Organizational Health and Agility – Key Outcomes From Agile Government

Since the passage of the Chief Financial Officers Act in 1990 in the administration of George H.W. Bush, a series of management improvements including audited financial statements, strategic plans, performance plans and reporting, councils of responsible management officials, the customer service executive order, and a variety of Presidential Management Agendas have all provided invaluable guidance for agencies and individual managers.

Two newly released sets of guidance, “Federal framework for public participation and community engagement” is available in draft for comment until November 29, 2024.  A final report has been issued by the National Academy of Public Administration (Academy) entitled, “Ensuring Excellence: A Guide for Cultivating Healthy High-Performing Agencies.” Key ideas follow:

“The American people deserve a high-performing, effective government that is agile and responsive amidst more frequent shocks, and (…) this is one way to help build the government we need.

“Develop a bold vision to strengthen organizational health tied to achieving results and meeting its mission.  Use agile government principles to generate employee buy-in for their overall vision for strengthening organizational health and achieving results. ( “Ensuring Excellence: A Guide for Cultivating Healthy High-Performing Agencies” )

This report is unique in that it was jointly commissioned by the General Services Administration and the Office of Management and Budget.  The agencies asked the Academy to identify, “effective strategies for strengthening organizational health and performance in the current world of work.”  This focus on organizational health is not new.  In 2018, the Academy created a preliminary framework that was the starting point for the new effort. 

The new Organizational Health Report leads off with a “Checklist of Strategies and Actions that Agency Leaders and Operational Unit Managers Can Take to Strengthen Organizational Health." This checklist begins with the following:

• Develop a bold vision to strengthen organizational health tied to achieving results and meeting its mission.
• Use agile government principles to generate employee buy-in for their overall vision for strengthening organizational health and achieving results.

This linkage of a bold leadership vision and agile government principles is at the core of the mindset needed for improving agency performance while advancing values people care about to improve trust at all levels of government.  In fact, the definition of Agile Government from the Agile Government Center, an initiative led by the National Academy of Public Administration in collaboration with the IBM Center for The Business of Government, embodies these criteria, as shown in the box below:

Using the Agile Government Integrated Framework to Advance Organizational Health

Shown above, the Integrated Framework for Action is designed, as is the Organizational Health Report, to be relevant and useful at all levels of government.  While this work is primarily focused on the federal government, similar efforts are underway at local and state governments.  The scope of agile government includes the Framework with a focus of “Developing and Implementing Policies, Regulations and Programs at all levels of government.”  To date, the Agile Government Center has published “Agile Regulation: Gateway to the Future. A companion report is under development to highlight the “Steps to Agile Policy Development and Implementation.”  All content from the AGC is available via it's website.

 The Agile Learning Program and Organizational Health

“Develop a Learning-Based Approach to Improving Results. The second element of this strategy is to create a structure and process to support continuous learning in each agency, based on evidence of what works best to achieve results once policies and programs are put in place by statute and funded through the budget process.

Recognizing the need for a learning-based approach, the Agile Government Center created the Agile Learning Program, with key tenets highlighted above.  The first effort, “Leading Agile Transformation” curriculum is in the final stages of accreditation by the International Consortium for Agile Government (ICAgile)  and will be piloted in a federal agency starting in January 2025.  A second curriculum was developed for program and frontline managers.  It is called “Agile Tactics for Managers and Teams” and is available by contacting Ed DeSeve (gedeseve@gmail.com) the coordinator of the Agile Government Center.  

Conclusion

The Agile Government Principles were identified in the Organizational Health Report “for their overall vision for strengthening organizational health and achieving results.”  The Principles are best implemented using the Integrated Framework for Action and following the learning outcomes contained in the Agile Learning Program.  The Agile Government Center is anxious to assist agencies in creating improved organizational health.  Contact us at the email shown above. 

"This post appears during the National Academy of Public Administration's Fall Meeting, which will include discussions around this and many other related topics. We look forward to sharing additional perspectives on agile government, including the important role of agile learning for governments and stakeholders."