Insights
Analysis, commentary, and practical guidance on governance, strategy, evaluation, and the challenges facing Canadian public sector organizations.
Most governance frameworks in the public sector are designed to satisfy audit requirements. Few are designed to enable the kind of strategic oversight that distinguishes high-performing boards from merely compliant ones.
The Treasury Board evaluation policy framework is well-designed. The problem is not the policy — it is the organizational conditions that determine whether evaluation findings are actually used.
Strategic planning in government is not simply private sector planning with different stakeholders. The political environment, accountability structures, and resource constraints create failure modes that are genuinely distinctive.
Enterprise risk management frameworks have proliferated across the public sector. Most of them are technically sound and practically useless. The reason is almost always the same.
Executive transitions are among the highest-risk events in any organization's life. In the public sector, the risks are amplified by accountability structures, political context, and the particular challenges of public sector talent markets.
Canadian governments have invested substantially in digital transformation over the past decade. The results have been uneven. Understanding why requires looking beyond technology to the organizational conditions that determine whether modernization investments deliver value.
If an insight resonates with a challenge your organization is facing, we welcome the conversation.