The Presidential Transition

One of the biggest obstacles to being a successful blogger is the perpetual need to generate insightful (or, failing that, any) content on a recurrent basis. Too often I find myself exclaiming, “Oh man, I haven’t posted in 2 weeks!” As this episode has recurred yet again, I’ve opted to blog about what I am working on: The presidential transition.

First a bit of good news – I am now an alumni of the Presidential Management Fellows program, and am nearing the end of my first week in my new job. One of my main responsibilities is preparing the Office for the change of administration. To that end I have a assembled a handy dandy collection of links from “the Outside World” (ie: the press and academia).

• Govexec.com Presidential Transition Portal
• White House Transition Project
• The Presidential Transition Project
• The Partnership for Public Service
• University of Pennsylvania – The Next Government
• OPM Transition Guide
• Chief Human Capital Officers Transition Guide
• IBM Center for the Business of Government

The above resources contain a slew of good information on the transition process as well as forecasts about some macro level changes the candidates might have in store as they strive to impose their vision for government on the massive federal bureaucracy. No candidate, Democrat or Republican is going to ride a mandate for change into the White House, look at the bureaucracy and say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

If you are actively involved in transition planning, you probably already know about these resources; regardless, as a young government leader it is imperative you familiarize yourself with what is guaranteed to be the principle driver of change in 2009.