Through OPM’s Open Government Plan, we have made the commitment to working with stakeholders to meet their needs and making more information available to and usable by the public. We are engaging OPM employees, along with external stakeholders, in a more collaborative and transparent way to solve complex, agency-wide problems through clearly defining the problem, generating creative ideas, and finally recommending new solutions to the Executive Board.

Here are some of the highlights of what we have accomplished thus far:

• We formed a governance structure with representation from throughout OPM and from external stakeholders. Participants from field offices and the union have played vital roles as members of our six Open Government teams. This structure has allowed us to use an inductive approach and incorporate ideas from other agencies, academia, and non-profit institutions by working together across internal and external boundaries. In this way, we collaborate to make meaningful change at OPM.
• OPM was ranked among the top five agencies in OpenTheGovernment.org's first assessment of Open Government plans throughout the Executive Branch.
• The Agency received a Leading Practices Award from the White House for our Flagship initiative to bring knowledge management and collaborative technologies to OPM.
• We stood up OPM’s searchable Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) engine and are about to complete Phase II of this project. Through the FAQs, members of the public can find answers to their questions about Federal HR policies and procedures.

But we’re not done yet – in fact, we’re just getting started. We are moving forward with implementing OPM’s Open Government Plan and focusing on ways in which openness – and transparency in particular – can help us better do our jobs and fulfill our mission to recruit, retain, and honor a world-class workforce to serve the American people. To that end, in February, OPM will host an interagency Open Government summit during which will we not only showcase our successful and unique approach to Open Government, but also engage in yet more collaboration on challenges we face.

I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of our Open Government initiative – those who have dedicated themselves throughout the year to leading and participating in OPM’s efforts, those who have responded to requests for information from the public and from the Open Government Forum, and others who have stepped in as their engagement was needed and demonstrated great flexibility in support of the teams. Openness must become part of the way each of us operates every day, recognizing that, as a result, our jobs will be made easier and our service to our customers better. As we move forward with implementation, I look forward to meeting with the Open Government Team in January to discuss next steps.

I congratulate everyone who has made our Open Government initiative successful, and encourage all of OPM to join our important journey towards more effective and transparent government.

John Berry
Director

Here are some of the questions about transparency, collaboration, and participation we asked in the 2010 survey:

• I can disclose a suspected violation of any law, rule or regulation without fear of reprisal
• The people I work with cooperate to get the job done
• Employees in my work unit share job knowledge with each other
• Managers promote communication among different work units (for example, about projects, goals, needed resources)
• Managers support collaboration across work units to accomplish work objectives
• How satisfied are you with the information you receive from management on what's going on in your organization?

Over a quarter-million government employees responded to the survey. Read our Published Reports for narrative accounts of the results or check out the weighted and unweighted results to see the data.

Now that we’ve collected the data, we need to act on the results. OPM is starting a new initiative through which we will provide customized support to agencies wishing to use the results of the survey to spur changes within their organizations.

The Fedview survey is one way employees can help improve their agencies. Others include President Obama's SAVE Award, through which the Administration is collecting ideas from Federal employees on how to achieve efficiencies and savings within their agencies. We'd love to hear from you about other ways Federal employees might help bring about improvements at their agencies, especially at OPM.

Please share your thoughts on the Fedview survey with us!

• We have formed the Component Teams mentioned in our Open Government Plan and Charter, both of which can be found from the OpenOPM homepage.
• Speaking of our plan and charter, we released version 1.2 of the plan and finalized the charter.
• We are scheduling our first Component Team meetings for early to mid-July. In preparation for those meetings, we held a day-long training session for the coaches and presenters for those teams. Several other OPM employees participated in the session — having seen the gains the Open Government Core Team has made in learning, they are interested in exploring possible uses for Action Learning in their organizations.
• We completed a brief analysis of the comments we've received on this blog. We concluded that many of you are interested in hiring reform and related policies. You're seeking ways to improve communication with OPM and are sometimes frustrated with the process of seeking Federal employment. As time passes and the initial excitement of setting up the Component Teams begins to subside, this analysis will remind us of why it is so important for us to work to improve communication with the public and service to our stakeholders.
• One major way in which we are seeking to improve customer service in the immediate future is our Searchable Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) engine. We are completing the testing of Stage I of the FAQs engine and will launch this Wednesday. Please use it and share your ideas about it with us in this space. We are already planning Stage II, with more features greater interactivity.

As always, we look forward to hearing your ideas about how we can improve openness at OPM!