November 9th Memos to National Leaders

The November 9th Memos to National Leaders event will be held at the National Academy of Public Administration and will reveal our team’s final three memos: Managing Big Initiatives, Chaired by John Kamensky; Improving Performance, Chaired by Don Moynihan; and Managing Public-Private Partnerships, Chaired by Mark Pisano.

Guest speakers include former Deputy Director of Management at the Office of Management and Budget, G. Edward Deseve, and Principal and Public Sector Director at Grant Thornton, Robert Shea.

Managing Big Initiatives: Every President will likely face the need to get big initiatives done sometime during his term of office. By “big initiatives” means, we mean challenges that reach across agency and program boundaries, oftentimes involving states, localities, citizens, businesses, and the non-profit sector. Recent examples include responding to catastrophic natural disasters, or undertaking big science projects such as the Human Genome Project, or large-scale administrative responses, such as the implementation of the Recovery Act. Historical examples include the race to the moon, the construction of the interstate highway system, and the national response to the Y2K computer bug. Responding to these kinds of big challenges requires a President to operate outside the traditional boundaries of agencies and programs.

Improving Performance: The federal government has gradually expanded the use of performance management systems. Different administrations have tried a variety of approaches and techniques, the most promising of which have been incorporated into statute with the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act (GPRAMA) of 2010.

Managing Public-Private Partnerships: There have been numerous reports from GAO and other organizations that all levels of Governments, even assuming normal economic growth, will experience fiscal shortfalls stretching far into the future. There are also numerous reports concluding that unless we undertake major investment programs in our collective goods issues of education, infrastructure, energy and health that we will not be able to accelerate growth and alter this future. Our panel is developing strategies and recommendations on putting the organizations-public, private and non-profit together differently, with new “rules of the game,” so that synergy, efficiencies, partnerships and innovation will enable us to forge approaches that can help address these dilemmas.