Obama Year One: An Assessment

Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary of President Obama's inauguration and it comes at a time when reports indicate the public is dissatisfied with his performance, especially with the overhaul of the health care system.

But when it comes to his management reform for the executive branch, Obama has received higher marks. At least that's the take from The Public Manager, a government management journal published by Bureaucrat Inc., a nonprofit, good government organization.

In its winter issue, which became available on Jan. 15, the journal took a look at 10 managerial topics, including two views on technology, human resources, younger workers, sourcing and executive management concerns. The key message: Obama has already made some significant changes that are on the right track.

"We see some real positive signs," said Alan Balutis, chairman of The Public Manager's board and director of the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group, a self-described think tank that does not sell Cisco products. "The initial appointments are very good ones. The signals are positive, and the approaches are good ones. The policy agenda is a strong one." Balutis served on a task force to advise the Obama administration during the transition.

Many of the management ideas and reforms the administration has instituted are similar to those the journal suggested in its winter 2007 and spring 2008 issues - as many as 20 recommendations. Those ideas were generated by a group of former government officials and private sector executives that Cisco brought together in the summer of 2007, months before the two political parties had nominated candidates for president.

"There was no reason, they argued then, that 'government cannot operate with as much speed, responsiveness, and resiliency as the private sector. In fact, there is no reason government should not be the leader when it comes to technology adoption, human capital management, and service delivery,'" Balutis wrote in the journal.

Many of the recommendations focused on technology to bring about needed management reforms and to improve government performance. More reliance on telework, relying on younger workers to infuse tradition-bound agencies with new technologies, greater transparency, and the use of Web 2.0 technologies and the changing role of the chief information officer were topics writers focused on.

The message the authors delivered were positive:

--Steve O'Keeffe, founder of the public relations company O'Keeffe and Associates and executive director of the Telework Exchange, which promotes the practice of working remotely within government agencies, wrote that the Defense Information Systems Agency, Patent and Trademark Office, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. the and General Accountability Office have increased their reliance on telework. And 43 percent of the employees at the General Services Administration say they work remotely.

--The Obama administration has embraced the use of social networking tools and called on agencies to reach out in with new technologies to encourage public input into policies. "Government presence on external social networks has exploded," wrote Dave McClure, associate administrator for the Office of Citizen Services and Communications at GSA, and Martha Dorris, deputy associate administrator at the same office. "Many federal agencies have established a presence on at least one of the mainstream social networks: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or Second Life. Government is learning that it needs to go where citizens

already are."

--The administration has signaled that technology is a key component in improving how government works and the CIO is the architect to make that happen, wrote John Sindelar, client industry executive at Hewlett-Packard Co.; Daniel Mintz is chief technology officer of the civil and health services group at Computer Sciences Corp.; and Tom Hughes, a director at CSC. "The Obama administration has identified technology approaches to solve government issues," they concluded. "CIOs now have responsibility for their agencies' business success and therefore must partner within their organizations to facilitate outcomes such as enhanced e-customer and Internet service."

Similar upbeat assessments were reached for executive management ("Rather than pretend that the executive branch is inhabited by aliens who operate on a separate planet, President Obama seems to be taking responsibility for the results of executive branch performance"), workforce reform (grades of A's and B's for employee relations, executive leadership, work life, performance and talent management), and overall government reform ("So far Obama's stealth revolution has the postbureaucratic vision.")

Balutis points out that the analyses avoided the traditional, big public issues such as what should b the size of government and even what is government's role. That may be because, as the journal points out, America faces the biggest challenges in its history - trying to create jobs after one of its worse economic downturns, climate change, two wars, new financial regulations, health care reforms, a huge federal deficit, and entitlement programs that are unsustainable yet popular. And most recently, humanitarian relief to countries like Haiti. The public has turned to its government for solutions, and they expect it to deliver.

"This is not an issue of the size of government," Balutis said in an interview. "We're looking for a government that works. So, I think as you look through this issue, and look at the way in which several people address them, . . . I think it is a nice contribution to the discussion of what we have to do."