Posts Tagged: management

Federal CIOs must become portfolio managers–here’s how

In August 2012, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget stated in a memo that federal CIOs should become true portfolio managers. The memo was aimed at heads of executive departments and agencies and was released as part of the U.S. federal IT reform plan. As with most OMB memos, it contained a lotRead… Read more »

Physical and Cyber Infrastructure Protection Working Together

Can a “whole of nation” approach be the answer to the increasing connectivity of physical and cyber infrastructure protection? Hear insights from DHS experts Suzanne Spaulding, Deputy Under Secretary, National Protection and Programs Directorate and Mark Weatherford, Deputy Under Secretary for Cybersecurity, National Protection and Programs Directorate as they discuss DHS programs in recognition ofRead… Read more »

The School of Rock: How Vague Supervisory Expectations Don’t Work

This blog post was originally published on GovSupervisor.com. Author: Mark Leheney In the business of supervisory development, we have a favorite old story that makes a powerful point. Here it is: A supervisor says to an employee, “Bring me a rock.” So the employee responds, proudly delivering a rock to the supervisor’s desk. “I didn’tRead… Read more »

The Office Borg

“We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us.” – From Star Trek, First Contact As a teleworking manager looking in on a traditional office environment, the dangers of the office often seem frighteningly similarRead… Read more »

Measuring Success

By Susit Dhakal, Associate Consultant One of the projects I am working on this semester involves analyzing metrics that measure the success of programs which provide educational grants for women. As I started reaching out to various not-for-profit organizations to figure out how they measure the impact of their programs, I soon realized the challengesRead… Read more »

Can a Basic Agreement Improve Supplier Relationships and Save Your Agency Money?

Watching the World Series, my colleague John Coombs, CFCM and Fellow, was struck with a baseball analogy to explain the power of the little-used Basic Agreement. He writes: What if Giant Gregor Blanco’s Game-Two bunt trickled to a stop but there was no base line to indicate if the ball stayed fair? How could BlueRead… Read more »

Managing Up

Earlier this week, I came across Hannah Ornell, another GovLooper, asking for definitions of “managing up.” I left my thoughts as a comment, but decided to write a blog post so I can find this later. I coach my team pretty frequently on managing up. To me, it’s a set of actions under the umbrellaRead… Read more »

Bridging the Gap Between Academics and Practitioners

Academics don’t always speak the same language as practitioners. But they oftentimes have useful ideas to convey. So how do we bridge the gap between research and practice? I’ve been asked to participate as a “practitioner” on a discussion panel at the upcoming conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) ItRead… Read more »

The Presidential Management Fellows Application Opens up on Nov. 5th

Presidential Management Fellows Applications Must Be Completed By Nov. 19 The Resume Place offers tips for writing the Presidential Management Fellows application for the PMF Class of 2013. The resume is critical as part of this application. Read important application details.

Rules of Interfacing with Government Personnel that You Don’t Want to Break at Any Cost

Marketing to the government is very different than marketing to commercial customers. With most commercial customers, you can wine, dine, and entertain them. Not so with the government. If you do, there are two outcomes: government personnel will either start avoiding you outright because they will know that you don’t know how to work withRead… Read more »