This paper describes the standardized management system of a government organization as a service provider. The analysis is limited to democratic governments, steered by a systematic representation of the people.
Government is a service provider and thus acts as the provider of government services. The customers of this provider are the citizens, companies and other organizations, in short, the residents of the country or the region. To manage that service in an effective and efficient, but above all sustainable way, the service provider can take a systematic approach.
The analysis is based on Systems Thinking: a scientific, holistic approach that considers the role and cooperation of essential parts in the context of the whole. It shows how the enterprise service management architecture of the Unified Service Management Method (USM) specifies a standardized enterprise service management system according to the views of Systems Thinking, in the form of a link for the endless chains and networks in the ecosystem of government services. This concept of the link can provide the required interoperability of complex service ecosystems.
The Netherlands was chosen as one of the examples of a democratic system, but the conclusions apply by analogy to any other democratically organized country.
Part 1 describes in general terms the nature and structure of a management system, in the context of government. The playing field is determined by the customer, the demands, the provider, and the service, which are decomposed into their essential components. The value creating service delivery system is then defined in terms of the cooperation between the essential components. This demonstrates that any service provider can manage all its service management activities with a simple, integrated management system of no more than 5 processes and 8 workflows.
Part 2 discusses the example of a municipality as a government organization. It shows that municipalities are often fed with practice-based guidance that does not support the cooperation between the essential components of the municipal management system. Instead, this practice-based guidance often comes down to polishing the outside, a strategy that doesn’t deliver sustainable improvements.
Part 3 describes how a municipality can take the first steps on the road to a systematic approach. This can be done with a simple half-day exercise that demonstrates the universal applicability of the USM management system for government organizations. All tools described are made available free of charge by the SURVUZ Foundation.
Download your copy of the white paper at the Downloads page.
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