Nancy Killefer, Obama's nominee for Chief Performance Officer had to withdraw her nomination because of personal tax problems. This blog entry is not about the politics of this, but the potential of a Chief Performance Officer in setting a great example for Business Process Improvement in Government.
If you had been living in California for the past eight or nine years like I have, you would have seen a sea change in the end user experiences in the state's Department of Motor Vehicles.
Yes. That's the DMV, the eternal butt of comedian's jokes about uncaring government employees, poor service and waiting endlessly in lines!
However, the CA DMV undertook an extensive Process Improvement exercise, and improved many, many of the end user processes like applying for a Driving License Renewal, Car Registration Fees, getting new lIcense plates, etc.
They have moved many of these to the Internet, and the Web, with the intent being that if you don't need to come to the DMV office, you shouldn't!
And they have succeeded so much, that you can find a lot of interesting entries in this blog - What's happened to the California DMV?.
A Chief Performance Officer could have done the same kind of things for multiple departments across the Government.
Passports could be applied for, and obtained in a week, and not six to eight weeks like now (of course with the right checks and precautions - I don't believe someone is checking your background and activities for six weeks before they issue you one. Your application just lies in a pile and waits for someone to take a look at it for 5 seconds and approve it!).
Internal Government Processes could be streamlined, waste in time, resources and most importantly, unncessary waiting time, could all have been cut from many of them, leading to less money and energy wasted!
Oh, Well!
For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been' - John Greenleaf Whittier
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