Recent essays on evidence-based decision making and public-sector leadership

• Stinging loss. Remarkable season. 5 leadership lessons from Green Bay Packers. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. February 2024.
• A Personal-Growth Strategy for Effective Leadership. Government Executive. Dec. 2022.
• Government Leadership and the Power of Mindfulness. With Marc Margolius. Government Executive. June 2022.  
• When’s the Best Time for States to Adopt Evidence-Based Budgeting? Now. With Christin Lotz, Kimberly Murnieks, Charles Sallee and Jim Schowalter. Governing. July 2022.  
• Want to be a better you? Look to the Green and Gold. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Jan. 2022.
• When PerformanceStat Comes to the Legislature. With Patricia Lundstrom and Charles Sallee. Governing. Sept. 2021.  
• One Key to Making a Leadership Offsite a Success: Logic Models. Government Executive. March 2021.  
• A Quick and Low-Cost Way to Drive Results-Focused Government [on communities of practice]. Route 50. March 2021.
• The Learning Agenda Every Public Agency Needs. With Jenni Owen. Governing. Feb. 2021.
• Why Biden’s Embrace of Evidence in Policymaking Is Just What We Need Right Now. With Jed Herrmann. Government Executive. Feb. 2021.
• Biden’s Opportunity to Make Performance Reporting Work a Lot Better. With Kathy Stack. Government Executive. Jan. 2021.
• How the Biden Administration Can Supercharge Results by Using Evidence. With Jed Hermann. Government Executive. Dec. 2020.
• It’s Time to Fix the Frayed Relationships Feds Have With States and Localities. With Kathy Stack. Government Executive. Oct. 2020.
• Coming Soon: A Short Window for Improving Federal Agencies’ Performance. With Kathy Stack. Government Executive. Sept. 2020.
• Why Agencies Need to Spend a Little to Gain a Lot [on grant making; innovation]. With Kathy Stack. Government Executive. August 2020.
• 6 Ways the Next Administration Could Use Evidence-Based Policy to Advance Social Justice. Government Executive. June 2020.
• Cutbacks in a Crisis: Seven Ways to Do It Right. With Robert Behn. Route 50. May 2020.
• What Effective Public Leaders Do to Get Ahead of a Crisis. With Martin O’Malley. Governing. April 2020.
• Fixing Backlogs: An Essential Skill for Leaders in a Crisis. Route 50. April 2020.
• The Evidence-Based Policy Revolution Waiting to Happen [on cost analyses]. With Rebecca Maynard. Government Executive. Jan. 2020. Keyword: cost analysis
• One Year In, the Evidence Act is Producing Results. With Jed Hermann and Robert Shea. NextGov. Jan. 2020.
• Caught in the Cycle of ‘Urgent over Important’? This Leadership Strategy Can Help. With Martin O’Malley. Route 50. Dec. 2019. Keyword: PerformanceStat
• Creating the Foundation for Building an Agency Culture That Values Evidence. Government Executive. Nov. 2019.
• Why Your Agency Should Have an Evaluation Policy Now. Government Executive. Sept. 2019.
• A Checklist for Evidence-Based Government. With Kathy Stack. Governing. August 2019.
• The Opportunity Agencies Should Seize” [on learning agendas]. Government Executive. August 2019. Keyword: Learning_Agendas
• PerformanceStat: A Leadership Strategy That Keeps Innovating. With Michael Jacobson and Melissa Wavelet. Governing. July 2019.
• Think Government Can’t Do Anything Quickly and Cheaply? Think Again [on rapid experimentation & behavioral insights]. Government Executive. June 2019.
• The Best Performance Initiative? It’s the One Valued by Leadership. With Michael Jacobson and Greg Useem. Governing. April 2019.
• How to Build a Learning Culture Within Your Agency. Government Executive. March 2019.
• Education and the Quiet Power of Evidence-Based Grant-Making. With Sara Kerr and Ruth Curran Neild. Governing. Jan. 2019.
• Free advice for Tony Evers: How he could make Wisconsin state government work better. With Don Kettl. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Dec. 2018.
• The Missing Piece in OMB’s Push for High-Value Government. With Kathy Stack. Government Executive. Dec. 2018.
• The Best Way to Build a Culture of Evidence-Based Government. With Ruth Curran Neild and David Yokum. Governing. Oct. 2018.
• Social Science? Data Science? Evidence-Based Government Needs Both. Government Executive. Sept. 2018.
• Federal spending should be based on evidence. With Maria Cancian and Robert Shea. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. August 2018.
• What Government’s Broken Strategic Planning Needs: Evidence. Government Executive. July 2018. Strategic_Planning
• OMB Wants to Strengthen a Learning Culture in Government. With Nick Hart. Government Executive. May 2018.
• Congress should pass laws giving taxpayers more bang for the buck. With Kathy Stack. The Hill. May 2018.
• What Government Really Can Learn from Business [on rapid experimentation & innovation]. With Jim Manzi. Government Executive. March 2018.
• For High-Performance Government, Deputy Secretaries Need to Act Like Chief Operating Officers. With Seth Harris. Government Executive. Dec. 2017.
• Why Every Mayor Should Consider Launching a Policy Lab. With Stephen Goldsmith. Governing. Nov. 2017.
• The government has a useful tool to help more Americans go to college. With Amy Laitinan and Clare McCann. The Hill. Nov. 2017.
• Paul Ryan and Patty Murray get credit for bipartisan policymaking. With Maria Cancan and Robert Doar. The Hill. Oct. 2017.
• Is Your Agency Ready for New Evidence-Based Policy Tools? With Robert Shea. Government Executive. Oct. 2017.
• How Better Procurement Can Drive Better Outcomes for Cities. With Jason Johnson. Governing. Oct. 2017.
• Fighting the Opioid Epidemic with Evidence and Innovation. With Richard Frank and Christopher Spera. Government Executive. August 2017.
• A What-Works Approach to the Opioid Crisis. With Richard Frank. Governing. July 2017.
• It’s Time To Bust Some Myths About How States Can Use Federal Funds. With Thaddeus Ferber. Government Executive. July 2017.
• How School Districts Could Be Laboratories of Improvement. With Tom Kane. Governing. May 2017.
• Four Ways Jared Kushner Can Modernize Government. with Robert Shea. Politico. April 2017.
• Agencies Need to Get Savvy About Low-Cost Program Evaluation. With Ben Castleman. Government Executive. March 2017.
• Here’s Something We Can All Agree On: Agencies Need to Deliver Results. With Seth Harris. Government Executive. March 2017.
• Reduce Government Bureaucracy? What Trump and Congress Can Do. With Demetra Nightingale. The Hill. Feb. 2017.
• Trump Should Support Bipartisan ‘Evidence Based’ Revolution. With Robert Doar. Real Clear Policy. Feb. 2017.

Reports & articles

• Applying PerformanceStat to a Legislative Context: Initial Observations From the Launch of LegisStat in New Mexico. Pew Charitable Trusts. April 2022.
• A Nudge in the Right Direction: How Understanding Human Behavior Can Lead to More Effective Government. With several co-authors. Partnership for Public Service. Dec. 2020.
• Cost Analysis: A Starter Kit. With several co-authors. U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences. April 2020.
• Seize the Data: Using Evidence to Transform How Federal Agencies Do Business. With several co-authors. Partnership for Public Service. June 2019.
• Bridging Cost, Performance and Evidence. With Robert Shea. Association of Government Accountants. July 2018.
• Putting the Experiment Back in the Experimental Sites Initiative. With Clare McCann and Amy Laitinan. New America. Jan. 2018.
• Proposed: A New Way of Working With States and Localities. The Public Manager. June 2017.
• Strengthening Results-Focused Government: Strategies to Build on Bipartisan Progress in Evidence-Based Policy. The Brookings Institution. Jan. 2017.
• Low-Cost Randomized Controlled Trials. With Ron Haskins. Evidence-Based Policymaking Collaborative. Nov. 2016.
• PerformanceStat. Evidence-Based Policymaking Collaborative. Sept. 2016.
• Tiered-Evidence Grantmaking. With Ron Haskins. Evidence-Based Policymaking Collaborative. Sept. 2016.