Partnerships and Best Practices

Best Practices in Public Management and Leadership Development

Best practices in public management are defined and integrated into learning by building on the existing work in policy centres and departments, developing these leading practices into teachable content and then integrating them across the entire range of learning programs available at the Canada School of Public Service.

The School provides learning opportunities at the individual and organizational levels and encourages the promotion of best practices in public management and change management support. This work is conducted by specialists in public management and is a key part of a larger system of support that the School offers to Deputy Heads in building the capacity of their organizations.

Best practices in leadership development in leading organizations are adopted and incorporated into School leadership programs to keep them at the leading-edge and generating maximum results in the development of managers and senior leaders in the Public Service of Canada.

The School also supports academic and other partner organizations in developing and disseminating leading-edge knowledge on practical public management issues that are aligned with identified public service management priorities through the Innovative Public Management Research Fund contribution program.

Some examples of best practices that are or will be integrated into learning activities include Integrated Planning, Talent Management, Knowledge Management and Collective Staffing.

Learning Publications from the School also provide relevant, accessible and leading-edge practices in public management for federal public servants.

Identifying Top Issues and Priorities

The School's Partnerships and Best Practices group is staffed by specialists in public management. Linked to the group are CSPS Fellows — highly experienced individuals from the public service and the private sector (government, the not-for-profit sector, universities and businesses). Fellows contribute to and lead specific CSPS-related projects.

The Partnerships and Best Practices group also works closely with universities, especially schools of public administration.

The identification of top priorities for strengthening management practices in the public service is based upon an assessment of the most critical management issues requiring attention public service-wide and reflects the views of policy centres and the senior leader community. Once priorities are determined, the School partners with the policy authority and leading practitioners across the public service to identify, analyse and validate best practices in these priority areas.

Integration of Best Practices in Learning Activities

The School model for best practices is learning-based, with two stages. The first stage applies learning tools in the process of analysing and defining best practices in partnership with policy centres and leading practitioners, using workshops, seminars, online collaborative tools and other mechanisms. This process toward the development of teachable content itself achieves significant dissemination and adoption of best practices, and further nurtures both existing and nascent communities of practice in a given domain.

In the second stage, the teachable content developed around the best practices is integrated into a wide range of individual learning programs (mandatory courses, functional community programs, general professional development, leadership and others), as well as organizational learning and change management interventions. This generates broad-scale promotion and dissemination at a range of levels across the public service.

Contact Information

For more information please email: pbp-ppe@csps-efpc.gc.ca