Entrance Exam

Let me start with an aside. Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich hasn't been at every hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Workforce subcommitee that I've attended, but when he's there, I've been impressed by how prepared he is and how determined he can be when he's pushing an argument. Voinovich isn't a big points-scorer in hearings, he doesn't show up to enhance his stature, but rather to get more information out of the people who are testifying or to tell them in no uncertain terms what he wants (something he's done especially emphatically on the subject of increasing the size of the State Department staff.) So I think it's particularly appropriate that he commissioned this monster report from the Government Accountability Office on key questions to ask political nominees in each department and a number of key agencies.

The goal of most of the questions seems to be two-fold: first, to test the nominees' knowledge of the specific issues they're going to be dealing with. And I mean specific:

The 2008 Farm Bill gives the department responsibility for grading examination and inspection of catfish processed for human consumption. The new inspection responsibility also includes the conditions under which the catfish were raised and transported. The catfish industries may be quite different from the traditional meat and poultry industries that the department inspects and there may be other differences from developing catfish inspection procedures to the trade agreements that the new procedures may impact. Can you describe any prior work of yours relevant to leading and directing new and expanding roles and responsibilities, and how you managed expectations within the organization? How could your experience help in effectively managing the department’s expanding food safety role?

But the questions also try to get to how the nominees think about management, beyond what kind of policy decisions they would make in their positions. For example::

OPM’s retirement modernization initiative has faced many project management challenges related to deploying new technology to improve the timeliness and accuracy of retirement application processing. In your prior work have you been involved in deploying new technology organizationwide? If so, what do you think are key variables a manager can and should track to ensure timely deployment?

If you're not looking at the transition from an agency-management perspective, this report (which I've just begun to delve into) is a must-read briefing book on the key issues facing the federal government. If you are a management professional, hope many of these questions actually do get asked in nomination hearings, and keep an eye out for the answers.