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New approachs to government

I will be flying on to Australia Sunday for a couple of weeks before moving on to the US. The week starts in Perth with a seminar on complexity and then a project start up on indigenous issues. Wednesday is Canberra for a range of meetings and one public slot for ActKM at the National Archives. That runs 1500-1700 and the only cost is a donation to afternoon tea. Thence to Melbourne for an Executive Seminar at RMIT and an advanced practitioner course before Broken Hill at the weekend for a range of activities.

The ActKM session is going to be focused on a description and demonstration of a range of government projects we are running using SenseMakerâ„¢ at the moment. Anyone interested to coming should put in a request for a place by email. The advanced practitioner session in Melbourne (details here) is a full day talking through the design of projects using the new v3.0 and is also focused on helping network members sell projects. Details here.

I've listed some of the projects below to give a sense of the range of current activity. The big themes are:

  • Shifting from multiple outcome based targets to simple measurements of impact
  • Citizen & staff engagement and consultation
  • Narrative approaches to knowledge management
  • Dynamic alternatives to scenario planning
  • Pre-hypothesis research & continuous feedback systems

There is an overall theme here of doing more with less which is critical for the future of good government.

  • Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning system, Government of Singapore Assessment of non-academic aspects of school performance (Government of Singapore)
  • Cultural assessment mapping & Cross-cultural issues British Government
  • Liverpool Museums, various projects relating to assessing the impact of the museum on school children
  • British Columbia: Multiple projects relating to staff issues and also mass participation & citizen engagement in scenario planning
  • Welsh Audit Office (just started) - series of pilot projects relating to the impact of government
  • Leadership, dealing with negative Rumours,  Northern Ireland Health Service
  • Human factors involved in hospital scheduling of resources,  Northern Trust,  NI  
  • Bereavement management  Northern Ireland Health Service
  • Assessment following cronic failure in patient care (Canadian Health Authority)
  • Competence assessment Public Health Ontario
  • Aboriginal and identity issues, Government of Australia
  • Staff engagement US Navy, now moving into multiple projects

Comments (3)

Jonathan :

Dave - do you ever engage with government financial planners in your work? Since I have been following you (the CE course in March 2008) i have tried to think how this thinking can be linked to drawing performance budgets for a year in advance.

Have you written anything on this? In the context of the Cynefin framework - how do you budget for activities that fall in the complex space?

Performance Budget = put financial values to activities...that will happen in the future!

Dave Snowden [TypeKey Profile Page]:

I haven't written on that specifically. We are doing work with an audit office but that is not the same thing. My brief reaction would be to budget for experiments and programmes with an evolving allocation system. I think the annual budget cycle is actually a mistake for most purposes.

Jonathan:

I hear what you are saying - have you read Dennard's work? She would agree.

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