Posts By John Kamensky

Using Prizes as Innovation Engines

President Obama said he wanted to spur innovation, in his State of the Union address. Actually, this effort started in earnest last year through the use of prizes and contents as a complement to traditional research and development. As promised in an earlier blog post on this topic, the IBM Center now has a report,Read… Read more »

Understanding the Continuing Resolution

Confused and befuddled by the debate over the FY 2011 Continuing Resolution? Here’s a good overview of what it all means. My colleague, Carl Moravitz, used to be the budget director for several major federal agencies. He pulled together a brief slide deck explaining what the Continuing Resolution means. Agencies face significant uncertainty, and itRead… Read more »

Reorganize the Government?

President Obama committed to reorganizing the government during his State of the Union address. He pointed to examples of how government agencies duplicate and overlap each other in their programs, and how this needs to be fixed. He also noted that it has been decades since the last major reorganization. And he’s right. The lastRead… Read more »

Naming the New GPRA

Okay, the contest is over, the results are in and they are statistically valid (okay, so 18 responses may not cut it for statisticians but it’s good enough for me!). 1. GPRA 2.0 (highest number of votes, but it’ll be so retro in 10-15 years!) 2. Other (a close second, but with many options) a.Read… Read more »

Did You Telework Today?

Did today’s ice sheet over DC cause you to wish your agency supported teleworking? It’s now encouraged by law, but how do agencies actually get it implemented? The IBM Center has released a new report examining the experiences of four pioneering agencies and what they learned, so you don’t have to! There are enormous benefitsRead… Read more »

GPRA Mod Act of 2010 Explained: Part 8

The new law includes other new implementation actions, as well. For example, OPM must identify key skills and competencies for performance management; new definitions of terms; agency chief human capital officers have to prepare the section of their agency’s annual performance plan describing the skills and competencies needed to meet agencies’ goals described in theRead… Read more »

GPRA Mod Act Explained: Part 7

The new law codifies an existing governance framework for performance across government by designating chief operating officers in each major agency and requiring the designation of program improvement officers in each agency. It also authorizes a governmentwide performance improvement council and requires a governmentwide performance website. Governance of Overall Performance System. After the original GPRARead… Read more »

GPRA Mod Act of 2010 Explained: Part 6

The new law includes new requirements for quarterly reviews and progress assessments of governmentwide and agency-level priority goals. Federal Priority Goal Reviews. According to the Senate committee report, the new law: “attempts to lay out a process for reviewing progress towards the federal government priority goals on, at minimum, a quarterly basis. For each federalRead… Read more »

GPRA Mod Act of 2010 Explained: Part 5

The new law includes new requirements that the governmentwide performance plan (already required by GPRA) include cross-cutting priority goals and it requires agencies to set priority goals as well – and each has to consult with Congress in the development of these goals. The original GPRA requires OMB to develop a governmentwide annual performance plan.Read… Read more »