Technology Innovation 2

The focus of the change process should be on the manager’s ability to identify and measure those critical elements that they need to achieve their objective – public value. On your way to making any change, recognize that the natural human response to change is resistance. People become attached to familiar ways of doing things, even ways they initially regarded as cumbersome, costly, or ineffective.
One irony of initiating a change in processes is that to secure commitment and to ward off anticipated resistance from both staff and decision makers, the first thing that should be done is to slow down. By slowing down, you get the chance to develop working relationships, better communication, and more staff involvement. While managers naturally jump into a change seeking to reach full speed in short order, the reality, proven through the ages, is that the best change process starts with a measured, deliberate pace.
The goal is to maximize technology to support timely, relevant and accurate information; optimizing technology solutions that will enhance our ability to interact and communicate more effectively with our internal and external clients; and develop an enabled and knowledgeable workforce by setting up an information system that will be the key to the successful implementation of a performance management framework.

Today's Thought

The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.
Nhat Hanh
Reconciliation requires changes of heart and spirit, as well as social and economic change. It requires symbolic as well as practical action.
Malcolm Fraser

Be Fair

Although not mandated by law, it is highly recommended that the local government obtain quotes from several sources (preferably three vendors) to obtain the best price. The Local Official should telephone vendors and ask them to submit a written estimate/quote for goods or services. Additionally, the official should maintain a file with the names of vendors contacted, the written quotes obtained, and a written explanation of the vendor selected (if not low bidder).
The local government should avoid a conflict that would arise when the employee, officer, or agent, any member of his or her immediate family, his or her partner, or an organization which employs or is about to employ any of these parties, has a financial or other interest in the contract. No employee, officer, or agent should participate in the selection, award, or administration of a contract if a real or apparent conflict of interest would be involved.
In order to ensure objective contractor performance and eliminate unfair competitive advantage, contractors that develop or draft bid specifications, requirements, statements of work, and invitations for bids and/or requests for proposals should be excluded from competing for such procurements.
For quotes, awards should be made to the vendor whose quote is responsive to the solicitation and is most advantageous to the recipient, considering price, quality and other factors.
“Public contract” means any contract for the construction, execution, repair, remodeling, improvement of any public work, building furnishings of supplies, material of any kind whatsoever, proposal for which are required to be advertised by law. (See Sec. 66.0901(1)(c), Wis. Stats.) The definition of “public contract” has been previously interpreted by the Wisconsin Attorney General not to include equipment. Attorney General opinions have stated that farm machinery, a police car, and a heavy movable engine constitute equipment, are not supplies or material, and therefore are not subject to competitive bidding requirements.
Local Officials must realize that procurement is not a mechanized process, but rather one carried forward by the actions and decisions of people. As such, procurement officials and evaluators must understand and fulfill their responsibilities at each stage of a procurement process. All decisions and activities must be measured against a standard of fairness that will withstand public and legal scrutiny.
Unclear or ambiguous communications with vendors and stakeholders can compromise even the best procurements. To avoid misperceptions, solicitations, notifications and award decisions must be clear and well communicated. In addition, all records relating to a procurement are open to public inspection and should be maintained in a central location.
The procurement process must be open to the public and officials.

Being Logical

You can't be attentive and passive at the same time. Don't look, see. Don't hear, listen. Be focused on the details. The little things are not to be ignored, for it is just the little things that lead us to the big things. Assumptions or blinks lead to mistakes.
D. Q. McInerny

State The Problem

The problem is that I assume if I know what the problem is - everybody knows what the problem is, right? When presenting possible solutions and discussing the preferred solution, I need to make sure everyone knows what the problem is. A short, concise statement about the problem never seems to be enough for me, I need to go into painful detail to prove that I have done my due diligence if I remember to state the problem.
When an expert has a problem to solve, the first thing done is to gain a complete understanding of the problem, including the desired objectives. I handle this just fine. The problem comes at trying to bring decision makers into the problem. The following statement is an attempt to define the problem, does it work?
The Public Works Department needed to replace some time clocks and rather than just buy some more of the same old time clocks, we looked at our options. Staff believes the time management web-based solution proposed will provide a better option for effective time management of our programs, enhance decision making, assist in identifying and documenting areas that need attention, strengthen managers’ focus on results, facilitate continuous improvement, motivate staff and support annual and long-range planning.
After an expert defines the problem, they usually start acquiring information about the problem that is diagnostic in nature. One of the most important aspects of conducting an evaluation is choosing the right ways to find information. The time managment solution will provide the information needed to measure performance.

A Critical Thought

Most local government managers are hired to maintain, generate and create public value. The skills that probably got you hired are expected to match up with the values of the organization. The political management by the manager is generally than directed at external stakeholders and employees as the majority of overseers are already politically aligned with the values of the manager.
As the overseers come and go over the years, the values of the overseers change and may no longer align with the manager. The concept of politically managing the overseers now takes on a huge ethical scope. Where does providing good policy analysis diverge ethically from championing a separate set of values? If the overseers have no conceptual political values other than believing they are better managers than the manager mean that you can’t try to instill some political value? At least understand how to determine what values they are using? The worst fear of all is having them become radically value inconsistent, no rhyme or reason to the decisions.
The reality is that they are trapped in our own subjective experience of the world. They bring our pre-conceived reality with them into every new situation and it would be foolish to pretend that they can simply put that aside at will in order to view the present issue without bias or judgment. It’s not possible. In fact, it’s not even desirable. What we want is for them to make the best possible use of their expertise and to act in logically appropriate ways in order to achieve their goals.

Today's Definition

The GAO describes performance measurement as regular collection and reporting of data on: inputs (money, staff and materials), workload or activity levels, outputs or final products, outcomes of programs, and productivity (efficiency cost per unit of output or output per unit cost)

Technology Innovation

There are those who believe that the notion of an innovative government is inconsistent. The assumption is that innovation thrives in vibrant, flexible businesses and not in rigid, bureaucratic government organizations. In actual fact, the City has responded to a range of economic, political and ideological realities, the structures and processes of the organization have changed and need to continue modernizing. The traditional methods of service delivery need to develop creative ways to address fiscal restraints and citizen demands for efficient service delivery; conventional, process-oriented public administration is adapting to results-focused public management.
Governments may be budget poor, but most are data rich. Put those two realities together with information technology, and the data can help the public sector do more with less at a time when less is the rule of the day, freeing overburdened staff to provide essential services for our basic human needs. The City of Lake Mills needs to become data rich and the time management system is an efficient method for gathering data.
The analysis suggests that the organizational structure of bureaucracy impedes true revitalization and modernization of government. While technology is an effective enabler of change, its impact on the public service is limited by specific attributes that are deeply ingrained in the structure and practices of governance. Rigidity, hierarchy and routinization are among the most problematic attributes. The basic structures and processes of the City are, to some extent, changing and provide the best opportunity to modernize the public service. The objective should be to create a dynamic government that fosters partnerships, empowerment and leadership.
Explosive growth in technology productivity has expanded the range of computer applications from automation to innovation, and from working with clerical managers to working throughout the organization. The targets have grown from large governments with high volumes of work to include smaller governments with less volume.
Moreover, work that is suitably standardized for computerization has expanded to include not just the work of smaller organizations but also work that is standardized across multiple organizations. Many agencies now use "packaged" applications -- the same payroll, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and other packages -- thus saving the original costs of programming and many of the ongoing costs of maintenance and upgrades. Because we can now reach users through the enormous scale of the Internet, the most important standardization is not that within a given institution, but the aggregated results across many.
Certainly, governments can realize significant savings by managing information more efficiently. Beyond savings, public sector organizations are using data and information to improve services to the public—a trend that should continue.

The Plan

Characteristics of the manager plan are: a small council, which has legislative and policy-making powers; a professionally trained city or village manager, who is responsible for policy implementation and administration; selection of major administrative officials by the manager; and preparation by the manager of an executive budget. The system results in a clear delineation between legislative and executive-administrative responsibility and provides for a strong executive who serves at the pleasure of the council.

Policy Legitimacy

A decision can have added power when the policy decision process has legitimacy. Process values like political representativeness; effective use of relevant expertise; respect for precedent; definitiveness and clarity in decisions; transparency and openness in deliberations; and responsiveness to accumulated experience and how they are used can add or subtract from the process. Mark H. Moore

What's The Story?

What you tell me when it’s just the two of us alone is different than what you are telling others when I’m not there.

ED Tool

A Redevelopment Authority is an additional tool for the City’s economic development vision. The vision for the program should be the result of a consensus-building process that identifies the opportunities, objectives, and ultimate goals for the community. The City must consider and establish its long-range public interest goals and resolve any conflicts that it might have for the specific project in question. It is essential that the overall development strategy is described both verbally and graphically to ensure that both the public and the real estate community understand the program.
The predevelopment process establishes how the vision can be realized and indicates the City’s level of preparedness to structure and implement the proposed project. The City must complete the following stages before issuing a developer solicitation: a development plan, land banking options, incentives options, market demand and financial feasibility studies, as well as completion of alternative ownership, investment, development, and facility operational scenarios. Consultants can guide public entities through this process.

Powers of City Council

The City Council has full legislative (or policy-making) authority. In addition, it elects the City Manager and confirms appointments made by the Council President or the City Manager; It has authority for the management and control of City property; management and control of finances and highways; the power to act for the government and good order of the City, for its commercial benefit, and for the health, safety, and welfare of the public; It may carry out its powers by license, regulation, borrowing of money, tax levy, appropriation, fine, imprisonment, confiscation, and other necessary and convenient means. The Council does not enjoy executive (or administrative) powers of city government, which are carried out by the City Manager, who serves at the pleasure of the Council.

A Question

Are you susceptible to gameplaying when using emotional intelligence?

An Idea

Is the City interested in determining the type of incubator facility which would be most in demand within the community, identifying industries and business types which could be supported or attracted by such a facility, and determine if a facility in Lake Mills is a sustainable business model. We’ll probably never know.

Today's Quote

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
C.S. Lewis in “The Problem of Pain..”

Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Application Development, 2nd Edition Alex Sharp and Patrick McDermott

This book of "Workflow Modeling" is an update which I thought provided easier than expected techniques for identifying, modeling, and redesigning business processes, and explaining how to implement workflow improvement, this book was an eye opener for me and several of my staff because it redefined our concepts of the requirements for systems development. By showing how to build visual models for illustrating workflow, the book helped us figure out how to begin assessing our current business processes and see where process improvement and systems development can take place.
I can tell you that I never thought I’d get excited about a book on workflow modeling. I read another book on the subject and did extensive internet research, all provided good methodologies and were pretty well written. I liked this book because it was easy to read and it also provides very effective approaches to workflow modeling.
The approach used by the authors takes standard techniques and ties them together into a coherent process. Second, the book can be used as a workbook during a workflow modeling project, and is well suited to this because of the numerous checklists and diagrams that will prove invaluable every step of the way. Finally, this is the first book of its kind that incorporates cases, making it invaluable to project teams.
The approach is straightforward: frame the process and define its scope, understand the existing process, design the "to-be" process and develop case scenarios

Today's Thought

Philippians 4:8
New International Version (NIV)
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Process Mapping, Process Improvement and Process Management, Dan Madison, Paton Press, Chico, CA,

This book was a detailed survey of process redesign that runs you through the author’s methods for transforming an organization. Author Dan Madison provides the theoretical progression of management styles, from traditional to process-focused, and introduces tools of process mapping, the roles and responsibilities of people in the organization, and a logical ten-step redesign methodology. The author introduced thirty-eight design principles used to custom-fit the methodology to the particular challenges within an organization. Additional chapters by guest writers Jerry Talley, Ph.D., and Vic Walling, Ph.D., discuss cross-department process management and using computer simulation in redesign, respectively.
For me the most important part of this book was the 38 design principles lists in the appendix. These provided great value to me as a check list on our projects to ensure maximum value from our effort. The other work sheets and check lists found throughout the book where all put to use quickly with the aid of the clear explanations provided in the book.
I found the section on the "lenses of analysis" helpful - the user is reminded of the problem they are originally trying to solve. This allows the analysts to remain focused on the process problem at hand.