You wouldn’t go to a new restaurant without checking out the Yelp reviews, but government might buy a billion dollar software system without checking the data first. But now government is trying to reverse the trend. They are starting to use performance data to create better government decision-making. Chris Mihm, Managing Director of Strategic IssuesRead… Read more »
How many hours per day to you spend dealing with paper? One hour? Two hours? For many in state and local government, it can actually be upwards of six hours a day! That’s too much time dedicated to printing, filing and searching for information when you could be doing more important, mission-critical tasks. Fortunately, emerging technologyRead… Read more »
Suppose you are called into a meeting and asked to help with some quick planning estimates for a new IT system that is being proposed in response to an important and urgent White House initiative. The system will be used to collect and analyze massive amounts of real-time sensor data. Your boss says “we needRead… Read more »
Recently I completed my first half-marathon, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Half, in Alexandria, VA. It was an amazing feeling to complete a goal I had been working toward both physically and mentally for several months. It wasn’t such an amazing feeling immediately after the race…I’m still a little sore! But that’s beside the point. Reflecting onRead… Read more »
Sometimes I wonder why good people suffer so in organizational life. For example: Messengers of doom are punished or ignored rather than rewarded. Computer glitches, safety lapses, ineffective leadership; employees who show every sign of endangering the workplace. All of these are routinely reported by attentive people, and frequently just as swiftly disregarded. StrategicRead… Read more »
I wonder, how many adults equate their annual performance evaluations with your progress reports of our primary school years? I doubt many, we tend to think those things are beyond us. The fact is, did we not even as adults going through our higher education years consider that our “grades” matter? As you know, sometimesRead… Read more »
Employee engagement is one of the biggest challenges facing the public sector. As agencies’ missions continue to grow increasingly complex and many senior staff prepare for retirement, the public sector must place an emphasis on recruiting and retaining the next generation of public leaders. This crucial topic was the basis of Tuesday’s Governing webinar, Engage,Read… Read more »
We know training is important to both organizations and employees, yet it is often seen by workers and supervisors as extra work of no real value. It interrupts the workflow. It is the immediate tangible evaluations are the most important. The effectiveness of training should matter. That’s what we tell ourselves and, yet, we hand out trainer and trainingRead… Read more »
Who says your failures can’t lead to success? Employers it seems. We are fond of saying, “Failure is not an option.” And, “when it’s rough, the tough get going.” That may be a positive result of the United States unemployment situation and lagging economy. Today’s unemployed may have failed in nailing a specific job orRead… Read more »
Steve VanRoekel spent some three years as the federal Chief Information Office. He has now moved on to serve as chief innovation officer at USAID assisting with the administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak. In one of his last interviews as federal CIO, Steve joined me on The Business of Government Hour to reflect onRead… Read more »