Many Americans are not aware that the standard railroad gauge in the U.S. (the distance between the two metal rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. Why the heck did our government leaders ever establish such an odd size for spacing the tracks when building our nation’s first rail lines? Well, that is because, when ourRead… Read more »
In order for a project, program, department, agency or the entire government to function properly, you first need trust. But cultivating and growing that trust can be difficult, especially within large organizations. Tim McManus is the Vice President for Education and Outreach at the Partnership for Public Service. Earlier this week the Partnership hosted authorRead… Read more »
The Big Bang Theory is the most popular comedy on television. More than 20 million people each week sit down to watch Sheldon Cooper and his group of brainiacs search for answers to life’s most challenging puzzles. Those big brains are just what the government needs to stay on the front lines of research andRead… Read more »
Performance Measurement, Program Evaluation, Or Both; plus the importance of data in evaluation. The government is pushing evaluation, especially President Obama and the OMB. However, not many people have a clear understanding of the difference between performance measurement and program evaluation. Below, I outline the differences and discuss the importance of data. Performance Measurement: PerformanceRead… Read more »
One of my favorite parts of running GovLoop is that I get to meet so many public servants across all levels (federal,state, local, international), functions (IT to public works to HR), agencies (environment to budget agencies), and countries (US to Singapore to Italy). I was reflecting the other day that no matter the differences thereRead… Read more »
Is equal pay or gender-based wage bias a problem in your workplace? In case you missed it, June 10 marked the half-century anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, which prohibits gender-based wage discrimination in employment. One might think that pay equity for women would have been reached after 50 years. Alas, this goal remains fleeting.Read… Read more »
Let’s look at two situations: A presenter, when asked if said she would make the program slides available to the meeting attendees said no offering this reason – this is my professional work and I will not give away my thoughts and insight. Eric Raymond, wrote about the open source software model (he was instrumentalRead… Read more »
I think one of the things that I’ve really noticed over the years is that no matter what you’re trying to accomplish, communication is key. I think a lot of times when you get into a large public sector project or an internally facing private sector project, people forget that you still have to sellRead… Read more »
Can things get any worse for the embattled IRS? Like any large business, the federal government is not immune from good investments going bad, or making bad investments altogether. Unfortunately, this stereotype continues to plague public perception regarding the business of government. The entire IRS imbroglio just makes a bad situation worse. No Room forRead… Read more »
I’m serving as the team lead (non-technical) for a software implementation. Last week the vendors came for a site visit to do some initial testing. After a successful week, we said our goodbye’s and the representative from logistics headquarters said to me, “I’m not sure what you do here, but you seem important.” All IRead… Read more »