Collaboration

Federal agencies make more than $2 trillion in payments to individuals and a variety of other entities each year. Disbursing these payments expose agencies to many risks. One such risk is making what is known as improper payments. Improper payments can take many forms:  incorrect amounts paid to eligible recipients; payments made to ineligible recipients; payments for goods or services not received; duplicate payments; and payments with insufficient or no documentation.

This election cycle saw record-shattering amounts of campaign spending, according to media reports.  Some, such as California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, spent their personal fortunes in their run for public office.  But there are others who are investing their personal fortunes in hopes that government can be better run, no matter who the elected officials might be.

Jeff Tryens, the former director of the Oregon Progress Board, conducted a survey for Metro, which is Portland, Oregon’s area regional government, to find out.  He surveyed over two dozen existing programs to identify best practices in developing and using community-level indicator systems to “inform, engage, intervene, or fund” efforts to jointly improve the results communities (not just

For example, Vice President Gore’s reinvention lead, Bob Stone, noted in 1998 that: “In Kansas City, the OSHA team offered training and a voluntary self-inspection to meatpacking companies with high injury rates. Working in partnership with OSHA, these companies reduced lost workdays by 15 percent. Even better, in response to their training, the employees identified and corrected 840 workplace hazards – far more than [OSHA] inspectors ever could.”

Three recent IBM Center reports present a different perspective, showing the value of regulatory partnerships.  These reports offer lessons learned on how to create and effectively maintain regulatory partnerships so they don’t result in the failures highlighted in a penetrating Washington Post article “

A new IBM Center report, Strategies for Supporting Front Line Collaboration: Lessons from Stewardship Contracting, by the University of Oregon’s Cassandra Moseley, describes how the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S.

One of the better Open Gov plans for collaboration is the one by the Department of Agriculture.  It sets out four goals: (1) create an environment that fosters partnerships in program and service delivery; (2) seek out innovative ideas; (3) create incentives to collaborate; and (4) use technology to support coll

How does NYC DEP protect the environmental health, welfare and natural resources of the City and its residents?

What does it take to deliver over one billion gallons of quality drinking water daily to over 8 million residents?

How is NYC greening its operations and making them more sustainable?

What steps are being taken to maintain NYC's water system for the next hundred years?

• Determining how the Privacy Act of 1974 applies to government use of social

The seminar – like his book -- was a very practical description of real-life experiences in leading organizational change. A self-described former street performer, Kahan engaged his audience in ways to create rapid, widespread engagement in their organizations. He offered both a framework for understanding how to do this, as well as a series of specific actions, based on his personal experiences in helping foster large scale changes in the World Bank and other organizations.