The Business of Government is a magazine dedicated to improving the management of government.

Management Matters

Neither good policies nor good investments are likely to work, let alone succeed, if they are undermined by poor implementation.

Yet some people think of “management” solely in terms of reorganization or administrative functions such as procurement, accounting, personnel management, financial management, and information technology. Public management, however, goes far beyond the tools of administration. It also involves the way democratic governments function in a complex world economy and how they balance out the competing and contradictory demands of citizens.

The challenge of improving the management and performance of government is increasingly complex and wide-ranging. There is no neat way to separate management from policy or from program design. Moreover, management issues are closely intertwined with the budget process.

In the real world, resource allocation and management are interdependent.

Major policy issues with which a modern president must deal seldom fit into the confines of a single department. Revitalizing the economy, controlling drugs, protecting the environment, reforming education, restructuring welfare, or creating jobs—each of these issue areas and dozens of others require coordinated analysis and action across many organizations.

OMB Deputy Director for Management Clay Johnson, who is profiled in this issue of The Business of Government, concluded a radio show interview we conducted with him by saying:

... most people think about government work as focusing on what the policy ought to be, and the key is how a policy is implemented, which gets into how money is spent and how an agency is managed. I think it’s really, really important.

So as we begin to look forward to a new administration in January 2009, it is important to remind ourselves that policies and programs, however well intended, must be transformed from rhetoric into an actionable agenda and then into concrete results. “How” things are managed is just as important as “what” policies or programs are created.

Download The Business of Government, Fall 2007

Pdf format, 4.6mb, 92pages.

3 From the Editor’s Keyboard
4 Conversations with Leaders
A Conversation with Clay Johnson III
A Conversation with the Honorable Timothy M. Kaine
16 Profiles in Leadership
Jayson P. Ahern
Maj. Gen. Elder Granger
Nina Rose Hatfield
Michael P. Jackson
Lt. Gen. Michael W. Peterson
Dr. Jeff T. H. Pon
Dr. Ronald P. Sanders
Jonathan “Jock” Scharfen
David M. Wennergren
43 Forum: Management Challenges in an Internet- Enabled World
Forum Introduction: Five Management Challenges in an Internet-Enabled World
Challenge 1: Managing Horizontally Across Organizational Silos
Challenge 2: Managing Collaboration Across Organizations
Challenge 3: Managing New Collaborative Technologies
Challenge 4: Managing the Introduction of New Services
Challenge 5: Managing the Digital Divide
65 Management
Introduction: Challenging the Way Managers and Employers
Think About Performance Management
Managing for Better Performance: Enhancing Federal Performance Management Practices
Designing and Implementing Performance-Oriented Payband Systems
Releasing the Strategic Potential of Human Resources Shared Services
79 Research Abstracts
84 From the Executive Director

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About the IBM Center for The Business of Government

Through research stipends and events, the IBM Center for The Business of Government stimulates research and facilitates discussion of new approaches to improving the effectiveness of government at the federal, state, local, and international levels.

The Center is one of the ways that IBM seeks to advance knowledge on how to improve public sector effectiveness. The IBM Center focuses on the future of the operation and management of the public sector.

About IBM Global Business Services

With consultants and professional staff in more than 160 countries globally, IBM Global Business Services is the world’s largest consulting services organization. IBM Global Business Services provides clients with business process and industry expertise, a deep understanding of technology solutions that address specific industry issues, and the ability to design, build and run those solutions in a way that delivers bottom-line business value. For more information visit www.ibm.com.

Who’s Who at the Center

Albert Morales is General Manager, Federal Civilian Industry leader, IBM Global Business Services, and Managing Partner, IBM Center for The Business of Government.

Jonathan D. Breul is Executive Director of the IBM Center for The Business of Government and a Partner, IBM Global Business Services.

John Kamensky is Senior Fellow, IBM Center for The Business of Government, and associate Partner, IBM Global Business Services.

G. Martin Wagner is Senior Fellow, IBM Center for The Business of Government, and associate Partner, IBM Global Business Services.

Michael J. Keegan is Producer of the IBM Business of Government Hour and Managing Editor of The Business of Government magazine.

Lauren Kronthal is Marketing Director, IBM Center for The Business of Government.

Ruth Gordon is Business and Web Manager, IBM Center for The Business of Government.

Mark A. Abramson is Consultant to the IBM Center for the for The Business of Government.

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