The Public Manager articles from December 2007

The Public Manager archives from December 2007

The manager's musings.(conference on professional development)(Editorial)
December 22, 2007... New Horizons Current public management events do a good job of increasing awareness of high-level policy issues, promoting an informed view on a variety of emerging trends. Beginning in 2008, The Public Manager plans to augment and...

Citizen involvement in the Digital Age: Web-based public comment is helping Spartanburg County and the Town of Cary connect with residents concerning important community issues.
December 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Digital Age is here. The way we communicate, share, and connect with others has changed drastically in the past decade. Although you may not know some of your neighbors, you might encounter them online in social...

Introduction and overview.(Forum: The Next President's Management Agenda)(president must manage recruting of geovernment employees)
December 22, 2007... The new president coming into office on January 20, 2009, will face what the current head of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has called a "retirement tsunami." Over the next five years, the government will lose more than 550,000...

Paradoxes of management reform: can the next administration muster the intellectual capital to cope with the complexities of our modern government.(Forum: The Next President's Management Agenda)
December 22, 2007... No self-respecting president can enter office without a management plan. Not that ordinary Americans expect it, most know little and care less about who delivers their public services and how. (Nor should they: public-sector transparency means...

Looking ahead--a human resources strategy: the next president can take six innovative actions to handle the impending demographic and performance crises.(Forum: The Next President's Management Agenda)
December 22, 2007... The current federal workforce is about to undergo a radical change. Because of low hiring levels associated with budget cuts in the 1980s and 1990s and the movement to private contractors to furnish government services, the...

The promise and potential of e-government: silos of expertise needed in the past must segue to a more agile, responsive, and horizontal form of government.(Forum: The Next President's Management Agenda)
December 22, 2007... A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. --Lao Tzu This perhaps over-used quotation describes the current transformation of government. This is not to understate the progress that government has made to implement...

Government 2.0--fact or fiction? The second generation of Web access will change the way government delivers services and its relationship with the American public.(Forum: The Next President's Management Agenda)
December 22, 2007... In spring 2006, after becoming chief information officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), I created a one-page, bulleted list of priorities and presented it in many forums inside and outside of the department. Various DOT...

The future workforce: here they come: a new generation of professionals are reshaping government workplaces, markedly changing the expectations of individual and organizational behaviors.(Forum: The Next President's Management Agenda)
December 22, 2007... In a rapidly changing world where technology blurs the line between work and play, shaping the workplace of the future requires thoughtful consideration and planning from those who would remain competitive in the global marketplace. As "digital...

Service transformation in government: better intergovernmental collaboration will be needed to satisfy the citizens of the future.(Forum: The Next President's Management Agenda)
December 22, 2007... As governments around the world transform their delivery of services to their citizens, new trends are emerging. They continue to focus on the citizen and on creating and maintaining a citizen-centric government; they are also using technology...

Versatile bureaucracy: a telework case study: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office uses telework as a cost-effective way to manage human capital, boost productivity, and improve the quality of employee lives.
December 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Today, as federal agencies wrestle with issues of employee recruitment, retention, and cost containment, telework has emerged as a vital tool that many of them, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO),...

Fulfilling the Promise of e-Gov Initiatives--Part II: the integration of federal acquisition processes has already improved services--and the near future looks even brighter.
December 22, 2007... In Part I of this two-part series, we describe how the Integrated-Acquisition Environment (IAE), managed by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), is living up to the e-Gov promise. We showed the systems that have been shut down, paper...

Family-friendly policy: lessons from Europe--Part II: family policies are important--to families and to business.
December 22, 2007... In Part I of this two-part series, I described historical family policy trends in Europe and the United States and offered a case study comparison between the United States and one European country. I argued that, because many U.S. social...

Developing executive leadership in the public sector: government agencies can improve their management effectiveness through internal leadership development that nurtures key skills, behaviors, and knowledge.
December 22, 2007... Well-led organizations produce results. Effective leaders enable organizations to innovate, respond to changes in markets and environments, creatively address challenges, and sustain high performance. Effective leadership creates a culture that...

Building an acquisition workforce to meet mission objectives: as the baby boomers retire and acquisition spending rises, cultural changes and innovative recruiting will be needed to attract talent and maintain competence.
December 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Congress and the executive branch, including the Government Accountability Office (GAO), as well as academia, are greatly interested in the state of the federal acquisition workforce. This interest, spread by the...

Transforming resource management to support an Army at war: the Army's chief financial officer examines three priorities for best use of the nation's money.
December 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] All managers, in both the public and private sectors, recognize that money is an essential element for meeting institutional objectives. While it might seem a bit of a stretch, the case can be made that money is an...

Recovering from Katrina: a work in progress--2007: Gulf Coast states have improved local emergency management, but more is needed to upgrade overall performance as the region struggles to recover from the storms of 2005.
December 22, 2007... The American Society for Public Administration's (ASPA's) Hurricane Katrina Task Force continued its multiyear study of the disaster and its management, providing its second report at the 2007 ASPA annual conference. The task force examined...

The expanded role of federal executive boards: federal executive boards now play a pivotal role in emergency planning, response, and recovery.
December 22, 2007... In 1961, President John F. Kennedy established federal executive boards (FEBs) by presidential directive to achieve better interagency coordination and communication among federal departments and activities outside of Washington, DC. In 1982,...

Managing in the public sector: how do public-sector challenges differ from those in the private sector, and what professional skill sets are needed to provide effective solutions?(Opinion)
December 22, 2007... Thank you so much for the honor of delivering a lecture that has featured so many of my personal role models. And thank you Howard [Balano.] for the way you have moved this curriculum into the mainstream of best practices in public...

Measuring public-sector outcomes.
December 22, 2007... Martin Cole and Greg Parston, Unlocking Public Value: A New Model For Achieving High Performance in Public Service Organizations (Hoboken, New Jersey: JohnWiley & Sons, Inc., 2006) Targeted at public practitioners, this book introduces the...

New heights for the silly season.(The Uncivil Servant)
December 22, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For as much nonsense as our National Embarrassment (the reference here is to the presidential elections for those who just crossed the border last week) generates, this round takes on bizarre proportions. One...