Dan Chenok

The IBM Center for The Business of Government connects public management research with practice. Since 1998, we have helped public sector executives improve the effectiveness of government with practical ideas and original thinking. We sponsor independent research by top minds in academe and the non-profit sector, and we create opportunities for dialogue on a broad range of public management topics.

The National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan organization chartered by Congress in 1967 to assist government leaders in building more effective, efficient, accountable, and transparent organizations. Its 800 Fellows -- who include former cabinet officers, Members of Congress, governors, mayors, and state legislators, as well as prominent scholars, business executives, and public administrators – meet annually.

The Academy’s annual meeting in mid-November heard from a wide range of discussants. Following are highlights from the opening panel: Panelists: The Honorable Beth Cobert, Deputy Director for Management (DDM), Office of Management and Budget; and The Honorable Dan Tangherlini, Administrator, General Services Administration Highlights: Opening Remarks. In her opening remarks, Beth Cobert noted that the Obama Administration’s management agenda “focuses on what can we do now, that will have an impact on citizens.” The agenda is based on what agencies have learned over the past several years.

The Center for The Business of Government continues to support reports by leading thinkers on key issues affecting government today. We are pleased to announce our latest round of awards for new reports on key public sector challenges, which respond to priorities identified in the Center's long-term research agenda, see businessofgovernment.org/content/research-stipends. We expect the following reports to be published later in 2015. Short summaries of each report are included below.

The Department of Educaton (ED) maintains many risk management tools, two of which are new: the State Score Cards and the Entity Risk Review. This report explains how these two tools are being used and provides examples of how risk management tools have been used to track the progress of two high risk grantees: Detroit Public Schools and Puerto Rico. Based on their examination of the ED experience, the authors present a series of lessons learned and recommendations for other agencies.

This report is the product of a group of experts, which was convened by the Department of Computer Science at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). IUP brought together an interdisciplinary panel of experts in national security, international relations, foreign policy, information system network and security, public policy, and computer science. These experts participated in two collaborative roundtable meetings during the first six months of 2014. The report presents results from the roundtable discussions, as well as other research conducted by the author.

Participants shared keen insights and perspectives about success factors, lessons learned, and areas where further thinking and research would benefit government.

In a post yesterday, I shared the first three themes that emerged from the discussion. Today's post addresses the next three themes: Budgeting and buying cloud services Building security in the cloud Developing skilled personnel Budgeting and buying cloud services. Government is still in the early stages of understanding how to budget for the cloud, and purchase cloud services under existing procurement rules and norms.

Interesting review of State government measures to encourage reporting on programs that aren't working well. Advice on DATA Act implementation. OMB launches site to access multiple IT policies. DOD launches Better Buying Power 3.0. John Kamensky Knock Knock – Who’s There? GSA launches the Digital Analytics Dashboard. According to the White House: “the Digital Analytics Dashboard will show how many people are using federal government websites, what websites are getting the most traffic over a select period of time.” The website E Pluribus Unum says there are 1,361 .gov web domains.

How the new policy on 360 reviews of government #acquisitions can work — perspectives from @kelmansteve. How to build great customer experiences with government – insights from the experts: @actiac How the proliferation of devices is changing #cybersecurity — and what the government can do about it — ideas from @fcc_cio David Bray John Kamensky Tradition vs. Efficiency.