Government Can Deliver: A Practitioner's Guide to Improving Agency Effectiveness and Efficiency

Government Can Deliver presents a framework for government agency performance improvement designed to change an inefficient culture and drive operational excellence. It outlines how government leaders can drive such change, and most importantly, it presents a proven approach for creating an environment that will affect positive change. This framework, a set of practical attributes and implementable best practices tailored for government agencies, is based on real-world experiences in which government did deliver. There are examples in each chapter of agencies that implemented elements of this framework and the resulting impact on agencies' operational performance. And while mainly using examples from large federal government agencies, this book can aid those in all levels of government and differing agency sizes.

In writing this book, Richard endeavored to create a practical guide on transforming government agencies that can benefit all readers-whether you have made government service your life, study government as an academician or student, or are simply a concerned citizen. After establishing the need for improved government operations, the book presents attributes and best practices for eight solution functions. When properly addressed, each of these functions can, individually and collectively, significantly improve an agency's performance. The examples and arguments can help agency leaders justify implementing the necessary attributes and best practices to improve their agency's performance. The final chapter provides recommendations on how a government agency can develop a transformation plan to incrementally implement the attributes and best practices for each of these eight functions.

Richard has seen first-hand the amazing things government agencies can accomplish when they have experienced, capable leaders, adopt best practices tailored for government, and appropriately leverage technology to support improved operations. Change is hard, but through government leaders' and employees' efforts focused on implementing the right changes, agencies can significantly improve their operational performance. Under the right conditions, magic can and does happen.