Assessing the Landscape: A Comprehensive Checklist for Public Sector Leadership Success

Have you been tapped for a new leadership role?  Are there expectations that you will address a long-standing challenge in your organization?  Are you tasked with implementing a new program or gaining efficiencies?  Have you been laser-focused on one part of the organization and now want to assess enterprise risks?  Over the last two decades, I have served in roles at all levels of government where I was brought on to solve a challenging problem.  Often the problem was a singular, very public issue, but I soon found that there were many more problems that needed addressing that were not obvious from the outside.  The origins of most public sector problems are almost always rooted in workforce challenges, and these challenges require exploration, time and commitment across the organization to resolve. 

I approach leadership roles in the public sector much like I approach my diet and health – by gathering as much information as possible, reading books, listening to podcasts, consulting with friends and experts and conducting thorough research.  Then I take pieces of what I learn and apply them to my lifestyle to find what will work for me.  I use the same process in public sector leadership: researching the organization, reviewing available materials, engaging with employees and stakeholders, and reading a leadership book or two.  Lessons learned are then synthesized into an actionable plan that aligns with the mission and culture of the organization.

The checklist below, assembled over the course of my career, is designed to help assess the landscape of an organization and identify top risks, so that a plan of action can be developed to address those risks – preferably in the first 100 days, but valuable at any time.  While you can find many leadership checklists available out there, to help conduct risk assessments in a new leadership role, this checklist is tailored to the public sector leader and is useful at varying levels of the organization.  This review process also helps develop questions for leaders when orienting to new challenges.  In a series of short articles, I’ll dive a bit deeper into two risk categories: “organization wide” and “workforce specific”. While there are countless other risks, depending on the type of public agency, I’ve found these two categories are universal and often carry the most risk for a public organization.  In subsequent articles, I’ll discuss things to watch for and highlight what changes may be needed to be initiated as a result of this review. But first, here are the broad areas for you to begin to assess within your organization:

Governance & Oversight

• Audits: Review at least 5 years of audit reports and agency responses.  Ensure all internal and external audit findings have been addressed or confirm there is a corrective action plan that is developed with clear deadlines, and that responses are completed on time.
• Legislative or public official inquiries: Most public agencies receive legislative or public official inquiries – whether it’s the federal, state or local level.   Review how these inquiries come into the organization and review the last several months of inquiries to see what the topics are, how they are reviewed and how they are responded to.   
• Strategic Plan/Mission, Vision and Values: Arguably, one of the most important guiding documents is the organization’s strategic plan.  Many government agencies are required to have one by statute or policy.  The strategic plan helps set the priorities for the organization, generally outlines mission, vision and values and identifies the organizations’ stretch goals.    

Operations & Finance

• Financial Management: Review the budget allotted for your public agency.  Ensure you have a clear understanding of the agency’s funding sources and how expenditures are distributed across each program area. Identify any budgetary concerns or risks that may impact operations. After you have familiarized yourself with the budget, then focus on the processes for receiving funds and dispersing funds as appropriate.  Review key financial processes such as invoice payment, travel expense reimbursement, collections, payment processing, budgeting, etc.
• Contracts: Review all existing contracts for the agency and the approval process.  Outside of personnel costs, contracts are usually a large cost driver for public agencies and there are many laws and rules that agencies must adhere to as part of the contracting process.
• Facilities Plan: If you have a physical operation, it’s important to review the facilities plan.  Tour the facilities, review costs and assess how the facility is used by staff and stakeholders. Identify risks, ensure there is an Emergency Handbook, and review plans to maintain, grow, downsize or improve the facilities.
• Organizational procedures/desk manuals/division policies and procedures: Few public agencies are good at writing things down. We are so busy doing that we don’t take the time to write down how we do things.  Unfortunately, this can lead to a lot of problems if processes and policies are not documented.  Address any gaps to reduce organizational risk.  
• Performance Measures. If the organization has performance measures tied to the strategic plan you are a step ahead.  Review them and the data behind them.  If you are unable to determine how the organization measures success in achieving its goals, collaborate with your team to develop data-driven performance indicators.

Communication & Compliance

• Media inquiries: Public agencies operate under regular press scrutiny. It’s a good idea to review the last several months of media inquiries and/or resultant media stories to identify the primary focus of those inquiries.  It’s also a good idea to evaluate how the agency handles media inquiries and responses.
• Public Records Act Requests: Most public agencies are subject to PRA requests and there are specific timeframes that must be met. Review the log of requests, ensure timelines are being met, and that appropriate review of responses is conducted.
• Communications Plan: This is a strategic blueprint that details what information will be shared, who will receive it and when and how it will be distributed.  In public agencies language access plans are frequently highlighted, as well as an emphasis on utilizing plain language and ensuring it’s accessible to everyone who accesses the information.  Depending on the mission of the agency, these plans can vary significantly and often focus on specific initiatives.
• Bill implementation or compliance: It’s incumbent on all of us to ensure that we monitor new laws and rules, assessing how they impact our workforce and organization and ensuring processes and policies are in place to implement these new rules.  Ongoing reviews for compliance with statutes and regulations is also important.  

Technology & Risk Management

• Technology Plan:  A technology plan is important for public sector agencies of varying sizes to outline their strategic roadmap in how it will use technology and data to achieve its goals, covering technology vision, timelines and integration into business operations.  These plans are typically tied to budget process as well.
• Business Continuity Plan: A BCP is a proactive, documented strategy for the organization to maintain essential functions, recover from disruptions and minimize downtime during or after a crisis. These are particularly important plans for those public agencies that cannot afford an interruption of services during a natural disaster.
• Risk Assessment Plan: Many public agencies have a document and process for identifying, analyzing and evaluating potential risk to an organization, and a plan to address those risks.  Some public agencies are required by statute or policy to conduct this process.

Conclusion

This checklist is ambitious, but these categories represent the highest risk areas that generally affect the entire organization.  It’s also worth noting that this review, can overlap with a general overview or orientation of all the program areas of your organization. So, as you meet with your core program managers, budget manager, or personnel officer, ask how corrective plans are progressing following the latest audit; have them walk you through their annual budget; discuss their plans to implement a new law; or ask how they are addressing a backlog mentioned in a recent news story. Take your time reviewing these things, discuss with team members and ask questions.  You are in your public sector leadership role because you have proven you have good instincts, are a good leader, and are up for a challenge.  You’ve likely also learned to get a full picture of the problem, before taking steps to address.  I hope this checklist will be helpful in supporting your journey.  Next month I’ll continue with a summary checklist of workforce specific challenges in the public sector.