A policy and its translation into legislation aims to establish a framework which provides a way for a government to influence - and often to direct - the behaviour of its people. This is a core function of government. If you want to read more about that, read "Seeing like a State" by James C. … Continue reading Directive versus coercive policies
Tag: burden reduction
Technology’s lie
Easy to use technology requires significant investment. This is less and less understood, but we should become more aware of it.
Delightful internal control processes in public sector organisations
Inspired by "Delight is in the details" by Shawn Blanc The nascent public sector problem Here's the problem: a lot of public sector organisations have been forced to shed a lot of what has long been considered their bloated structures. This often takes the form of personnel reductions. Some of these are retirees that do … Continue reading Delightful internal control processes in public sector organisations
Laws and applications
Or, why most laws and regulations may be conceptually relevant but turn out to be terrible in application. Great from afar, but far from great I challenge you to pick up any regulation or any law. If you were to examine them closely, you would find out that their quality usually is subpar. The reason … Continue reading Laws and applications
The external cost of internal optimization
Traditional cost reductions don’t take customers in accountMost organisations do not realize they are imposing significant burdens on their users. Any interaction involves a transaction cost. Organizations competed on cost reduction platforms, trying to drive down the transaction cost as low as possible … for their own operations. Quite often, an important part of the … Continue reading The external cost of internal optimization
Get rid of irrelevant process steps
For those of you who speak either Dutch or French, a nice journalist named Brigitte Doucet wrote a comprehensive article based on the keynote I gave at the Software AG Process Forum in February 2011. While I am formally no longer actively working in burden reduction, one of the key elements in our internal audit … Continue reading Get rid of irrelevant process steps
Public sector performance enhancement
Let’s not get run over againThere are quite a few performance enhancing methodologies for administrations available on the market today. Most have not proven to be that successful all the time. However, under pressure to enhance performance, the public servants hope if or rather when someone turns government around, they don’t get run over again.Potential … Continue reading Public sector performance enhancement
The impact of simplification on residual risk
Red tape increases risksRed tape is likely to lead to increases in residual risk profiles of organizations. These organizations are overburdening their external and internal customers with these increases in rules and regulations they need to comply with. Contrary to their expectations, this will not lead to more care. The more rules exist, the more … Continue reading The impact of simplification on residual risk
Exploring The Black Box 