Research Newsletter

Featured Updates

Managing for Motivation as Public Performance Improvement Strategy in Education & Far Beyond

Stock photo of a compass pointing towards the word, mission

People management has an important role to play in improving public agency performance. This paper by Dan Honig argues that a ‘Route Y’ managerial approach which focuses on supporting employees to exercise judgement is often superior to ‘Route X’ conventional approaches focused on monitoring and incentives. Returns to Route Y are greater when employees are mission motivated – that is, aligned with the goals of the agency in the absence of monitoring and extrinsic incentives.

A Problem-Driven Approach to Education Reform: The Story of Sobral in Brazil

Small group of elementary school children

For more than two decades, the Brazilian municipality of Sobral has focused intensively on improving the quality of its public education system, and the resulting success has been remarkable. This RISE Insight note by former BSC Research Fellow, Tim McNaught, explores the transformation of the Sobral education system through the lens of PDIA, with an emphasis on the early reform period of 2000 – 2004. This case is also available in Portuguese.

Showcasing a Flexible and Iterative Learning Approach to Improving Educational Outcomes

Girl reading at desk in elementary school

The case of Funda Wande in South Africa is an illustration of how the principles of PDIA can help practitioners and policy implementers in the education sector create change and improve learning outcomes. Developing deep and regular engagements with multiple agents in the education sector can ensure that reforms are viable, legitimate, and relevant.

Construction work on Poyab Bridge in Switzerland

executive education

Implementing Public Policy

May 16 - December 9, 2022
Application deadline: April 4

Are you a public policymaker frustrated with the limited impact of your government’s policies? Do you see many policy ideas starting out with promise but ending up incomplete or ineffectively implemented? If so, you are not alone. Join peers from around the globe for a dynamic, highly engaging blended learning format of Implementing Public Policy (IPP) offering a combination of both online and in-person learning, as well as applied action learning – where participants work on their own implementation challenge, apply their learning to their own context, reflect on their experiences, share and learn, and become a part of a global community of practice.

Join our IPP community and apply today!

PODCASTS

Check out BSC’s new podcast series, “The Practice of Resolving Public Problems”

Each week, we feature interviews with alumni of our Implementing Public Policy (IPP) executive program at the Harvard Kennedy School. In these episodes, our alumni from 2019 share how they are using the PDIA tools and approach in designing and implementing public policy, two years later.

Thus far, we’ve interviewed:

Maggie Jones, Assistant Director, Community Development at Tarrant County, Texas (USA)

Mohamed Hejres, Head of Public Policy & Advocacy at the Economic Development Board (Bahrain)

Eleanor Sarpong, Deputy Director & Policy Lead at Alliance for Affordable Internet (UK)

Kwabena Boayke, Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Office of the President (Ghana)

Jorida Zeneli, Board of Directors Independent Community Living (Australia)

Mitchell Rusu, Global Recovery and Resolution Planning Director at Bank of America (UK)

Olga Yulikova, State Director, The Massachusetts Executive Office of Elder Affairs (USA)

Pascale Dahrouj, Founder and CEO of Willminds LLC (Lebanon)

We're Also listening to

Getting Real about Unknowns in Complex Policy Work: A Conversation with Matt Andrews

Public policies are often rife with unknowns that cannot be captured in passive planning processes. In this podcast episode, Matt Andrews discusses his RISE working paper “Getting Real about Unknowns in Complex Policy Work,” which offers a novel strategy for addressing unknowns in public policy work.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Does Development Need Heroes?

In this op-ed for The Guardian,

Matt Andrews writes the best development results come when organizations work together and it's a model we need to adopt more widely.

PDIA Toolkits

Did you know the PDIA toolkit is now available in English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Khmer? Stay tuned for more translations!