Lessons Learned from 30 Years of Government Reform Efforts

One of the most striking things new White House staffers encounter when they first walk into their office in the White House -- or the large, gray Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door -- is it’s emptiness.  The previous occupants leave no files or other records – other than records retained by career staff in White House agencies like the Office of Management and Budget, all policy documents went to the National Archives, and the General Services Administration cleaned everything else away before the new staffers arrive.

Addressing Open Questions About the Future of CXOs and Mission Support Functions

Co-Author: John Kamensky, Senior Fellow, IBM Center for The Business of Government

Statutory and non-statutory mission support functions have evolved over the past three decades, as described in an earlier post.  Over the years, there have been calls to resolve some open questions, for example with a proposal to update the 30-year-old Chief Financial Officers Act.  These include:

The Evolving Role of CXOs in the Federal Government

Co-Author:  Dan Chenok, Executive Director, IBM Center for The Business of Government

The CFO Act of 1990 authorized Chief Financial Officers as the first statutory mission support function in government.  These types of specialized leadership roles have grown over time, along with calls for greater authority for their functions.  Today, the proliferation of statutory and non-statutory C-Suite mission support functions has created a complex web of government reformers. Can or should this web be unraveled?  What might the future hold?

Dan Chenok and John Kamensky

Dan Chenok is Executive Director of the IBM Center for The Business of Government. He oversees all of the Center's activities in connecting research to practice to benefit government, and has written and spoken extensively around government technology, cybersecurity, privacy, regulation, budget, acquisition, and Presidential transitions. Mr. Chenok previously led consulting services for Public Sector Technology Strategy, working with IBM government, healthcare, and education clients.

Meet the Individuals Behind Government Success Stories

The past 30 years have witnessed major change across the management landscape of the federal government. That history provides important lessons both for today’s leaders and for those of future administrations. Yet little has been written about the role leaders and teams have played in the evolution of management reforms—often overcoming high odds to achieve success, sometimes experiencing failure, each time learning and moving forward. And rarely is attention paid to understanding what remains relevant from past experience to inform future strategies.

IBM Center for The Business of Government
United States

Dan Chenok is Executive Director of the IBM Center for The Business of Government. He oversees all of the Center's activities in connecting research to practice to benefit government, and has written and spoken extensively around government technology, cybersecurity, privacy, regulation, budget, acquisition, and Presidential transitions. Mr. Chenok previously led consulting services for Public Sector Technology Strategy, working with IBM government, healthcare, and education clients.

Mr. Chenok serves in numerous industry leadership positions. He is a CIO SAGE with the Partnership for Public Service, Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Chair of the Cybersecurity Subcommittee of the DHS Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee, Member of the Auburn University Center for Cyber and Homeland Security Board of Directors, Member of the American University IT Executive Council, and Co-Chair of the Senior Executives Association Dan Chenok Community of Change for Governance Innovation; previously, he served as Chair of the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) for the government-led American Council for Technology (ACT), Chair of the Federal Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, and two-time Cybersecurity commission member with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Chenok also generally advises public sector leaders on a wide range of management issues. Finally, Mr. Chenok serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor with the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin, teaching at the school's Washington, DC Center. 

Before joining IBM, Mr. Chenok was a Senior Vice President for Civilian Operations with Pragmatics, and prior to that was a Vice President for Business Solutions and Offerings with SRA International.

As a career Government executive, Mr. Chenok served as Branch Chief for Information Policy and Technology with the Office of Management and Budget, where he led a staff with oversight of federal information and IT policy, including electronic government, computer security, privacy and IT budgeting. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Branch Chief and Desk Officer for Education, Labor, HHS, and related agencies in OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Mr. Chenok began his government service as an analyst with the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and left government service at the end of 2003.

In 2008, Mr. Chenok served on President Barack Obama’s transition team as the Government lead for the Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform group, and as a member of the OMB Agency Review Team.

Mr. Chenok has won numerous honors and awards, including a 2010 Federal 100 winner for his work on the presidential transition, the 2016 Eagle Award for Industry Executive of the Year, and the 2002 Federal CIO Council Azimuth Award for Government Executive of the Year.

Mr. Chenok earned a BA from Columbia University and a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

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John KamenskyJohn Kamensky is a Senior Fellow with the IBM Center for The Business of Government and an Associate Partner with IBM's Global Business Services.

During 24 years of public service, he had a significant role in helping pioneer the federal government's performance and results orientation. Mr. Kamensky is passionate about helping transform government to be more results-oriented, performance-based, customer-driven, and collaborative in nature.

Prior to joining the IBM Center, he served for eight years as deputy director of Vice President Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Before that, he worked at the Government Accountability Office where he played a key role in the development and passage of the Government Performance and Results Act.

Since joining the IBM Center, he has co-edited six books and writes and speaks extensively on performance management and government reform.  Current areas of emphasis include transparency, collaboration, and citizen engagement.  He also blogs about management challenges in government.

Mr. Kamensky is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and received a Masters in Public Affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, in Austin, Texas.