Just before Easter, I spent a couple of nights staying in a rather nice hotel. As it turned out, the fact that I can dimly remember watching Fawlty Towers many years ago proved to be of no help at all to me in understanding what was going on or how to navigate its processes. IRead… Read more »
Pretty simple rule, yet one that is often ignored or at a minimum, not really understood. We grow up not really being taught how to manage our finances and so we go to college, or perhaps get a job. We then get a checking account, a credit card…or two, or three, start spending, accumulating debt,Read… Read more »
Reformers have promoted the notion of performance budgeting since it was introduced by the 1949 Hoover Commission. Major initiatives have been attempted and incremental progress has been achieved. But not enough has happened. A Government Accountability Office survey last year reports that the percentage of federal managers saying they used performance information in allocating resourcesRead… Read more »
Our organizational partners are Everyday Democracy have been working for 25 years to make racial equity a central piece of their work in dialogue and deliberation, and they recently condensed some of the key insights that work has taught them. We learned a lot from ED’s lessons and share their belief addressing racism in ourRead… Read more »
I have previously written about the 5 Main Barriers to Digital Engagement by organizations, their leaders, and other senior professionals. These barriers include lack of knowledge and understanding of social and digital technologies, framing that leads to risk aversion, poor/no roadmaps, and inadequate resource allocation. A related issue involves concerns over the ROI of socialRead… Read more »
When say I love working in government people look at me as if my brain cells are jumping ship on a daily basis. True story. I’ve been doing it for much of my career and there have been few dull moments. The sheer diversity of projects and plans I’ve worked on has included everything fromRead… Read more »
The PMBOK® Guide, or “A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge” resulted from the concept of a small group of people who wanted to form an organization for promoting the discipline of project management. Edward Engman, J. Gordon Davis, James Snyder, Eric Jenett, and Susan Gallagher founded the Project Management Institute (PMI®) inRead… Read more »
I recently finished The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right Paperback by Atul Gawande and I was blown away by the results he shares with regard to the use of checklists as well as his personal experiences in the implementation and use of checklists. As a big believer in the power of repeatable processesRead… Read more »
Earlier this week, our organizational partners with the Kettering Foundation published an insightful interview with NCDD organizational member and public deliberation guru Dr. Martín Carcasson. Martín’s insights on public deliberation and civic infrastructure are rich, and we encourage you to read them below or find the original interview by clicking here. When Martín Carcasson firstRead… Read more »
What are the major levers for driving changes in government agencies? Traditional tools are statutory changes, budgetary controls, and executive orders. But one that seasoned government executives will use to drive change is control over delegations of authority. A recent report by the Partnership for Public Service on how several federal agencies created shared serviceRead… Read more »