Books written by PSG
PSG Books Online
Recent Writings
The Challenge of Citizen Input: From Coyotes to Samoan Dancing
Beverly Stein shares what she did while serving as Multnomah County Executive to improve citizen engagment in the County's budget hearing process.
A Push and Pull for Change (Governing.com)
Babak Armajani discusses why creating change requires both creating a demand for it and creating a vision for it.
Grief is Good (Governing.com)
In this artcle, Peter Hutchinson writes about what change-makers need to know about the process that 'change-takers' go through when the status quo is disrupted.
How High is Your ELQ (Governing.com)
Bob Stone writes about why teaching ethics is an everyday, inside job.
Writings by Year
2008 Writings (back to top)
Post-Bureaucratic Government (Governing.com)
In this column, Jim Chrisinger discusses what its going to take to get better performing government.
A Formula For Leadership (Governing.com)
In this column, PSGer Babak Armajani offers concrete advice about developing a strategy for bringing about the changes you desire. Babak provides constructive guidance for leaders who are intent on seeing their ideas take flight (2008)
Not the Calvary (Governing.com)
Peter Hutchinson, President of the Bush Foundation, gives government leaders advice about what to expect when asking foundations for funding.
The Risks and Rewards of Transparency (Governing.com)
One of the best strategies for improving government performance is transparency. Why, then, does being transparent so often feel like a risk? PSGer Babak Armajani looks at this important question through three examples. (2008)
Creating the Demand for Change
PSG's CEO Laurie Ohmann reflects on the Presidential Primaries and how all public leaders must create demand for meaningful change. (2008)
It's a Recession - Attack the Status Quo Now (Governing.com)
PSG founder Peter Hutchinson offers a sobering analysis of current economic realities and explains what prudent leaders can do now to lessen the blow. (2008)
2007 Writings (back to top)
Connie's Corners from 2007
This monthly feature offers vignettes from client engagements in which PSG partner Connie Nelson offers her insights and challenges on government transformation.
BFO The Right Results for the Right Price (Government Finance Review)
PSGer Beverly Stein examines the use of Budgeting For Outcomes (BFO) in Snohomish County, where local leaders are refining how they measure their programs’ effectiveness for citizen satisfaction and managerial efficiency. (2007)
Cultivating Organizational Curiosity (Governing.com)
PSGer Babak Armajani explains that the emerging paradigm of results-based organizations demands a never-ending quest for "a better way." Curiosity. (2007)
What Transformational Leaders Do (Governing.com)
According to PSGer Babak Armajani, successful transformations are led by people who take certain actions. Drawing from his experience in public sector transformation, Armajani explains which specific actions most contribute to leaders’ success. (2007)
Transforming Health Care So We Can Keep Our Promises (Governing.com)
Health care is bankrupting America. It is bankrupting our families, our businesses, and our governments. Published on Governing.com, Peter Hutchinson's article offers ideas for transforming the system - cost, quality and coverage. (September 2007)
What's Your IQ (Innovation Quotient)?
PSG network member George Beard argues that measuring performance in the delivery of public service, while a worthy endeavor, is not in the same league as managing performance. The former wields the yardstick periodically; the latter strives to find new ways to align people, processes and technology to improve service delivery, customer satisfaction and the attainment of results. (2007)
2006 Writings (back to top)
Connie's Corners from 2006
This monthly feature offers vignettes from client engagements in which PSG partner Connie Nelson offers her insights and challenges on government transformation.
Budget Solutions
A 12 Step program to improve services while cutting spending
(The Public Strategies Group, Inc.)
Connections Matter
Read Camille Barnett's article entitled "Connections Matter: Using Networks for Economic Development." The article appears in the March, 2006 issue of International City/County Management Association's (ICMA) journal Public Management. (2006)
Ethics For Bosses
In his article, Bob challenges the prevailing logic that, “Bosses contribute more than subordinates; therefore not only must they be paid more (often much, much more), but in addition their bodies and minds must be nurtured, even what some might call spoiled.”
(Bob Stone, 2006)
2005-2000 Writings (back to top)
Connie's Corners from 2005
This monthly feature offers vignettes from client engagements in which PSG partner Connie Nelson offers her insights and challenges on government transformation.
Needed: A Higher Education Investment Advisor
In an April 12, 2005opinion piece in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, PSG Partner Rick Heydinger calls on the Minnesota State Legislature to form a Higher Education Performance Council to focus investment in post-secondary education in the state.
(Rick Heydinger, 2005)
Net Governance
Governments, like ailing businesses, then discovered the power of focusing on the customer. Governments experimented with new ways of involving citizens and new ways of improving services.
(Camille Cates Barnett, Ph. D)
Connie's Corners from 2004
This monthly feature offers vignettes from client engagements in which PSG partner Connie Nelson offers her insights and challenges on government transformation.
The Price of Government in 'Taxachusetts'
In an article written for the Op-Ed page of the Boston Globe, PSGer David Osborne asserts that the fiscal problems in Massachusetts are not the result of high taxes. By applying principles from The Price of Government, Osborne shows the state's solution lies in investment in the workforce, the infrastructure and the state's quality of life.
(David Osborne, June 2004)
A Ratings Approach to Balancing State's Budget
In an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, PSGer David Osborne advocates reinventing California's budgeting process using the Washington State "Budgeting for Outcomes" approach as a model (June 2004).
Compliance: Getting ‘Em to Understand That Carrying Out the Garbage Just Isn't What it Used To Be!
Most government organizations rely on enforcement — detecting and punishing violations in order to deter inappropriate behavior - as the principal tool for achieving compliance. Enforcement is a well-established tool. It is also relatively expensive and based on coercion. As the example of recycling suggests, there are other powerful and effective tools for achieving compliance
(Peter Hutchinson, 2003)
Connie's Corners from 2003
This monthly feature offers vignettes from client engagements in which PSG partner Connie Nelson offers her insights and challenges on government transformation.
The First Steps Toward Living Within Our Means
The impossible task of cutting $2 billion from state spending has been made possible. A radical exercise inside the state's Office of Financial Management shows how a no-new-taxes budget might be made to work. Gov. Gary Locke is right to embrace the new process and should keep on pushing it.
(The Seattle Times Editorial: November 2002)
School Privatization Is Not The Issue
The Public Strategies Group, the other private company in Minnesota that is managing public schools, is repeatedly asked: Does the decision of the Hartford and Baltimore school districts to terminate their contracts with Educational Alternatives Incorporated (EAI) set back the school privatization movement?
(Rick Heydinger)
Connie's Corners from 2002
This monthly feature offers vignettes from client engagements in which PSG partner Connie Nelson offers her insights and challenges on government transformation.
New Contracting Model for Government Agencies and Private Sector
At the Disney Institute, PSG facilitated negotiations between the Office of Student Financial Assistance (SFA) and it's private sector operating partners.
(For the week of February 18, 2001 )
PSG's Annotated Bibliography on Public Sector Reinvention
A bibliography containing references to books and articles on reinvention or government reform. The list was compiled in 2001 and is somewhat dated, but still contains a lot of good information on transforming public sector behavior. (2001)
Clearing the Decks
How do organizations and the people in them find the time to do what is really important? They clear the decks.
(For the week of February 5, 2001 )
Connie's Corners from 2001
This monthly feature offers vignettes from client engagements in which PSG partner Connie Nelson offers her insights and challenges on government transformation.
Breaking the Monopoly
David Osborne addresses the question, "Why can't principals fire teachers who clearly aren't up to the job?"
(David Osborne, July 23, 2000)
The Performance Measurement Practice Field (pdf)
This “Practice Field” is intended to help public leaders develop skills in developing performance measures for their work. The reason to use the “Practice Field” is so that you can actually rehearse without an audience—to be able to make mistakes without embarrassment, without actually messing up the “bottom line.” (Larry Grant)
1999-1995 Writings (back to top)
Healthy Competition
A decade ago, a group of parents in Forest Lake, Minnesota, decided they wanted to create a Montessori elementary school. They had kids in a Montessori preschool, and some had older children in the local public school. The parents were afraid the love of learning they saw emerging in their preschoolers, who were encouraged to follow their interests and initiate their own projects, would be squelched in the public school.
(David Osborne, October 4, 1999)
Great Teaching by Design - Grow Your Own Teachers
The strategies for improving teacher quality outlined in this article stem from our experience in the Minneapolis school system. The Public Strategies Group (of which Peter Hutchinson is president) was the first company in the nation with responsibility for leading a large urban public school district. (1999)
Rewriting School Rules:
Imagine, for a moment, a public education system in which every school is a charter school.
(David Osborne, 1999)
Three Years as a Superintendent: What I've Learned About Leadership and Strategies for Change
The Public Strategies Group became the first private-sector organization to be assigned the responsibility of leading an entire school district. We were contracted to perform the functions usually assigned to the superintendent and provide the leadership necessary to improve student achievement.
(Peter C. Hutchinson, 1997)
Laptop U
Many schools have struggled to integrate computers into day-to-day learning, with little success. The reasons are well known: not enough money, not enough training and not enough faculty members willing to rebuild their courses around computer software. These schools could learn a thing or two from the University of Minnesota at Crookston, a small college just 100 miles from the Canadian border.
(David Osborne, 1997)
Grading Governments
Most citizens care about the performance of their public institutions. Parents worry about the quality of their children's schools. City dwellers anxiously scan the latest crime statistics. Drivers pray for better roads, transit riders for dependable buses and subways, air travelers for effective air traffic control.
(David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, 1997)
Civil Action
Imagine working in an organization that makes it so hard to fire nonperformers that managers have quit trying. Imagine hiring from a list of the three top scorers on a written test that has little to do with future performance on the job.
(David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, 1997)
Satisfaction Guaranteed?
Imagine buying a monthly pass for your commuter train or bus line and getting a 10 percent discount because the trains or buses ran late too often the previous month.
(David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, 1997)
The Union Solution
Most people who want to improve government's performance in this country think unions are part of the problem, not part of the solution. But an increasing number of leaders--managers, elected officials and union officials--are showing there is another way.
(David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, 1997)
Mission Possible
Trying to improve a government organization can be like trying to change the direction of an aircraft carrier: You turn the rudder, then wait and wait for the big ship to move. But government managers don't have that kind of time when they're under the gun to cut costs and boost results.
(David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, 1997)
Share the Savings
Last year, the 304 county employees who clean up greater Seattle's wastewater scrimped and saved every dime they could. Some cut back on the use of chemicals in the process of decaking the waste.
(David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, 1997)
At-Risk Alternatives
In most American cities, public leaders wring their hands about "at-risk kids" -- those who drop out, get pregnant or get into drugs or gangs. No one knows what to do with them, and everyone fears they will create a lifetime of social problems.
(David Osborne and Peter Plastrik, 1997)
Teaching A School System to Learn
It's been just over two years since The Public Strategies Group became the first private company to assume leadership of an entire public school system, the Minneapolis Public Schools.
(Laurie Ohmann, May 1996)
Managing Change — Lessons from the first private sector Superintendent of a public school district in the U.S.
Public-private partnerships are engines of change. But in what direction or to what end are the critical questions. In 1993, our company took on the leadership of the Minneapolis Public Schools. In the ensuing four years we learned a great deal that has helped to answer these crucial questions. Those lessons and their implications for public-private partnerships are the subject of this presentation.
(Peter C. Hutchinson, 1996)
Schools Without Boundaries
Few issues in American education are more controversial than school choice. Seventeen states have passed public school choice laws, giving students the right to leave their school district and attend another public school.
(David Osborne, 1996)
Bureaucracy Unbound
A year ago, Vice President Gore unveiled a proposal to turn many federal agencies into "performance-based organizations," or PBOs. A few weeks ago the President repeated it on the campaign trail. The idea is to give these agencies far greater flexibility to manage their own budgets, personnel and purchasing, but in return to make them accountable for their performance.
(David Osborne, 1996)
The Service Secret
If you could cut the cost of your city's services by 25 percent without hurting service quality, would you do it?
(David Osborne, 1996)
Archives Prior to 1995 (back to top)
Information Architecture and the Art of Information System Design
The problem is that modern organizational design depends on the possibilities created by advances in information technology, while the effective use of information technology depends, itself, on organizational design.
(Lawrence Grant)
A Model for the Reinvented Higher Education System
Originally commissioned as a study for a statewide system of higher education, this monograph describes what a reinvented, public higher education system might look like.
(Armajani, Heydinger & Hutchinson, 1994)
Leading Change in Education
PSGer Connie Nelson describes the longest and most successful agreement in the nation between a private firm and a public school board to lead a school district. After 52 months and several unique pay-for-performance contracts, PSG completed its central task of turning the district’s performance around. (Connie Nelson)
Welfare Reality Check
Will welfare reform work? Those with long memories remember another massive public reform, called "deinstitutionalization." In the name of helping mental patients, government moved them out of hospitals into "community" settings. The most visible result was homelessness.
(David Osborne)
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