Delivering Better Government Through Innovation and Technology

"The City of Boston uses innovation and technology to help deliver better public services, programs and products to every constituent," notes Santiago Garces, chief information officer, City of Boston. Innovation and technology enable equity effectiveness and efficiency. The Department of Innovation and Technology creates accessible, reliable, scalable, secure, and dignified experiences for Boston residents.  "Innovation and technology," explains Garces, allow us to embrace new possibilities to connect public servants to our constituents."

INSIGHTS: Issue Brief on Public Management in an Uncertain Environment

Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus John Kotter has proposed that business organizations develop networks internally to help their traditional hierarchies function in today’s fast-changing environment. Government too finds itself increasingly beset by difficult problems that challenge the ability of departments and agencies to respond promptly and appropriately.

Weekly Roundup: July 17-21, 2023

The Leap to Leader: To succeed as a senior executive, you need more than just special skills and competencies. You need a new mindset.  The author has conducted in-depth interviews with hundreds of CEOs. In this article, he shares the lessons that emerged about the mental shifts needed to make a successful transition to a senior leadership position. The process involves identifying and communicating your core values and learning how to approach tough decisions.

Weekly Roundup: July 10-14, 2023

How can governments better prepare for supply chain disruptions. Supply chain interruptions and slowdowns linger as an effect of the pandemic. They make purchasing and acquisition difficult for both the private sector and government. Recently thinkers put their heads together to come up with ways governments can become more resilient on the supply chain front.

Weekly Roundup: June 26-30, 2023

Explore the June 2023 Agency Priority Goal Updates. Agency Priority Goals, or APGs, are an agency’s near-term, implementation-focused priorities that the heads of each major federal agency set every two years. On June 29th, the Office of Management and Budget published the FY 2023 Q2 updates on Performance.gov. These goals serve as steppingstones towards long-term objectives outlined in the agency’s strategic plan.

Weekly Roundup: June 19-23, 2023

GAO Claims $600B of Savings, Points to Billions More Possible. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is helping Federal agencies to save taxpayer money on duplicative programs, offices, and initiatives, saving roughly $600 billion since GAO began this work in 2011 – with more cost-saving opportunities available.

Weekly Roundup June 12-16, 2023

 NEW GAO SCIENCE & TECH SPOTLIGHT: GENERATIVE AI. Generative AI systems—like ChatGPT and Bard—create text, images, audio, video, and other content. This Spotlight examines the technology behind these systems that are surging in popularity. These systems are trained to recognize patterns and relationships in massive datasets and can quickly generate content from this data when prompted by a user. These growing capabilities could be used in education, government, medicine, law, and other fields.

Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

 “Inside government…,” notes Jennifer Pahlka, former U.S. deputy chief technology officer, “the digital revolution played out very differently. Even as our expectations about the immediacy and accuracy of services have skyrocketed, the implementation of laws has become anything but easier.

Weekly Roundup: June 5-9, 2023

VA’s DelBene: Contractors Playing Integral Innovation Role. VA is driving forward the idea that when it comes to technology and innovation, federal contractors need to become an integral part of the government team. Kurt DelBene, VA’s chief information officer (CIO), said “One of the things that we’ve observed – and I’ve noted as I joined – is that there’s an arm’s length typically too often between the contractor and the full-time teams.

Using IT and Data to Meet Mission

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is to promote the progress of science. It promotes the progress of science by investing in research to expand knowledge in science, engineering, and education. NSF also invests in actions that increase the capacity of the U.S. to conduct and exploit such research. NSF research has made possible many of the technological advances that have improved medicine, communications, transportation, manufacturing, and the utilization of natural resources, together with a broad range of other impacts on our lives.

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Leadership Fellow & Host
IBM Center for The Business of Government
600 14th Street, NW Second Floor
Washington, DC 20005
United States
202-551-9339

Michael has two decades of experience with both the private and public sectors encompassing strategic planning, business process redesign, strategic communications and marketing, performance management, change management, executive and team coaching, and risk-financing.

Michael leads the IBM Center for The Business of Government's leadership research. As the Center’s Leadership Fellow, his work is at the nexus of the Center’s mission – connecting research to practice. My work at that the Center complements frontline experience of actual government executives with practical insights from thought leaders who produce Center reports – merging real-world experience with practical scholarship. The purpose is not to offer definitive solutions to the many management challenges facing executives, but to provide a resource from which to draw practical, actionable recommendations on how best to confront such issues. Michael also hosts and produces the IBM Center’s The Business of Government Hour. He has interviewed and profiled hundreds of senior government executives from all levels of government as well as recognized thought leaders focusing on a range of public management issues and trends. Over the last four years, Michael has expanded both the show’s format and reach – now broadcasting informational and educational conversations with dedicated public servants on two radio stations five times a week and anywhere at anytime over the web and at iTunes. Michael is also the managing editor of The Business of Government magazine, with a targeted audience of close to 14,000 government and non-government professionals. Additionally, he manages the Center’s bi-annual proposal review process that awards stipends to independent, third party researchers tackling a wide range of public management issues.

Prior to joining the Center, Michael worked as a senior managing consultant with IBM GBS (Global Business Services) and as a principle consultant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ Washington Consulting Practice (WCP). He led projects in the private and federal civilian sectors including the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, FEMA, and the Veterans Health Administration. Before entering consulting, he worked in the private sector as product development manager at a New York City based risk financing firm.

Since 2003, Mr. Keegan has been a reviewer for Association of Government Accountant’s Certificate of Excellence in Accountability Reporting (CEAR)© program, keeping abreast of the most recent developments in authoritative standards affecting federal accounting, financial reporting and performance measurement. He is also a member of APPAM, the NYU Alumni Association, and the Data Center & Cloud Talent, USA. He holds masters in public administration and management from New York University and was the founder of its DC alumni group as well as previous treasurer of the NYU graduate school’s alumni board.