HR Green ASD for Local Governments Handbook - Executive Summary - Manual (Page 15)

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Even more consequential is a public-private-partnership investment. This option requires a long-term
investment and shared risk for both the municipality and the private firm. The consequences of error demand
a careful, strategic approach to estimate the risks and rewards—economic and political.
The consequences of error in service consolidations is only slightly less than in 3P, only because there is less
likely to be substantial fixed assets infrastructure investments involved in the service consolidation. Yet to be
successful, to give the consolidation an opportunity to prove its added value to the communities involved, the
contract needs to be for multiple years (our focus groups suggested 3-5 year first round framework).
Is your municipality ready to pursue alternative service delivery options? Why do you want to do this?
Because it is in vogue? If so, think again.
 If you come to this arena only looking for a partner who will save you money, you will be
disappointed. The focus group discussions provided multiple examples of how a focus on
cutting costs lowers employee morale, creates a more rigid instead of more flexible organizational
culture, and may reduce service quality if the decisions are based solely or mostly on cost cutting.
 This arena is for those looking for a long-term relationship, looking for a long-term solution to
improving delivery of the public services citizens value.
 Your municipality is ready to pursue alternative service delivery options if your organizational
culture is focused on improving service effectiveness, because organizational culture and strategic
politics have priority over saving money in successful ASD strategies.
Summing Up: Are You Ready?
This handbook serves as a primer, a prelude to your local government developing and implementing an ASD
approach to delivering public services in your community. It is not designed to be the bible of alternative
service delivery options. Figure 7 illustrates that each of these options requires several calculations, including:
 a tactical or strategic approach
 a shorter or longer time frame
 an estimate of the economic and political returns on investing in the organizational changes required
to successfully adopt and implement one of the options.
An ASD approach requires investment in changing your organizational culture to embrace flexibility and
innovation:
 a focus on how to deliver a service efficiently and effectively, and
 a relentless focus on performance and accountability.
The POBNCAM framework shifts organizational focus and resources
 from reporting to measuring
 from coordinating internally to networking externally.
 The degree to which your local government can reorient itself to a POBNCAM framework will
constrain—or free—the organization to rethink community service delivery.
If your organization is firmly rooted in the POSDCORB framework, a focus on the contracting and ILA
chapters is a good starting point for relatively easy experiments in ASD options. Both present opportunities
to begin changing organizational culture to develop a POBNCAM management framework. If your
organization is already started on this path, the chapters on managed competition, service consolidation, and
public-private partnership provide a checklist for embracing these more strategic shifts in service delivery.
The devil is not in the details of alternative service delivery options. Details can be mastered with a flexible and innovate
approach to solving problems and issues with your partnering agency. Each of the ASD options uses a
partnership in some form or another. The successful 21 st century local government will thrive in a myriad of partnerships to
deliver public services to community residents in an effective and efficient manner. If you are ready to begin, the first steps
are thinking strategically and working on that organizational culture.