LL TELL YOU ONE THING. I won't go hungry any time soon, nor will I lack for candles, batteries, or back-up electric power. It wasn't that I did not believe John Koskinen when he told us that the Y2K threat would be a manageable problem in...

Viva cyber warriors!(Y2K planning)(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... In any case, I applaud the work done by John Koskinen and others who awakened us to the possible great harm that could have occurred had we not taken action to squash the Y2K bug before it could inflict significant damage. Of course, he did...

Affecting life for feds.
December 22, 1999... This issue of The Public Manager features a mini-forum coordinated by John Palguta that focuses on four federal agencies that affect every federal employee's life in one way or another. In the case of the Equal Employment Opportunity...

Hail and hail thrice again.(Robert Goldenkoff )(Brief Article)
December 22, 1999... We also want to announce the appointment of Robert Goldenkoff as new editor for our Young Professionals Arena department. Robert is an assistant director with the US General Accounting Office(GAO) where he is responsible for leading reviews...

Introduction to the Forum.(managing the federal workplace)
December 22, 1999... The federal workplace in the 21st century will be very different from that which existed at the turn of the last century. Are federal human resources management policies and practices up to the challenges that lie ahead? In the rush of...

The Dinosaur Killer: Moving Federal HRM into the New Millennium.(human resource management)
December 22, 1999... The demands of the information revolution will kill the 20th century Dinosaurs--including federal HRM policies and practices that cannot or will not adapt to the global realities. The world is changing. And governments at all levels,...

New Ways of Doing Business: The Merit System in 2000 and Beyond.
December 22, 1999... The chairman of the MSPB reflects on changes in the federal civil service--especially in handling employment disputes--and offers an assessment of the future. By examining the past we better understand the present and improve our chances...

Solving Problems or Litigating Claims.
December 22, 1999... At best, litigation can result in decisions that direct compliance and remedy wrongs; it rarely, if ever, can produce prompt, practical solutions to problems. When President Kennedy first allowed labor unions to organize in federal...

A New Vision for Federal Sector Equal Employment Opportunity: Reform and a Comprehensive Approach to Enforcement.
December 22, 1999... The chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) shares her new vision for the federal sector EEO process in the 21st century and the actions she is taking to make that vision a reality. When I assumed the leadership...

Is GPRA Improving the Performance of the Federal Government?(Government Performance and Results Act)
December 22, 1999... Anticipating congressional responses to performance reporting is a challenge for managers--made even more so given the polemical and politically charged rhetoric. By March 31, 2000, all federal agencies will have completed their first...

The Public and Private Sectors: Goose and Gander or Apples and Oranges.
December 22, 1999... The public and private sectors: it is safe to say that while the differences are enormous, there are also many similarities that stem from the nature of large organizations anywhere. On an overcast day about four years ago, I drove onto...

Supply Chains and Enterprise Government Management.
December 22, 1999... Supply chain management, the process of moving goods, has been successfully adopted by UNICOR. A supply chain is the integrated organization of moving goods from the stage of raw materials, through work processing by producers, to the...

ICE-MAN and the Aftermath.
December 22, 1999... ICE-MAN demonstrates that the federal government can compete successfully with the private sector to provide a best value, commercial-type service. To some, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Integrated Computing...

New Directions in Leadership Development: A Review of Trends and Best Practices.
December 22, 1999... The author reviews the trends and best practices in executive leadership development outside the federal government to help identify ways in which federal leadership programs might be improved. The ability to develop leaders effectively...

The State of Iowa and PEO Services.(professional employer organization)
December 22, 1999... Professional employer organizations offer the public sector an innovative method for acquiring needed expertise without hiring permanent staff and without resorting to independent contractors. One summer morning, about two years ago, I...

A Performance Report on Performance Reports.
December 22, 1999... Those who worry about GPRA and watch this issue ought to recognize that we are making very real progress. Nonetheless, we have plenty yet to do. When I first spoke publicly on the importance of the Government Performance and Results Act...

GPRA's Bottom Line: Better Performance Information for Better Management.(Government Performance and Results Act)
December 22, 1999... Treasury decided to address the challenge of tracking and monitoring thousands of pieces of data through two systems. The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993 was designed to improve the federal government's ability to...

Let Us Now Praise Great Federal Bureaucrats.
December 22, 1999... US bureaucracy conceals some of the nation best and brightest civil servants--stories of success include winning a Nobel Prize. Let us now praise great federal bureaucrats. No, really. Just as public schools and the Army, however...

The Washington Monument Syndrome.
December 22, 1999... Into the Breach Once Again Well, those of you who are still alive to read this have survived into the new millennium. You were not consumed by Y2K problems. You are not starving; dead for lack of water; foreclosed upon for lack of an...

Six Sigma Black Belt: Bruce Lee as a Quality Management Consultant?
December 22, 1999... The advantages of the process of creating internal quality consultants to redesign processes and product and service lines. What are public managers to think about the recent resurgence of quality management in the private sector?...

The Best Management Books of the 1990s.(Review)
December 22, 1999... With all this end of the millennium madness about the best athletes, films, and whatever of the century, The Public Manager book review section has to get into the act. For the last issue of the 1990s, we present our list of the top 10...

What's the difference?(Review)
December 22, 1999... Mathews, Audrey L., The Sum of the Differences, McGraw-Hill, New York: 1999. Professor Audrey L. Mathews has produced a valuable one-stop shopping resource for the design and enrichment of education courses and training sessions in...