Details on Management-Related Policy Review Teams

I just got out of a meeting with a number of members of the Government Performance Coalition, a broad group of good-government non-profits and research organizations, which is pushing a three-pronged performance agenda for the new administration. During our time with them, a number of them noted that they'd been contacted by, or had conversations with people on the teams reviewing the Office of Personnel Management and Office of Management and Budget, and they were providing those people with a number of reports and proposals for focusing the management agenda.

I've written before that Obama doesn't have a full management agenda really in place, and that such issues will probably have to compete for attention at a time when the President-elect is dealing with a major bailout of the financial system, two wars, and instability among some allies. But I think it is a good sign that his policy review teams are reaching beyond the agencies to what are essentially a loose consortium of think tanks and management consultants to see what fresh ideas for running government are out there, and to learn more about the issues where groups have reached consensus. This also seems to be a victory, to a certain extent, for these non-profit groups, which as Brittany Ballenstedt and I reported in our December issue, are more unified than they've been during previous transitions.