Policy Consensus E-News — Spring / Summer 2011

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Editor's Note: Accelerating Project Delivery through Intergovernmental Collaboration

This spring, the Policy Consensus Initiative, in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), convened a symposium in Washington, D.C. to examine how intergovernmental collaboration can be used to accelerate project delivery in states and communities across the country.  The PCI Board of Directors brought together a group of federal agency managers from across departments and programs to address or identify:

As leaders from the state and local levels, PCI board members also shared their own experiences in accelerating and improving project delivery through intergovernmental collaboration. The goal for the symposium was to identify some action items that PCI—and perhaps federal partners—could undertake.

The PCI board identified three main themes that arose throughout the day’s presentations and discussions:

As the PCI Board gathers in Detroit this fall, we will focus on success stories and lessons learned about local and regional capacity for multi-sector collaboration throughout Michigan. Overlapping urban, suburban and rural jurisdictions and changing economies have created a new set of challenges that many of PCI’s Board members and partners are facing in their own communities.  The Board feels that it has much to learn from communities in Michigan about how non-governmental, regional, and federal agencies can best support local capacity for collaborative problem solving.

UNCG Guide to Collaborative CompetenciesPCI and UNCG Guide to Collaborative Competencies

Since its founding in 1997, we at PCI have dedicated ourselves to building capacity for collaborative governance in states and communities. Over the years, carrying out this mission has evolved to focus both on training public sector leaders in collaborative skills and on supporting those who provide assistance to leaders in their states and communities.  We have discovered that universities and their centers that conduct collaborative governance scholarship and research are uniquely positioned to play this role and to that end, PCI facilitated the creation of a Network of university-based centers in 2008.  Today, more than 25 such programs have joined the Network and currently are providing consultation, convening, facilitation, training, research, and process design services for collaborative policymaking efforts. These university-based programs are actively engaged with public leaders at all levels of government and in states all across the country.

PCI is proud to partner with UNCG and its members to co-produce this Guide to Collaborative Competencies.  The authors of this document, Steve Smutko (Ruckelshaus Institute, the University of Wyoming) and Kirk Emerson (School of Public Administration and Policy, University of Arizona), have drawn upon the collective knowledge and vast experience of the Network to provide an overview of the concrete skills needed to initiate and participate in collaborative approaches for public issues.  It is our hope that these skills become embedded as the approach that leaders use to take on difficult issues, interact with other levels of government, jurisdictions, and sectors, and carry out their governance duties.

Purchase the Guide for $8 plus shipping (or $5 if you are a UNCG member) or read an excerpt.

Governor John KitzhaberOregon Governor Launches Regional Solutions Centers

When Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, former PCI Board co-chair, began his third term as Governor (he served from 1994 – 2002) this winter, he brought with him the experiences of creating Community Solutions Teams to encourage integrated state service at the local and regional levels.  Building on these teams and the project-based success demonstrated by NPCC’s Oregon Solutions, the Governor has initiated a new collaborative governance model for the state: Regional Solutions Centers. PCI Director Greg Wolf has taken a leave of absence to assist the Governor in developing the Regional Solutions Centers.

In this model, regional coordinators from the Governor’s office bring together state agency personnel focused on delivering services in an integrated fashion.  Each Center is accompanied by an advisory committee chaired by a Governor-appointed convener and populated with public, private, and civic members who help the teams understand regional priorities.

Following PCI’s belief that universities and colleges serve their communities as “neutral forums,” centers will be located at universities in Bend, Medford/Ashland, Eugene, Portland, Tillamook, and La Grande while a few smaller satellite offices will be housed at community colleges or universities.  Housing the centers at universities and community colleges will connect government to research and innovation and will give students opportunity to work on real, on-the-ground projects.

Five state agencies will be part of all teams: the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the Department of Land Conservation & Development (DLCD), the Department of Transportation (ODOT), the Department of Housing & Community Services (OHCS), and the Business Development Department (OBDD). Each of these five agencies has identified staff that will be permanently located in the Regional Solutions centers.  Additional state agencies will be added to teams when necessary based on the regional priorities.

All but one of the 6 university centers are up and running, including the co-location of the state agencies’ staff, and half of the advisory committees have held meetings so far. They have also been charged by the Governor with helping integrating public, private and civic investments to leverage all of the resources of the community in a collaborative effort to rebuild regional economies and create jobs around the State.

UNCG logoUniversity Network for Collaborative Governance 2011 Conference

The University Network for Collaborative Governance met for its annual conference at the end of June in Portland, OR.  Portland State University’s Oregon Consensus and Oregon Solutions co-hosted the Network with the University of Oregon’s Appropriate Dispute Resolution Center and Washington State University / University of Washington’s William D. Ruckelshaus Center.  The theme of the meeting was “The New Normal: Opportunities for University Centers,” and US Congressman Earl Blumenauer gave the keynote speech, providing his views on the national challenges the “new normal” presents the country. 

Network members formally adopted the UNCG Principles for Accountability and Ethical Practice. UNCG members are encouraged to adhere to this common set of principles in their organizational operations, functions, and practices to the extent possible. Members are responsible for implementing the principles within their own organizations. The principles reflect a commitment to maintaining the integrity and excellence of the programs and practices of these centers.  They include: Transparency / Openness; Impartiality / Neutrality; Equity / Inclusiveness; Respect for Private Communication; and Standards of Practice. Read how UNCG defines those principles.

UNCG also welcomed new members to the Steering Committee, which elected Chair Mary Lou Addor of North Carolina State University’s Natural Resources Leadership Institute, Vice Chair Steve Smutko of the University of Wyoming’s Ruckelshaus Institute, and Treasurer Rob McDaniel of Washington State University’s William D. Ruckelshaus Center.

Materials and presentations from individual sessions are available on PCI’s website.

The Network will meet in Syracuse, NY, where Syracuse University’s Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration will host in late spring of 2012.

ToolboxNew Publications from PCI Partners

"Public Collaboration in Maine: When and Why It Works" - Co-author and PCI Board member Diane Kenty writes that “public collaboration” can alter the discourse on divisive local, regional, and state issues. Public collaboration is a process in which people from multiple sectors (government, business, nonprofit, civic, and tribal) work together to find solutions to problems that no single sector is able to resolve on its own. The authors describe the common features of effective public collaboration and provide detailed case studies and analysis of five recent examples of public collaboration in Maine.

"Using Online Tools to Engage - And Be Engaged By - The Public" - The Deliberative Democracy Consortium's Matt Leighninger has a new publication out with the IBM Center for the Business of Government that describes a range of scenarios and tactics, and gives real-world examples of online engagement. This is a great resource in helping leaders think through working with the public online. Matt includes over 40 different technologies in use today to support various kinds of public participation.

“Assessing Public Participation in An Open Government Era: A Review of Federal Agency Plans” – In another IBM-funded report, AmericaSpeaks reviews the plans developed by federal agencies following President Obama’s directive that government be more transparent, engage the public in meaningful ways, and increase the use of collaboration.  The report mainly focuses on the public participation elements of the president’s Open Government Initiative, noting “that it is difficult to separate collaboration and participation and the two areas are conflated or inconsistently defined in agencies’ open government plans.” It details the activities and programs underway in the 29 major agencies and provides case studies of the current and planned participation activities of four agencies: the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The report presents a series of recommendations to agencies on how they can achieve enhanced public participation and collaboration.  

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