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Solving public problems is a hard and thankless job. One that is undertaken with a shortage of time as well as resources, and often under pressure to deliver results. A common approach used to solve public problems is to develop a plan, sometimes with experts, and then to assume that implementation will happen on autopilot. But in the face of complex and interconnected public problems, approaches like plan and control often fail to provide results. Public problem solvers can also find themselves feeling lonely and isolated.
Our experience training development practitioners and working directly with governments around the world, has taught us that action learning is crucial for building the muscle memory of solving complex problems: the only way to learn is by doing. We have learned that you cannot solve these problems alone – you need a team. In this blog, BSC director Salimah Samji details how we’ve put our learnings into practice, built a community, and recruited practitioners to enhance our classroom trainings. | | | |
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Implementing Public Policy is a 6-month Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School designed for frustrated public policymakers who seek to improve policy implementation. Liana Elliott, Deputy Chief of Staff for the Mayor of New Orleans, recently completed our course and shares her journey in this blog. Liana’s implementation challenge was to utilize the crisis of COVID-19 to transform New Orleans’s tourism, hospitality, and service industry into one that is sustainable, resilient, and equitable. During the course, Liana was quarantined three times, faced second and third waves of COVID-19, the closing and opening of schools, a major municipal fiscal crisis, and several hurricanes, including a direct hit from Hurricane Zeta. | | | |
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Communities of Practice come in all shapes and sizes. But no matter how large, how diverse, how global, the key word is community. Our Implementing Public Policy Community of Practice (IPP CoP), formed a little over a year ago, has blossomed into a global family where news is shared regularly on a personal and professional level. In this blog, Anisha Poobalan reflects on her first year managing our IPP CoP and offers insights on adapting to a wide range of expectations, engaging others on sharing journeys of practice, and how the team of moderators is PDIA-ing its way forward. | | | |
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In this extended five-month program, you will have the opportunity to work on your own implementation challenge that you are addressing in your city, region, or country.
Application deadline: May 24, 2021 | | | | |
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Connection, support, reinforcement, empowerment, these are the qualities of healthy communities that completely reflect the spirit of the hardworking and endlessly optimistic Implementing Public Policy (IPP) cohort that we are a part of. As moderators for the first half of 2021, we have tried to determine what needs to be learned to accomplish the goals of the Community of Practice (CoP); documenting it, communicating it; and with your feedback putting new engaging events into action in a way that benefits the all members of the IPP CoP. Developing the societal aspects of the CoP creates synergy between all members, supercharging both individual and team-wide efforts and providing professional insights, laughs, and a sounding-board for wild ideas that turn out to be quite doable with the appropriate tools, attitude and support. Read the entire Reflection blog. | | | |
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We’re thrilled to welcome Dan Honig to the BSC Community as a new Faculty Associate. Dan is Assistant Professor of International Development at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development, a member of the Scholars Strategy Network, and on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Policy. His research focuses on the relationship between organizational structure, management practice, and performance in developing country governments and organizations that provide foreign aid. Dan is currently working on a forthcoming book on "Mission-Driven Bureaucrats." Listen to Dan and Salimah Samji discuss the inspiration for his upcoming book in this new podcast interview. | | | |
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Our newly launched PDIA in Action event series showcases the work of students from our field lab class, which teaches the PDIA approach by working on real-world public problems. The first event of this series featured Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Graduate School of Education students who spent 7 weeks working with a former Asheville City Councilor and IPP alumni to better understand the complex issue of developing and implementing policy on reparations in the city of Asheville, North Carolina. In this presentation, the team shared some of their key takeaways and policy recommendations from their experience. Watch the event recording. | | | |
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