Eight Strategies for Transforming Government

Our collaboration with recognized scholars and thought leaders is intended to spark the imagination—crafting new ways to think about government by identifying trends, new ideas, and best practices in public management and innovation.

Based on our recent research and perspectives shared by current and former government, academic, and nonprofit leaders, this special report identifies eight strategies for transforming government in the years to come. These strategies draw on significant insights from a research roundtable in 2020.

Importantly, the areas address both individual trends influencing government, and topics that can be addressed with even greater impact if assessed in a way that integrates across trends—such as driving an agile approach to digital innovation that improves outcomes. This integrative approach is especially true for how different trends relate to equity across government programs and foster trust in government institutions, information, and services—two new areas that government leaders and stakeholders have highlighted as important topics for Center research.

• Restoring Trust in Government: Defining Strategies and Tools to Actively Engage the Public
• Driving Agility: Enhancing Mission Support and Delivery
• Addressing Equity: Understanding Distributional Effects of Services and Promoting Inclusion and Diversity in Operations
• Developing Actionable Insights: Using Data and Evidence to Inform Decision Making and Achieve Results
• Attaining Effective Outcomes: Supporting Program Performance and Performance Management Strategies
• Accelerating Digital: Leveraging Innovation and Emerging Technologies to Modernize IT
• Fostering Resilient Institutions: Managing Risk and Building Resiliency
• Reimagining the Government Workplace: Preparing Today’s Workforce for Tomorrow’s Challenges

Through research into these eight topics, the Center will continue to communicate what leading experts know about effective practices and lessons learned for government leaders and stakeholders. Such communications can promote public understanding of the benefits that a well-functioning government delivers, which can help to drive trust in government.

IBM Center supported research can also help governments in the U.S. and across the world continue to focus on controlling costs while improving the performance of their operations, meeting the key challenge facing public sector executives to transform their organizations in an environment of constrained resources—a goal brought into clear focus from the response and recovery to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Moreover, driving meaningful and sustained change in government requires a focus on innovative, effective, equitable, and efficient decision making and implementation to achieve positive, significant, and lasting outcomes.