Seamless Government by Russell M. Linden

Linden, Russell M. Seamless Government: A Practical Guide to Re-Engineering in the Public Sector. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.
ISBN 0-7879-0015-X

Russell Linden’s book is a guide to the principles and practice of re-engineering in public sector agencies. He defines and explains the concepts of re-engineering and provides a thorough, step-by-step process for conducting a re-engineering project.

I was interested in the way he addressed the problem of defining customers. He identifies three groups: customers, who pay the agency; consumers, who use the agency’s services; and constituents, who have an interest in the mission of the agency. It is a simple way to organize stakeholders and identify potential beneficiaries, but it does not get the agency out of the need to resolve competing interests. For instance, my program will be streamlining the process for issuing construction permits. It will have little impact on the customer (the General Assembly) or the constituents (the public and environmental groups), but will be a benefit to the consumer (permit applicants).

In addition, I finally got the type of handling of case studies that I hoped to find in some of the other books. I was well impressed with the chapter devoted to the case studies of two agencies.

I would have liked to know more about the difficulties, specifically what does not work and sources of resistance to re-engineering. I think this could be well addressed by two more case studies. One would demonstrate how an agency used pilots, trickle-down and tell and sell and why these techniques failed. The second would demonstrate how and agency addressed the fears and resistance of managers, specialists and central staff.



I originally wrote this review in 1999 when I read the book for a class. I don’t remember what construction permitting process improvements I had in mind, but the probably had something to do with state and federal permits for wastewater facilities. I think my old agency is still behind the ball when it comes to using information technology in the permitting process. The job is made more difficult by the addition of new rules, new interpretations of existing requirements, and tight deadlines for getting state rules and practices in line with the present federal regime. I’m full of opinions about both the state and federal approach to wastewater regulation, especially permitting. I’ll refrain from further editorializing here. Presently, I provide management consulting and administrative services to utilities. You can find out more about my consulting practice here.