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"Reimagining the PMF" Working Group
Laurel McFarland, 2/8/08
NASPAA has initiated an envisioning "Reimagining the PMF" effort as a high-powered summer meeting of "thinkers, and movers and shakers, and policymakers" to bring thoughtful attention to the critical federal HR issue of the future of the Presidential Management Fellowship program. It will launch a short-term PMF project, taking place this summer, that will culminate in the creation of model language and program design ideas for the policy teams of the final presidential nominees and then the Transition team. The goal is to ensure that the PMF is on the agenda of the next administration, whomever it may be. The goal of the commissioning process is to match up some of the desired paper topics with 4 outstanding authors.
Possible Commissioned Paper Questions and Topics
1. Leadership is a term with more currency in the civil service than formerly. We now talk openly about the need for "leadership" as well as "management" and "administration." Should the PMF be more explicitly a leadership training program and less a management recruiting program?
2. What is the state of the leadership pipeline for government? What are the different pathways that now lead to leadership roles, and what kinds of leadership programs are individual agencies using?
3. International comparisons: what do the leading countries do to attract, select, train, and keep the most capable new civil servants, and how do they finance the program and pay the participants?
4. Does the PMF simply reflect the larger HR problems of government? Federal hiring has gotten increasingly complex with many additional restrictions on application and assessment mechanisms. Delays are rife. What has changed in the nature of federal service, and federal hiring practices, that affects the PMF program? Can the PMF be "cured" without taking on the whole Federal system of hiring?
5. What has the recent experience of PMFs been like? How have PMFs contributed to the leadership pipeline in the past and what sorts of positions are they currently being placed into? What do they think should be done? (John Palguta provided copies of a PPS study that addressed some of this)
6. Is "home-grown" talent for the Federal government dead?: Is it still possible/desirable to attract the best young people out of graduate school and keep them excited and committed for their entire career? Or should we assume that government leadership in the post-retirement wave will come from the outside, from contractors and consultants, and from the nonprofit sector?
7. Retention, not recruitment: Is the PMF focused on the wrong thing?-recruiting the best and the brightest, rather than retaining them? What might a PMF focused on retention look like?
8. What characteristics of the current PMF are still relevant and desirable in the next generation? Some of the salient characteristics of the current program include:
It is education-linked, in that the prime eligibility criterion for it is being a graduate student.
a.) Though the selectivity has varied somewhat over its 30 year existence, it has generally been an effort to recruit "the best and brightest" into federal service.
b.) It has emphasized management and, arguably, leadership.
c.) It has been primarily been young people without much work experience, though there is no age restriction and some of the graduate students applicants have been older.
d.) It has focused mainly on initial recruitment, and less on retention (esp. recently).
9. The medium not the message: What are the most effective marketing approaches to reach the next generation of outstanding graduate students and attract them to federal service? Is the whole PMF program application approach passé?
10. The vision thing: What are some supplementary or alternative visions of a program to attract the best and brightest early in their career to the federal government and then keep them?
Important Considerations in the Commissioning of the Papers:
1. This is a tight timetable. The papers must be finished in time to distribute for a SUMMER 2008 event. The exact deadline for paper submission will depend on the day chosen by the working group for the mini-conference.
2. the authors must agree to wide dissemination of the paper: all the partners (NASPAA, Partnership for Public Service, Council for Excellence in Government, NAPA) have agreed to use their distribution channels to disseminate the content and results of the conference as widely as possible.
3. Our first hope is that the institutional homes of the chosen authors will support/donate the paper to the conference. We have also established a commissioned paper fund at NASPAA for public affairs schools, foundations, or individuals who would like to make a financial contribution to the conference. The budget for the commissioned paper project will depend on the in-kind AND financial contributions.
4. The working group has identified several important "philosophical" principles that should be understood by all commissioned paper authors:
- This project is not an effort to "bash" OPM or the present PMF. This is about the future, and what can be.
- We will continue to need homegrown talent in the federal government. Therefore, a program aimed at graduate students/young professionals or those otherwise early in their careers remains a vital spigot into the leadership pipeline. It is not the only spigot, but this faucet
matters, and is worthy of specific attention in the Transition and next Administration.
- We need to inspire, not just hire. The PMF has had important practical and symbolic value. High visibility, high status recruitment programs matter to this population of capable graduate students, and thus the PMF is an important symbol for federal recruitment in general. Highly capable students look for challenges, and value opportunities where it is hard to make the cut.
5. Commissioned papers should show cognizance of some of the current challenges facing the PMF, particularly:
- the tension between serving government-wide interests in identifying and developing future leaders, and serving the agencies doing the hiring, who may prefer to recruit for specific positions. The current financing model (agencies pay the full cost of the program) intensifies that tension.
- the ending of the challenging, interactive selection process and its replacement with a multiple choice exam-and hence the decline in cachet.
- where's the M in PMF?: recent PMF cohorts have fewer management students and generalists for leadership positions, and more lawyers, scientists, and IT people, with little or no professional training in government OR management.
- PMFs are leaving the government in significant numbers, and efforts to assist their professional development, further training, networking, or retention appear to be limited.
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