It's called 'service design.' The idea is to combine behavioral science with a participatory approach to making public services work better.

Reorganizing a government's agencies and services -- whether consolidating them or breaking them up -- isn't easy. There are some important things to keep in mind.

When a program is dysfunctional, the problem is often in the pipes and valves it flows through.

In the end, it's usually better to define what a service should be before deciding who should deliver it.

Sometimes even the best program design and execution fail to get a government service to a recipient who needs it. There are ways to overcome those final hurdles.

One of the biggest barriers to consolidating service delivery is a jurisdiction's fear that it will lose its individual identity. There are ways to deal with that.

The way evidence-based analysis—rather than what ‘passes for wisdom’—turned a losing baseball team into a winner has powerful lessons for government decision-making.

How? Foster transparency initiatives that make data actionable.

The rush to spend stimulus money as quickly as possible is fraught with management risks.

There's no time like hard times to take a close look at duplicative programs.

A paradigm shift provides a valuable lesson for public management.