GovernmentExecutive.com

Return to Article: Consulting firm says agencies are missing out on major savings opportunities

• 82299
  

  Ok - how about DoD gets rid of NSPS, a 17 page evaluation form consisting of paypools that take up extra time and money and ultimately costs the taxpayer more money? If the govt is really serious about saving money, get rid of NSPS.

  Kathy Posted July 10, 2009 1:32 PM
• 82122
  

  If you want to change government, start by minimizing the number of presidential appointees below the cabinet Secretary level. Every 4 years and for 18 months at the beginning and about 12 months at the end of an administration, the government is run by the same career bureaucrats that got beat up by the administration for the inefficiencies in government. What makes government ineffeicent and ineffective is changing management teams every four years and increasing appointed or "competively" selected staffs with close ties to the administration and the current presidentially appointed SES. We who come to work everyday to try and give the taxpayer his or her monies worth are really tired of being told by people who are appointed and passing through the government on the way to something else that are the problem.

  Tired of the Same Rhetoric Posted July 9, 2009 8:12 AM
• 81971
  

  Retiring after 22 years in the federal government and now back again in the private sector, it amuses me how little changes over the years. This rerun discussion about saving dollars in the government has gone on for decades. Each department has its own culture and runs its own domain. Never the two shall communicate (well).

  Worse yet, many of the departments have overlapping jurisdications and missions which causes all types of interagency dysfunctions (whose on top). You want to save money? Get rid of the mission creep that, for example, has us fighting drugs using the personnel and services of a dozen or more different federal (civilian and DOD) agencies.

  Institutionalism abounds and does serve a purpose for those gov't personnel lambasted for silly inefficiences or more serious misconduct as they are able to say "it worked for us in the past".

  Most importantly, there is a real leadership void in the federal gov't. My former collegues used to say that only in the federal gov't did people fight to stay on the bottom. Develop the leaders that inspire (engage) the federal personnel ranks to become the public servants they signed up to be, to execute their jobs with pride and integrity, and only then will you see the real institutional changes and process effeciencies emerge. And, it begins with Congress.

  Kathy Posted July 7, 2009 10:33 AM
• 81958
  

  If we want to improve government, we have to start with Congress and the appropriations process. Under the current system, Departments and Agencies must spend money on programs and projects specified in the budget. It's the Law. There is really no incentive to save money and be more efficient. It is all talk!

  Arlington Posted July 7, 2009 8:42 AM
• 81956
  

  Energy reduction! Energy reduction! Energy reduction! Performance based contracts are a no-brainer and is what President Obama has advocated. However, it's not happening (See DOE website spending) and the root cause of this quandary is the oil and coal lobby.

  scott Posted July 7, 2009 8:13 AM
• 81955
  

  After spending 40 years in federal service, 18 of those in the area of performance improvement, I find it amazing that the government still has to pay consultants to tell them they on not efficient. There are many processes and tools that can help federal organization improve their processes and make them both more efficient and more effective. The Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence is a great tool to focus organizations on the important issues. Tools such as Lean and Six Sigma can help improve processes (and has already done so in the many government activities that already use these tools). Government should understand this without paying more consultants. One simple way to identify inefficiencies is simply to ask the employees who work in these processes.

  Bob Bowles Posted July 7, 2009 8:11 AM
• 81923
  

  The messages here recommend executives (1) use performance metrics, i.e., dashboard; and (2) analyze cause-effect relationships, i.e., Six Sigma. Decent recommendations, well-recognized; but lack useful guidance. The reason why these recommendations are popular is because Federal Executives generally do not have analysts applying scientific method to their organizational-behavioral problems on a routine basis. The Six Sigma/dashboard approach, as a fixed-methodology, can be useful, but often constrains self-improvement. A more robust approach is to build a disciplined, shared information structure (architecture) that feeds a dynamic analytic environment (scientific). This ensures that each manager, at any level of Federal organization, is able to use and reuse smart and simple, learning-based analyses to fit the complexity of the conditions they are trying to effect. Federal CIOs can empower businesses by working towards a Federal Performance Architecture with these features. An estimated 10% of IT investments to such capability may have a significant impact on the 50-70% cost of poor performance. I think McKinsey would agree. To see more thoughts on this, please google "UMBC and FPA"

  David Paschane Posted July 6, 2009 3:51 PM
• 81914
  

  Yet another example of paralysis through analysis.

  Tom Posted July 6, 2009 1:32 PM
• 81904
  

  One way to save a little money would be to stop spending millions on McKinsey reports.

  Bob Schilling Posted July 6, 2009 12:03 PM
• 81895
  

  After having to bow out because of tax problems, why does she think she has any credibility?

  I agree with John. I have never in 29 years seen a contractor's report that said anything more than what we already knew. (Most say quite a bit less, actually, because they don't understand the agency.)

  Is business drying up for contractors? I sure hope so! I will never forget the contractor who did a report for Health and Human Services and said FDA stood for Federal Department of Agriculture!!!!

  Get a real job.

  Charleen Posted July 6, 2009 10:23 AM
• 81886
  

  It is difficult to view advice objectively form a consulting company that enabled and then contributed the senior staff of Enron,

  Georgetown Posted July 6, 2009 9:42 AM
• 81884
  

  Brilliant! Yet another call for "performance and transparency targets" as the key to government 'efficiency'. Very imaginative. And surely worth every penny the study cost!

  But you should know that the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) fully embraced this same "performance and transparency targets" ethos several years ago. In that case, the private sector execs-cum-civil servants running the VBA understood that to mean tracking the 'widget' output of each employee. The result has been an unmitigated disaster - at least from the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of the veterans I now work with in private practice. Their calls to the VA are rushed to keep up Call Center metrics. Veteran's claims for disability benefits are routinely denied at the lower levels rather than being properly developed and investigated - again, to keep up the 'widget' count of the rating VA employees and their regional offices. And incompetent veterans - the most at-risk of all - are oftentimes given short shrift to ensure that the VA employees assigned to protect these veterans can keep up their own artificial 'widget' counts.

  The fact is, the Due Process owed to citizens when they interact with their Government is a fundamental Constitutional right, not some consumer commodity that can be properly measured by 'widget' output. Moreover, Due Process is oftentimes messy and inefficient.

  In short, Due Process takes as long as it takes. Thus, the primary focus of government should be on quality, not quantity. But that's not a recommendation you'll ever get from any consultant who comes to the table with a built-in government-should-be-run-like-a-business bias, is it?

  Phillip W. Posted July 6, 2009 9:34 AM
• 81865
  

  This study and other similar studies bring out a major flaw in the Federal government, working as one organization. The agencies operate like empires with their own language and rules. Within agencies there are smaller empires. The best example is the Defense Dept. The services each have their own terminology, data dictionaries, and pay/personnel systems. There is no big picture and no one managing a consolidated Federal government like a single business entity.

  Anthony Weishar Posted July 6, 2009 7:21 AM
• 81862
  

  She still sounds like an Obama nominee. Let's see how does that go, oh yes, spend a couple of trillion here and there and we will "save or create 600,000 jobs this summer and 2.5 million in the next two years." Nanny or tax problems not withstanding, maybe she can still be a czarina.

  Paul D. Posted July 6, 2009 6:31 AM
• 81860
  

  When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done. This has always been the way the government operates. If President Obama really wants change, we need a lot more than just talk.

  The federal government should not be hiring new workers until it reduces the waste. They made not be needed.

  Robert M. Posted July 6, 2009 5:56 AM
• 81858
  

  I love the absurdity.

  A consulting firm investigates government operations and finds there are opportunities to reduce waste.

  Did these consultants look at themselves?

  If you look at the amount of money that the government gives to contractors, it is obscene. And the amount of money given to contractors by the government each year is growing and growing. Contractors are leeches.

  According to the website usaspending.gov, $67 billion dollars in government funds were given to contractors in contracts that were not even competed.

  It humorous to me to hear contractors complain the money that the government wastes. The contractors should look at themselves in the mirror.

  Joe Smith Posted July 5, 2009 9:39 PM
• 81857
  

  Of course her company can find all sorts of savings in government...and for an eight or nine-figure contract, they'll be happy to share it with us. Of course, not right off. They'll spend the next four years collecting data that agencies already have at their fingertips, analyzing it, and organizing it into a nice collated set of "recommendations" that will sit on a shelf somewhere, unread. Likely recommendations will, for the most part, be simple common sense--like "buy in bulk," "use fluorescent light bulbs," and "use more VTC technology instead of flying to conferences half-way across the country." Just wait and see.

  John at DOD Posted July 5, 2009 9:33 PM