sean f burns
Public Sector Specific
What’s the secret to sustained cost savings?
Last month’s Bain Brief looks at how some organisations are driving costs out of their business and making the savings stick. I’ve been asked to help build many a business case and you sometimes get the feeling the organisation you’re working with knows that they’re inflating the benefits. I’m sure you’ve likely worked in other … Continue reading
Government Innovation
We’re starting to see the effects around the world, governments are getting ready to further tighten the belt while still trying to be responsive and effective. There’s an interesting article this month in McKinsey on experimentation going on in Indonesia and Columbia. Indonesia’s Emerging solution: In December 2009, the government set up the Presidential Unit … Continue reading
Public sector merger
I just finished a four-month engagement leading the consolidation of services (IT, IM, HR and Finance) for three agencies of the New Zealand government. A newspaper article on the transformation programme came out today decrying it as simply more public servant headcount reductions. The article completely missed the significance and strategic importance of this programme … Continue reading
Revitalising Public Service with Innovation
In this month’s edition of the Journal of the Institute of Public Administration‘s “Public Sector” there is an interesting piece by Ross Tanner towards the back of the issue on revitalizing the public sector. Spurred on by recent publications from The New Synthesis Project, an international partnership of institutions and individuals to help drive the … Continue reading
The Ultimate Challenge: Conquering Bureaucracy
There’s a great contest on at the moment running in conjunction with McKinsey and the Harvard Business Review. The aim is to discover how organizations are overcoming and conquering bureaucracy. In my humble opinion, there is no sector more in need of this cause than the wider public sector. Increasingly, the free market ensures most … Continue reading
Lessons learned from Finland
Last week I was speaking with the Managing Director of Palkeet, the Finish State Economic and Human Resources Service Centre. They successfully produce financial and HR services to over 110 government agencies and institutions. We were talking about some of their key lessons learned and how momentum was built and sustained. While most of what … Continue reading
Nudging the world toward smarter public policy: Richard Thaler
A recent interesting McKinsey interview with behavioral scientist Richard Thaler takes a look at moving towards smarter public policy. While the article takes a closer look at data policy, there is an underlying theme of achieving a more transparent environment and how a change towards that state can happen. The Quarterly: What is the core … Continue reading
How the non-profit and NGO sector can sell to their strengths: impact.
An organization called Charting Impact now provides free access to the Foundation Directory Online, grants, and databases. They have developed a new tool to help social development organizations and programs highlight the difference they make. The tool is a simple five questions that results in a standardized report. Five questions to create a report that … Continue reading
