Effective Implementation In Practice E-Book

Jodi Sandfort

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Serie: Bryson Series in Public and Nonprofit Management
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 664

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

A unique approach to policy implementation with essential guidance and useful tools Effective Implementation in Practice: Integrating Public Policy and Management presents an instrumental approach to implementation analysis. By spanningpolicy fields, organizations, and frontline conditions in implementation systems, this book provides a robust foundation for policy makers, public and nonprofit managers and leaders. Detailed case studies enable readers to identify key intervention points, become more strategic, and improve outcomes. The engaging style and specific examples provide a bridge to practice, while diagrams, worksheets, and other tools included in the appendix help managers apply these ideas to team meetings, operational planning, and program assessment and refinement. Policy and program implementation is fraught with challenges as public and nonprofit leaders juggle organizational missions and stakeholder expectations while managing policy and program impact and effectiveness. Using their own experience in practice, teaching, and research, the authors empower policy and program implementers to recognize their essential roles within the workplace and help them cultivate the analytical and social skills necessary to change. * Understand how program or policy technology constitutes the core of implementation * Study a conceptual framework encompassing power dynamics, culture, relationships in the field and the rules that are operating during program and policy implementation * Discover a multilevel approach that identifies key points of strategic action at various levels and settings of the implementation system and assesses implementation success The integration of policy and management mindsets gives readers an insightful yet accessible understanding of implementation, allowing them to achieve the potent results desired by the public. For those in senior positions at federal agencies to local staff at nonprofit organizations, Effective Implementation in Practice: Integrating Public Policy and Management provides an invaluable one-stop resource.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Essential Texts for Public and Nonprofit Leadership and Management

Title Page

Copyright

Tables, Figures, and Boxes

Tables

Figures

Boxes

The Authors

Dedication

Preface

Our Perspective

Acknowledgments

Notes

Part One: The Implementation Landscape

Notes

Chapter One: Framing Implementation

Exploring Policy and Program Implementation

Defining Implementation Effectiveness

Unpacking Implementation Systems

Bringing the Analysis to Life

Notes

Chapter Two: Conventional Perspectives on Policy and Program Implementation

Political Processes and Authority

Governance and Management

Policy and Program Evaluation

Conclusion

Notes

Chapter Three: A New Perspective for Implementation: Strategic Action Fields

Introducing Strategic Action Fields

Core Programs

Unpacking Social Structures and Dynamics

Conclusion

Notes

Part Two: The Implementation System at Multiple Levels

Notes

Chapter Four: Policy Fields

Policy Fields in Focus

Analyzing the Development of the Core Program

Applying Policy Field Analysis

Conclusion

Notes

Chapter Five: Organizations

Organizations in Focus

Analyzing the Integration of the Core Program

Applying Organizational Analysis

Conclusion

Notes

Chapter Six: Front Lines

Front Lines in Focus

Analyzing the Application of the Core Program

Applying Frontline Analysis

Conclusion

Notes

Part Three: The Practice of Effective Implementation

Notes

Chapter Seven: Exploring Implementation in Practice

Implementation Dynamics: The Hardest Hit Fund

Implementation Dynamics: The Quality Rating and Improvement System

Opportunities for Change

Notes

Chapter Eight: Leading Learning in Implementation Systems

Investigating Technical Challenges

Engaging Others in Adaptive Challenges

Bringing It All Together

Notes

Appendix A: Policy Field Audit

Notes

Appendix B: Policy Field Visual Diagram

Appendix C: Program Process Flow

Appendix D: Organization Program Integration Audit

Appendix E: Frontline Interactions Audit

Appendix F: Target Experiences Analysis

Notes

Appendix G: Implementation Dynamics and Outcomes Analysis

Appendix H: Implementation Improvement Blueprint

Bibliography

Preface

Part One Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Index

End User License Agreement

Pages

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Preface

Part One: The Implementation Landscape

Begin Reading

List of Illustrations

Figure 3.1

Figure 4.1

Figure 5.1

Figure 5.2

Figure 6.1

Figure 8.1

Figure 8.2

Figure 8.3

List of Tables

Table 1.1

Table 1.2

Table 1.3

Table 1.4

Table 2.1

Table 3.1

Table 4.1

Table 4.2

Table 4.3

Table 6.1

Table 7.1

Table 7.2

Table 8.1

Table 8.2

Table 8.3

Table 8.4

Table D.1

Table E.1

Table G.1

Table G.2

Essential Texts for Public and Nonprofit Leadership and Management

Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy by Tina Nabatchi and Matt Leighninger

Managing and Measuring Performance in Public and Nonprofit Organizations, 2nd Edition by Theodore H. Poister

Public Budgeting in Context: Structure, Law, Reform, and Results by Katherine Willoughby

Applied Research Methods in Public and Nonprofit Organizations by Mitchell Brown and Kathleen Hale

Governing Cross-Sector Collaboration by John J. Forrer, James Edwin (Jed) Kee, and Eric Boyer

Visual Strategy: A Workbook for Strategy Mapping in Public and Nonprofit Organizations by John M. Bryson, Fran Ackermann, and Colin Eden

Social Entrepreneurship: An Evidence-Based Approach to Creating Social Value by Chao Guo and Wolfgang Bielefeld

Smart Communities: How Citizens and Local Leaders Can Use Strategic Thinking to Build a Brighter Future, 2nd Edition by Suzanne W. Morse

Leading Forward: Successful Public Leadership Amidst Complexity, Chaos, and Change by Tim A. Flanagan and John S. Lybarger

Creating Value in Nonprofit-Business Collaborations: New Thinking and Practice by James E. Austin and M. May Seitanidi

Understanding and Managing Public Organizations, 5th Edition by Hal G. Rainey

The Effective Public Manager: Achieving Success in Government Organizations, 5th Edition by Steven Cohen, William Eimicke, and Tanya Heikkila

Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Strategic Approach, 4th Edition by Joan E. Pynes

The Practitioner's Guide to Governance as Leadership: Building High-Performing Nonprofit Boards by Cathy A. Trower

Meta-Analysis for Public Management and Policy by Evan Ringquist

Social Media in the Public Sector: Participation, Collaboration, and Transparency in the Networked World by Ines Mergel

Managing Nonprofit Organizations by Mary Tschirhart and Wolfgang Bielefeld

The Ethics Challenge in Public Service, 3rd Edition by Carol W. Lewis and Stuart C. Gilman

The Responsible Administrator, 6th Edition by Terry L. Cooper

The Handbook of Nonprofit Governance by BoardSource

Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, 4th Edition by John M. Bryson

Hank Rosso's Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, 3rd Edition edited by Eugene R. Tempel, Timothy Seiler, and Eva Aldrich

The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, 3rd Edition edited by David O. Renz, Robert D. Herman, and Associates

Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation, 3rd Edition edited by Joseph S. Wholey, Harry P. Hatry, and Kathryn E. Newcomer

Handbook of Human Resources Management in Government, 3rd Edition edited by Stephen E. Condrey

Effective Implementation in Practice

INTEGRATING PUBLIC POLICY AND MANAGEMENT

Jodi Sandfort and Stephanie Moulton

Cover design by Wiley

Cover image: © iStock.com / rbv

Sandfort photo by Matt Sandfort.

Moulton photo by Henry Wilson.

Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and is on file with the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-118-77548-6 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-98615-8 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-98616-5 (ebk.)

First Edition

Tables, Figures, and Boxes

Tables

Table 1.1 Indicators of Implementation Effectiveness

Table 1.2 Multiple Levels of the Implementation System

Table 1.3 Principles for Cultivating Effective Implementation Practice

Table 1.4 Comparison of Illustrative Cases

Table 2.1 Three Traditional Perspectives on Implementation

Table 3.1 Power and Culture in Strategic Action Fields

Table 4.1 Institutions Involved in Policy Fields

Table 4.2 Examples of Implementation Resources

Table 4.3 Selected Government Tools Important to Implementation

Table 6.1 Variation in Illustrative Frontline Occupations

Table 7.1 Indicators of Effectiveness in the HHF Program

Table 7.2 Indicators of Effectiveness in the QRS Program

Table 8.1 Tactics and Tools for Technical Change in Implementation Systems

Table 8.2 Indicators of Public Value Failure for Implementation

Table 8.3 Common Behavioral Biases

Table 8.4 Tactics and Tools for Adaptive Change in Implementation Systems

Table D.1 Organization Program Integration Audit (OPIA) Template

Table E.1 Frontline Interactions Audit Template

Table G.1 Indicators of Implementation Effectiveness

Table G.2 Mechanisms of Authority and Culture That Shape Social Structure and Influence Social Dynamics in Strategic Action Fields

Figures

Figure 3.1 Illustration of a Multilevel System with Common and Distinct Elements

Figure 4.1 Early Childhood Education Policy Field in Minnesota, 2012

Figure 5.1 Coordination Continuum for Implementation Activities within Organizations

Figure 5.2 QRS Program Process Flow

Figure 6.1 Engagement Continuum for Implementation Activities with Different Target Groups

Figure 8.1 Practices for Improving Implementation Effectiveness

Figure 8.2 Trade-offs when Initiating Project Management

Figure 8.3 Process of Group Development and Problem Solving

Boxes

Box 1.1 Overview of National Health Care Reform

Box 1.2 Introduction to the Hardest Hit Fund Program

Box 1.3 Introduction to the Quality Rating and Improvement Systems Program

Box 4.1 HHF Policy Field Actors

Box 4.2 QRS Policy Field Actors

Box 4.3 Ohio's HHF Program

Box 4.4 Minnesota's QRS Program

Box 6.1 Frontline Interactions in HHF

Box 7.1 HHF Program Objectives

The Authors

Jodi Sandfort is an associate professor and area chair at the Hubert Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. Her research and practice focus on improving the implementation of social policy, particularly that designed to support low-income children and their families. Her research is published in top journals, including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Social Service Review. Her career has spanned academia and various positions in private philanthropy and nonprofit organizations at the state and national levels.

Stephanie Moulton is an associate professor at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, The Ohio State University. Her research and practice focus on the implementation and evaluation of housing and consumer finance policies and programs. Her research is published in top journals such as the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, the Journal of Housing Economics, and the Journal of Consumer Affairs. Prior to her academic career, Moulton worked in the nonprofit sector, designing and managing asset building, home ownership, and community development programs at the local and state levels.

We dedicate this book to our children: Hannah, Abby, Andrew, and Ethan

Preface

This book is fundamentally about change. Policy and program implementation requires changing systems and organizations, changing the hearts and minds of both people who work within them and those who are served by them. And there is a lot already written about change. In the early twenty-first century, we are fascinated by it. Popular social commentators' blogs and books help us make sense of the massive societal, environmental, and economic changes occurring around the world. Management gurus provide accounts of organizational change, models to describe it, and ideas for engaging those resistant to it. Self-help books and podcasts describe individual change in spirituality, family dynamics, exercise regimes, and nutrition, providing five-step, eight-step, twelve-step plans to structure our intention and enable personal transformation. All of these many resources help us make sense of these changes; they help us describe it, understand it, and shape it.

In writing this book, we begin with the presumption that amid all of these other resources, ideas, and guides, there is something unique to be learned regarding change in public policies and programs. What is unique, in part, is the ambition. When people in democracies need to address collective problems, they turn to formulating public policies or developing new programs and initiatives. They must accomplish things together they cannot accomplish alone or through purely private activities. They need safe roads, Internet access in remote regions, schools for their children. Yet many such initiatives are what scholars have called “wicked problems,” or “grand challenges,” difficult to solve because of their complexity. There are often conflicting interpretations of the problem: what should be done about it, who should do it, and how it shall be accomplished.

In the face of such complexity, one response is to attempt to centralize decision making and adopt tools such as written rules, structured protocols, or benchmarks in an attempt to reduce uncertainty. During the 1970s and 1980s, scholars at policy schools in the United States initially saw implementation in this way—as a mere management task that would be propelled through centralization or, at a minimum, professional standardization. It was something to turn to once policymaking was complete to achieve policy outcomes, understood as a distinct phase of the policy process, following agenda setting, policy formation, adoption, and preceding evaluation. Yet thirty years of research documents both the fallacy of trying to control implementation and the limitations of a “phases” model.

An alternative approach is to acknowledge that implementation is about making change in complex systems. It is about how policy ideas come to be embedded in operations and everyday actions. And while it unfolds in unexpected ways, there are lessons that can be learned and patterns that can be identified to improve how this process occurs. In this book, we aim to share these lessons and provide techniques for seeing these patterns. We integrate considerable research in public policy, economics, sociology, public administration, design, medicine, political science, social work, urban planning, education, and public health. We offer stories of challenges and successes. We describe tools that can be applied to your particular interests or professional projects to help improve implementation in those instances and enable you to be a more strategic actor and leader of productive change. We also provide more extensive analysis of cases we each know well: programs developed to respond to the US housing crisis and improve early childhood education. Through these various means, we provide a way to engage in making change in complex implementation systems in ways that improve desirable results.

Attending to policy and program implementation is rarely in anyone's job description, but often is everyone's responsibility. So we focus here on enabling people at various levels in systems to see their implementation roles and responsibilities more clearly. We also highlight the skills necessary to cultivate and seize change moments that present themselves to improve implementation results. In our efforts, though, we want to be clear: implementation is more akin to gardening than engineering or architecture.1 While effective implementation practice benefits from knowing relevant scientific concepts, it also involves attending to the unpredictable environment and engaging in creative problem solving.

Like gardeners, many implementers have an unconscious preference for how to approach their work. One friend of ours started her garden by first testing the soil, assessing the composition and determining whether it was acidic, neutral, or alkaline. Once diagnosed, she systematically introduced additives to improve the soil conditions so she could grow a wider array of plants, testing it every few weeks for the first year. She turned similar attention to eliminating weeds, fertilizing lawns, and fighting pests. When we talk with her about gardening, there are always debates about biotechnology or the best heirloom variety of seeds. She loves consulting and comparing the vast array of scientific knowledge. She combs through it for insights or suggestions about what might be useful in responding to a particular challenge, such as her poorly drained bed in her corner yard or her tomatoes that don't ever seem to ripen.

Yet we know many other gardeners who jump right in and select whatever looks good at the local gardening store each spring. Some of them end up killing almost everything, but they keep repeating the same process each year because their springtime enthusiasm is uncontainable. One of our friends who took this approach is now almost a master gardener. Literally, he started by getting his hands dirty. His approach was intuitive: he plants new additions in his garden each spring and waits to see how well they grow, adding fertilizer, watering, yanking out pesky weeds, and cursing squirrels who always seem to be attacking his tulips and lilies. But as his interest grew, he began to consult gardening blogs and books, learning more about how specific fertilizers could enhance the blooms of his roses.

Obviously for both of our friends, the environment really determines what unfolds under their watchful eyes. The science-oriented gardener reads about microclimates and adjusts her planting given the light, wind, and moisture present in the corner between the house and the garage. But after two months without rain, the plants in that microclimate struggle to survive as much as any other. The forces of nature—sun, rain, and wind—determine whether one will spend most of his or her time in a given summer watering, weeding, or relaxing with a cool glass of lemonade surrounded by colorful beauty. All gardeners respond to the unpredictability of nature. They observe, take risks, and adapt their plans given what is unfolding around them.

In this book, we are trying to support implementers who resemble either of these types of gardeners. We identify and integrate relevant science because we know that both benefit from the insights that emerge from systematic study of policy and program change. Our close reading has uncovered helpful ways to talk about what happens in policy and program implementation across contexts. This allows for better communication about implementation processes and challenges, even when people work at different levels or different scales. We also share case illustrations because in some areas, there is not yet research to probe what occurs in practice.

Yet we want to be clear. Even when consulting these resources, implementation practice is not merely applying technical skills. Rather, improving implementation requires engaging the unpredictable—the people who shape the understanding and activities of the program at various levels, the resources of money and talent that are almost always constrained, and the political environment that is changeable. This environment is often quite influential in policy and program implementation. Elections happen, newly appointed officials are brought in to lead state agencies, foundations change their priorities, organizational boards develop pet programs, and professional accreditation boards alter their standards. Things rarely occur just as they were intended, but through engaging intellect and imagination, the complex and rewarding challenges of policy and program implementation can captivate you for many years to come.

We focus here on policy and program implementation that occurs in public bureaucracies, networks and collaboratives, and public-private partnerships. It happens in nonprofit service organizations, schools, banks, and local governments. In our treatment, we combine policy and program implementation because one's definition about whether something is a “policy” or a “program” depends more on one's reference point than on any inherent characteristic of the change. We also concentrate on change that spans the responsibilities of more than one organization and change undertaken to achieve public rather than private results. A vast array of policy and program implementation projects falls into this definition, from significant federal policy such as new national health care reform, to new local service models developed by food shelves. While there are many, many differences among these initiatives, they all involve the central concern of engaging others to bring about change that benefits people other than themselves.

Although it is very important to refine professional abilities to deliver on this noble calling, there are not many sources to turn to for relevant insights about implementation practice. While implementation activities happen every day, few people stop and are consciously aware of their roles in the larger process. The to-do tasks of work occupy our attention, this grant proposal or report to write, that meeting to plan or follow up, the client who needs to be responded to. Yet the way one shapes a grant proposal, facilitates an important meeting, or develops a systematic way to respond to a citizen's needs actually becomes the way policies and programs are implemented. It is important to help professionals understand their own responsibilities for improving policy and program implementation and what ultimately results.

Our Perspective

In spite of the significance of implementation practice, scholarly investigations of it have become balkanized and, in some cases, almost defunct. Yet our own professional practice, teaching, and research emphasize the critical need to build implementation skills among professionals. That is fundamentally what motivated us to write this book. We combed through the literature, but also filtered the lessons through our professional experiences.

Jodi has worked at different levels in implementation systems across a number of fields: documenting variation in state policies in early childhood education; working on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS service system as a case manager in Detroit; making annual investments of $20 million in state human services fields at a major regional foundation. She also studied implementation at the organizational and systems levels through her dissertation on welfare and welfare-to-work providers and subsequent studies on early childhood education, human service networks, and welfare programs. She consults with many private philanthropic organizations around developing strategies for public service system reform and develops leadership training programs for professionals in public agencies and nonprofits. Stephanie comes with a similarly relevant background: serving low-income households in a local nonprofit housing organization as a frontline staff member; leading a statewide network of nonprofit organizations, private banks, and state agencies for an asset-building program; and providing policy analysis and technical assistance to state and federal agencies. She has used this experience to craft an extensive research program on housing and economic stability, particularly focused on vulnerable populations, partnering closely with national and state public agencies, foundations, and nonprofits. The national press seeks her insights regularly about the realities of housing policies and program implementation, with her research highlighted in, for example, the New York Times, Bloomberg, CNBC, and Forbes Magazine. In this book, we capitalize on both sets of these experiences.

We drew on these diverse experiences and integrated them through a collaborative process that, for each of us, was unrivaled. Each idea and example, table and appendix reflects this partnership; all parts of the book were cowritten. While we hope this process improved the overall product, any intellectual oversights contained are, likewise, limitations we both must claim. This book was truly an equal effort. The order of authorship does not reflect the substance of our contributions.

Our experiences lead us to believe that while public systems may appear impenetrable, there are endless opportunities, large and small, for individuals to make implementation more effective. While a grant proposal might be motivated to bring more dollars into your organization, it might also provide an opportunity to build relationships with people from another organization who could offer a better service model for the effort. While a meeting might be scheduled to report progress on assigned tasks, it might also provide an opportunity to invite people into problem solving or shape their emerging understanding of an issue. While responding to a young mother's needs for child care might just be a way to move her application to the next frontline worker, it might also provide an opportunity to reinforce her tenacity at pursuing higher education or connect her with other parents with similar needs. By taking the time to better understand the full variety of implementation tasks, you will be poised to improve desired results.

As might be clear by now, we have not written a how-to book that provides a recipe that can be perfected by close adherence to set rules or know-how. Rather, we see this as an effort to integrate and translate research and experience, draw attention to the significance of implementation activities, and encourage readers to step more overtly into roles focused on cultivating effective implementation. Through this attention, we believe more potent results desired by the public will grow and thrive.

Acknowledgments

We have both grown considerably in our collaboration on this project. Our different but complementary skills as policy and management practitioners and scholars were assets throughout, helping us bring insights from both the research literature and our experiences to this effort.

Many people supported us throughout this project, and we are humbled with gratitude for their belief in our work and the importance of this project. In particular, we thank Stephen Roll and Sook Jin Ong for their support in deeper investigation of the vast implementation studies literature that informs this book. Brint Milward welcomed us to the University of Arizona and provided invaluable space for our collaborative writing. And Mary Lou Middleton and Danielle Harlow provided editing support. We also would like to thank two anonymous reviewers who helped us improve these ideas.

Our colleagues at our current and former institutions enabled us to develop and hone the understanding of policy and program implementation that we share here. In particular, Jodi's collaborations with Kathryn Quick, Melissa Middleton Stone, Sally Coleman Seldon, Jessica Sowa, Kate Conners, Leah Lundquist, Tuesday Ryan-Hart, and Gary De Cramer directly influenced her thinking about implementation theory and practice. Ongoing conversations with John Bryson, Barbara Crosby, Martha Feldman, Brint Milward, and Joe Soss also significantly influenced the contributions she made to this book. Finally, she is thankful for conversations with Kathryn Tout, Laurie Davis, and Barbara Yates, which informed the early childhood case recounted here. Stephanie's collaborations and ongoing discussions with Craig Boardman, Barry Bozeman, Michael Collins, Adam Eckerd, Rob Greenbaum, Jamie Levine-Daniel, Susan Miller, and Blair Russell directly influenced her approach to implementation as a melding pot of policy and management approaches and challenges. And she is indebted to her ongoing collaborations with the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, including Holly Holtzen, Cindy Flaherty, and Stephanie Casey-Pierce. The policy challenges presented in this book are our own views, not those of the Ohio Housing Finance Agency or its representatives.

Most important, we express sincere gratitude to our families, who were patient and compassionate supporters as we worked on this book, putting up with our late nights and time away from home for writing retreats together. In particular, our husbands, Steve Marchese and James Moulton, offered love and encouragement every step of the way.

Notes

1

 We agree with James March and Johan Olsen, who say: “It is that governance becomes less a matter of engineering than of gardening; less a matter of hunting than of gathering.” James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, “Organizing Political Life: What Administrative Reorganization Tells Us about Government,”

American Political Science Review

77, no. 2 (1983): 281–96. A similar idea is elaborated by Johan Olsen, who says, “Reformers are institutional gardeners more than architects and engineers. They reinterpret codes of behavior, impact causal and normative beliefs, . . . develop organized capabilities, and improve adaptability.” Johan P. Olsen, “Understanding Institutions and Logics of Appropriateness: Introductory Essay” (ARENA working paper 13, no. 07, Centre for European Studies, 2007).

Part One

The Implementation Landscape

Reformers are institutional gardeners more than architects and engineers. They reinterpret codes of behavior, impact causal and normative beliefs, foster civic and democratic identities and engagement, develop organized capabilities, and improve adaptability.

1

The great thing about [gardening] is the way something new is always happening . . . Each year there are new varieties to discover in the annual crop of seed catalogs, new trends to dabble with and new planting schemes to explore. And apart from the dazzling variety of the plants themselves, there are the imponderables of pests, problems and weather that combine to make each season a new gardening adventure. But some things never change—the basic skills of sowing, planting, and cultivation.

2

In part 1, we describe the landscape of our approach to policy and program implementation. While we integrate prior approaches to understanding implementation in public contexts, we devote attention to describing an alternative way to view implementation, suggesting criteria for assessing effectiveness, and explaining why things happen the way they do. Chapter 1 presents our definition of effective implementation and key elements in our approach. It is worth noting that this approach is purposefully pragmatic, grounded in academic thinking, but also drawing considerably from experience and reflection. And it is context dependent. Effective implementation cannot be reduced to a generic set of skills that can be applied universally across all settings. Policy-specific expertise is essential, and we introduce case examples that we follow throughout the book to elucidate the dynamics of implementation analysis in specific settings.

Chapter 2 situates our approach within the context of three other traditions of scholarship and practice: political processes and authority, governance and management, and policy and program evaluations. One of our motivations for writing this book is the cognitive dissonance we often feel when engaging scholarship in any one of these areas. On one hand, each directly speaks to the implementation system and its challenges. But on the other hand, each informs only one piece of the implementation puzzle—political and power dynamics, the governance system, or interventions targeting behavioral change. In our work as practitioners and now scholars, we navigate across these artificial boundaries, borrowing from each the relevant aspects for implementation. We think that this is an important contribution for future students and practitioners and therefore share these insights in chapter 2.

Finally, in chapter 3, we apply the concept of strategic action fields to the implementation system as a way to suggest a systematic way to explain what happens in implementation systems. By doing this, we emphasize that these systems are complex, not merely complicated. They cannot be neatly reduced to a set of factors or variables that predict success, but rather must be viewed as dynamic, living social systems. Each level in the implementation system is a strategic action field with a unique social structure and dynamics that shape the core program. The core program is what distinguishes implementation from other change initiatives—it involves establishing viable options, using a logic of change, and selecting a means for activity coordination. This is a new way of thinking about the implementation system. And like any other new idea, it may take some time to digest the concepts. We continue to weave the concepts presented in this chapter throughout the rest of the book. By its end, we believe this new way of thinking can become second nature and improve your own endeavors as implementation practitioners.

Notes

1

 Johan P. Olsen, “Understanding Institutions and Logics of Appropriateness: Introductory Essay” (ARENA working paper 13, no. 07, Centre for European Studies, 2007), 10.

2

 Sue Phillips, introduction to

The Practical Gardening Encyclopedia

(Surrey: Colour Library Direct, 1997).

Chapter OneFraming Implementation

By April 2014, Sandra Martinez, manager at Connect with Health Colorado, could finally stop to breathe and reflect on the events of the previous year.1 The federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a major change in public policy (see Box 1.1), and her organization, a nonprofit formed by the legislature to implement the state's health care insurance marketplace, was at the center stage of Colorado's efforts to get the first wave of citizens enrolled. While in late 2013 public and national media attention reached fever pitch when operational challenges threatened the federal insurance website marketplace, Colorado was not caught in that controversy. Because it was one of the seventeen states that elected to operate its own insurance exchange, she and other leaders in the state's public, nonprofit, and private health organizations focused their attention on other important implementation activities. There had been some delays in the state-run enrollment process, largely because of the state's effort to sign up as many people as eligible into Medicaid to reduce citizens' expenses. Yet a sizable number had completed an application, some drawing on the support of navigators contracted to provide individual support in making insurance selections.