More Recommended Reading

There is no question that Barack Obama is going to change a lot of things, starting in January. There will be executive orders to assign, new agency heads to get in place, tweaks to programs, programs that get scrapped, programs to be built up out of nowhere. But one thing that I think no one writes about is what Obama will be stuck with. And also, what shouldn't he change? I know I'm throwing a lot of pieces at you guys today, but people really should read this piece from the November issue of the magazine. In it, Rob Brodsky observes that the Bush administration has made sure that some parts of its management agenda will stay in place unless they're specifically repealed:

The next president will have little choice in adopting the Bush administration's human capital plan for improving the federal workforce and boosting recruitment and retention. In April, the Office of Personnel Management quietly posted a notice in the Federal Register cementing the administration's entire human capital plan, including key metrics for knowledge management and workforce planning, in federal regulations.

"Regardless of the administration, we think that what is in regulation is just good business sense," says Kevin Mahoney, OPM's associate director of human capital leadership. "And it makes sense to follow the framework and use the framework to keep the progress that we have made over the past six or seven years going." The notice does not tie the next administration's hands, he says, and the metrics can be changed as needed.

And he also raises some good questions about whether there are elements of the management agenda that should--and will--stay in place. It's not really clear whether the agency policy review teams will release their reports publicly when or after they report to the transition team. But I would be very curious to see what conclusions they draw about management. Obama has already signaled that he'll reverse some decisions and policies related to the workforce. But what will the teams tell him to keep, if anything? What will he decide to keep in place?