Management Consulting

Why do businesses exist? Why does the government exist? Both need to deliver on a mission that produces value for stakeholders such as taxpayers, shareholders, employees, customers, citizens and the environment. But according to a report to Congress and the President by the Reason Public Policy Institute on transitioning to a performance-based government:

Most agencies do not know what strategic rationale underlies their programs. They do not have a sense of what specific contribution each individual program is making to national outcomes. As such, they do not have clear linkages between strategic goals and their individual program performance measures…Some programs are measuring the wrong things, some are measuring too many things…The lack of a real data driven understanding of how what we do on a day-to-day basis contributes to results outside the agency is still a missing gap.

Strategic planning is a complex undertaking involving analysis of internal, external and environmental factors that contribute to strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to understand where the company is at the present time. It then involves setting objectives for each area of the business so that all short-, medium- and long-term goals can be achieved. Finally, it requires a strategic plan be set that provides marching orders to the staff for how to achieve the objectives. A strategic planning exercise, if well done, also includes feedback mechanisms for collecting and analyzing metrics on a regular basis to hold the managers and staff members accountable for their part in the plan’s success, and to provide opportunities for mid-stream course correction as needed.

Examples of our recent experience:

Developed a logic model, performance metrics and an evaluation framework for a $3B federal grant program. Researched best practices, analyzed available data sources, interviewed key stakeholders and worked with the Panel of Fellows to recommend strategies for aligning the program guidance and award criteria with agency-wide goals and streamlining operations.

Wrote the textbook Chapter: “Applying Strategic Management Techniques to Female Offender Programs� for a criminal justice textbook on causes, interventions and societal needs related to female offenders.

Established Sales and Customer Support business processes for a startup telecom company. Facilitated cross-functional meetings with users. Produced 200 pages of enterprise-wide activity flow diagrams and supporting processes based on best practices and developed and delivered training for users.