He is often referred to as the federal government’s first “chief delivery man.”
In January this year, Matthew Mendelsohn, a public policy expert and founding director of Canadian think tank Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation, joined the Liberal government’s Privy Council Office –sometimes described as the bureaucratic nerve centre.
In his new role, Mendelsohn will be assisting ministers and deputy ministers to establish priorities that will enable them to achieve the government’s goals.
Prior to his stint at the Mowat Centre, Mendelsohn was also deputy minister in the Ontario government from 2004 to 2009. He joined the Ontario government as head of the Democratic Renewal Secretariat and went on to serve as deputy minister for Intergovernmental Affairs, the Office of International Relations and Protocol, and then served as Associate Secretary and Deputy Minister in Cabinet Office.
In his new job in Ottawa, Mendelsohn will be using an approach called “deliverology” which was pioneered by Michael Barber, a British educationist who was an advisor to Tony Blair during his two terms as prime minister of the United Kingdom.
As Chief Adviser on Delivery during the second term of Blair, Barber was responsible for working with government agencies to ensure the successful implementation of the prime ministers priority programs. Barber called his approach deliverology which he described as “a systematic process through which system leaders can drive progress and deliver results.”Deliverology focuses on measuring a government’s progress on delivering on things that it announced it would. The top down, command and approach method has been controversial.
However, the Liberal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is said to be adopting deliverology. In April this year, Trudeau’s cabinet met at Kananaskis, Alta. for a three-day retreat which included a briefing from deliverology gurus Barber and Dominic Barton. This was the second time Barber has a session with the cabinet. The first one was back in January during a retreat in New Brunswick.
The day-to-day supervision of the delivery agenda now falls on the shoulders of Mendelsohn. He will be monitoring results of the ministers’ progress in meeting their targets.
You can find out more about deliverology by attending the Deliverology & Implementation breakfast event to be presented by the Canadian Government Executive and Dell/Softchoice on June 7th from 8:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in the Borden Lardner Gervais LLP office at the Scotia Plaza Tower on 40 King St. West, Toronto.
You will hear from Craig Szelestowski, government transformation specialist and president of Lean Agility, about the strengths of weaknesses of the deliverology approach. Craig will tell you how you can adapt deliverology to suit your needs and enable your own organization to deliver the service and outcomes your clients want and energize your staff at the same time.
Learn about the latest developments in cloud computing, data analytics, storage and networking are impacting Canadian organizations from two of the top analysts of IDC Canada: Tony Olvet, group vice president for research; and David Senf, program vice president, of the company’s infrastructure solutions group.
If you want to be an agent of innovation and transformation in your organization, this is the event to attend.
To find out more and to register, click on this link.
