Srs Bsns or How We'll Get Stuff Done

Day 803, 08:22 • Published in USA USA • by PigInZen
I Love This Stuff



Presidential Platform - Organization and Operations in Executive Branch

I'll be honest - I have a Master's degree in information science. Part of my studies involved aligning business operations with information structure and workflows. To say that the eUS Executive Branch is akin to a business is no joke: there is income, expenditures, business goals, and responsibilities. Every month we go through a changeover in leadership. And every month the business plan gets rewritten. I'm not saying you NEED a Master's degree to build and get operations rolling in the eUS. Not in the least. But it does help to have direct experience and knowledge of operations, workflow, business objectives, and theories of organization.




The Incredible Stretchable Government



When I became Emerick's Vice President in August 2009 I focused on formalizing the structure of the Executive Branch. My exposure to how the Exec operated during Harrison Richardson's term in July 2009 sparked a desire for continuous and incremental improvement. At first the steps were simple - a document defining roles, a simple reporting structure, and a basic expectation that department secretaries would be submitting basic reports on a regular basis. That was it.

But those efforts were too simplistic; I discovered while being Chief of Staff for Emerick's brief second term and Gaius' both terms that we needed MORE organization and MORE people brought in. It was quickly becoming necessary to take a longer look at organization and operations and do some SRS BSNS.

Executive Branch in October 2009

October was the first time a real effort towards formalizing the entire presidential staff and operations had occurred. I remember inquiring with former President Scrabman about just what Citizens Affairs did. His reply was hilarious - that it was a position created out of thin air and didn't really do much of anything. Well, that was about to change!

By the time January rolled about the organization in the Exec had changed some more:

Executive Branch in January 2010

The first thing you'll notice is that the Exec has expanded. There are more advisors, another Deputy Chief of Staff, some ops have moved and there are more Deputy Secretaries. The other glaring change is that the Department of Defense was eliminated and folded into the CJCS structure. Other minor changes include more offices under Media, and expansion at both the State and Treasury departments.




There Are Rules



Fast forward to today. I have ambitious plans for the coming month. Making these plans feasible requires serious planning and infrastructure. I've taken a few days and drawn up the next iteration of the Executive branch organization:

Proposed Executive Branch in February 2010

I have thought long and hard about how the structure of the Executive Branch could best be altered to provide the best organization for my proposed operations. Taking a look at the new structure you'll notice that there are DRASTIC changes from the current structure. Starting at the top, there will be a "Presidential Leadership Team" composed of the President, Vice-President and Chief of Staff. While some people believe that the Top-Down approach to leaadership works best, I believe in situations requiring creativity and imagination a team-based approach will work best. The CP, VP and CoS will work together to make decisions on critical matters through collaborative effort. Having three people means that there is no potential for deadlock. It also means that there are more people in the position to make a critical time-sensitive decision should something go do. I believe that the "triumvirate" structure from ancient Rome plays very well in eRep.

My confidence in my Vice Presidential and Chief of Staff picks could not be higher. I chose them with this structure in mind.

Also notice that there are three new groups that report directly to the Presidential Leadership Team: the Implementation Team, the Presidential Assistance Team and the Policy Advisors and "Think tank".

The implementation team is an expansion of changes made last term where Deputy Chiefs of Staff were made given responsibility for execution of the President and Vice President's directions with regards to departments. This will not change and a third DCoS position will be added due to the addition of new departments.

The Presidential Leadership Assistance Team will be composed of three direct personal assistants for each of the CP, VP and CoS as well as the Congressional Liaison. The thought behind personal assistants would be that there are so many tasks, communications, meetings and whatnot that a second person to take the load off would be handy. I imagine that these three will be a step above glorified administrative assistants and will actually serve as personal consultants as well.

The Policy Advisors and Think Tank is a different aprroach to the old Policy Advisors/Vizier positions. There is always a need for people to give consultation and advice to the Cabinet. These people would also be tasked with coming up with creative ways to improve current programming and create new programming.

Rounding out the Cabinet are the Department Secretaries. These people are tasked with taking decisions made at the Cabinet level and implementing them in their respective Departments. Underneath the Cabinet would be the Staff. Staff are primarily Executive Branch members that would be primarily responsible for FUNCTION and not POLICY DECISIONS.

Notice that some positions have been moved and that there is the addition of two new Departments: Technology and Fun.




Plan's in Place, Let's Rock and Roll!



By reorganizing the Executive Brand we can provide greater emphasis and formalized repsonibilities: First and foremost, making Technology a Department and not just an Office will give it representation in the Cabinet, allow greater focus on its operations and greater potential for synergies with the other departments. Specifically I want to see the following occur from the Technology Department this term:

- Continued development of the national database
- Creation of public reports and statistics
- Improving internal government statistical reporting
- Create a national wiki to serve as a wearhouse for documentation of all kinds
- Link the eusforum, wiki, portal page and database to the an in-house authentication service that allows for lookups against eRepublik user/passwords.
- Focus on documentation of procedures and policies of the various departments.

This is a ton of work. I am confident that with the right individuals in place it can happen in a month.

Secondly, by dividing the Exec into two larger groups (Cabinet and Staff), providing a dedicated administrative assistant group, adding another two departments, another Deputy Chief of Staff, and creating a Policy Think Tank the Executive is poised to tackle whatever is thrown its way. This will enable us to easily open the doors of government to all citizens, reduce patronage and potentially help give some people a reason to continue playing.





E Pluribus Unum. From Many, One.



I'LL SAY IT AGAIN: Together we have strength beyond measure. Do your part. Follow DoD orders. Fight with weapons. Maintain your wellness. SUPPORT THE CAUSE.