Founded in 1977, the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program is intended to be “the Federal Government’s premier leadership development program for advanced degree holders across all academic disciplines” with a mission “to recruit and develop a cadre of future government leaders from all segments of society.” The challenges facing our country require a robust pipeline of talented and representative rising leaders across federal agencies. The PMF program has historically been a leading source of such talent. 

The next Administration should leverage this storied program to reinvigorate recruitment for a small, highly-skilled management corps of upwardly-mobile public servants and ensure that the PMF program retains its role as the government’s premier pipeline for early-career talent. It should do so by committing to placing all PMF Finalists in federal jobs (rather than only half, as has been common in recent years), creating new incentives for agencies to engage, and enhancing user experience for all PMF stakeholders. 

Challenge and Opportunity

Bearing the Presidential Seal, the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) Program is the Federal Government’s premier leadership development program for advanced degree holders across all academic disciplines. Appropriately for a program created in the President’s name, the application process for the PMF program is rigorous and competitive. Following a resume and transcript review, two assessments, and a structured interview, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) selects and announces PMF Finalists. 

Selection as a Finalist is only the first step in a PMF applicant’s journey to a federal position. After they are announced, PMF Finalists have 12 months to find an agency posting by completing a second round of applications to specific positions that agencies have designated as eligible for PMFs. OPM reports that “over the past ten years, on average, 50% of Finalists obtain appointments as Fellows.” Most Finalists who are placed are not appointed until late in the eligibility period: halfway through the 2024 eligibility window, only 85 of 825 finalists (10%) had been appointed to positions in agencies.

For applicants and universities, this reality can be dispiriting and damage the reputation of the program, especially for those not placed. The yearlong waiting period ending without a job offer for about half of Finalists belies the magnitude of the accomplishment of rising to the top of such a competitive pool of candidates eager to serve their country. Additionally, Finalists who are not placed in a timely manner will be likelier to pursue job opportunities outside of federal service.  At a moment when the federal government is facing an extraordinary talent crisis with an aging workforce and large-scale retirements, the PMF program must better serve its purpose as a trusted source of high-level, early-career talent.

zThe current program design also affects the experience of agency leaders—such as hiring managers and Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCOs)—as they consider hiring PMFs. When agencies hire a PMF for a 2-year placement, they cover the candidate’s salary plus an $8,000 fee to OPM’s PMF program office to support its operations. Agencies consider hiring PMF Finalists with the knowledge that the PMF has the option to complete a 6-month rotational assignment outside of their hiring unit. These factors may create the impression that hiring a PMF is “costlier” than other staffing options.

Despite these challenges, the reasons for agencies to invest in the PMF program remain numerous:

• It remains intensely competitive and desirable for applicants; in 2024, the program had an 11.5% acceptance rate. 
• PMFs are high quality hires: 87% of PMFs took a permanent or term position in government following the completion of their two-year fellowship. 
• The PMF alumni network includes celebrated career and political leaders across government. 
• The PMF program is a leading source of general management talent, with strong brand equity to reach this population.

The PMF is still correctly understood as the government’s premier onramp program for early career managerial talent. With some thoughtful realignment, it can sustain and strengthen this role and improve experience for all its core stakeholders.  

Plan of Action

The next Administration should take a direct hand in supporting the PMF Program. As the President’s appointee overseeing the program, the OPM Director should begin by publicly setting an ambitious placement percentage goal and then driving the below reforms to advance that goal. 

Recommendation 1. Increase the Finalist placement rate by reducing the Finalist pool.

The status quo reveals misalignment between the pool of PMF Finalists and demand for PMFs across government. This may be in part due to the scale of demand, but is also a consequence of PMF candidates and finalists with ever-broader skill sets, which makes placement more challenging and complex. Along with the 50% placement rates, the existing imbalance between finalists and placements is reflected in the decision to contract the finalist pool from 1100 in 2022 to 850 in 2023 and 825 in 2024. The next Administration should adjust the size of the Finalist pool further to ensure a near-100% placement rate and double down on its focus on general managerial talent to simplify disciplinary matching. Initially, this might mean shrinking the pool from the 825 advanced in 2024 to 500 or even fewer. 

The core principle is simple: PMF Finalists should be a valuable resource for which agencies compete. There should be (modestly) fewer Finalists than realistic agency demand, not more. Critically, this change would not aim to reduce the number of PMFs serving in government. Rather, it seeks to sustain the current numbers while dramatically reducing the number of Finalists not placed and creating a healthier set of incentives for all parties.

When the program can reliably boast high placement rates, then the Federal government can strategize on ways to meaningfully increase the pool of Fellows and use the program to zero in on priority hard-to-hire disciplines outside of general managerial talent.

Recommendation 2. Attach a financial incentive to hiring and retaining a PMF while improving accountability. 

To underscore the singular value of PMFs and their role in the hiring ecosystem, the next Administration should attach a financial incentive to hiring a PMF. 

Because of the $8,000 placement fee, PMFs are seen as a costlier route than other sources of talent. A financial incentive to hire PMFs would reverse this dynamic. The next Administration might implement a large incentive of $50,000 per Fellow, half of which would be granted when a Fellow is placed and the other half to be granted when the Fellow accepts a permanent full-time job offer in the Federal government. This split payment would signal an investment in Fellows as the future leaders of the federal government. 

Assuming an initial cohort of 400 placed Fellows at $50,000 each, OPM would require $20 million plus operating costs for the PMF program office. To secure funds, the Administration could seek appropriations, repurpose funds through normal budget channels, or pursue an agency pass-the-hat model like the financing of the Federal Executive Board and Hiring Experience program offices. 

To parallel this incentive, the Administration should also implement accountability measures to ensure agencies more accurately project their PMF needs by assigning a cost to failing to place some minimum proportion–perhaps 70%–of the Finalists projected in a given cycle. This would avoid too many unplaced Finalists. Agencies that fail to meet the threshold should have reduced or delayed access to the PMF pool in subsequent years. 

Recommendation 3. Build a Stronger Support Ecosystem 

In support of these implementation changes, the next Administration should pursue a series of actions to elevate the program and strengthen the PMF ecosystem. 

Even if the Administration pursues the above recommendations, some Finalists would remain unpaired. The PMF program office should embrace the role of a talent concierge for a smaller, more manageably-sized cohort of yet-unpaired Finalists, leveraging relationships across the government, including with PMF Alumni and the Presidential Management Alumni Association (PMAA) and OPM’s position as the government’s strategic talent lead to encourage agencies to consider specific PMF Finalists in a bespoke way. The Federal government should also consider ways to privilege applications from unplaced Finalists who meet criteria for a specific posting.

To strengthen key PMF partnerships in agencies, the Administration should elevate the role of PMF Coordinators beyond “other duties as assigned” to a GS-14 “PMF Director.” With new incentives to encourage placement and consistent strategic orientation from agency partners, agencies will be in a better position to project their placement needs by volume and role and hire PMF Finalists who meet them. PMF Coordinators would have explicit performance measures that reflect ownership over the success of the program.

The Administration must commit and sustain senior-level engagement—in the White House and at the senior levels of OMB, OPM, and in senior agency roles including Deputy Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries for Management, and Chief Human Capital Officers—to drive forward these changes. It must seize key leverage points throughout the budget and strategic management cycle, including OPM’s Human Capital Operating Plan process, OMB’s Strategic Reviews process, and the Cross-Agency Priority Goal setting rhythms. And it must sustain focus, recognizing that these new design elements may not succeed in their first cycle, and should provide support for experimentation and innovation.

Conclusion

For decades, the PMF program has consistently delivered top-tier talent to the federal government. However, the past few years have revealed a need for reform to improve the experience of PMF hopefuls and the agencies that will undoubtedly benefit from their skills. With a smaller Finalist pool, healthier incentives, and a more supportive ecosystem, agencies would compete for a subsidized pool of high-quality talent available to them at lower cost than alternative route, and Fellows who clear the significant barrier of the rigorous selection process would have far stronger assurance of a placement. If these reforms are successfully implemented, esteem for the government’s premier onramp for rising managerial talent will rise, contributing to the impression that the Federal government is a leading and prestigious employer of our nation’s rising leaders. 

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

The federal government is dramatically inefficient, duplicative, wasteful, and costly in executing the common services required to operate. However, the new Administration has an opportunity to transform government operations to save money, improve customer experience, be more efficient and effective, consolidate, reduce the number of technology platforms across government, and have significantly improved decision-making power. This should be accomplished by adopting and transforming to a government-wide shared service business model involving the collective efforts of Congress, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), General Services Administration (GSA), and oversight agencies, and be supported by the President Management Agenda (PMA). In fact, this is a real opportunity for the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to realize a true systemic transformation to a better and more streamlined government. 

Challenge and Opportunity

The federal government is the largest employer in the world with many disparate mission-centric functions to serve the American people. To execute mission objectives, varied mission support functions are necessary, yet costly with many disconnected and inefficient layers added over many years. For example, a hiring action costs over $10,000 in the federal government vs. $4,000 in the private sector, and transactions such as paying an invoice cost hundreds of dollars compared to $1–2 in other sectors. Many support functions—such as travel management, FOIA management, background investigations, human resources, financial management, facilities management, and more — are equally costly and inefficient.

While these functions are critical to helping government programs achieve their mission, over many years they have grown costly and inefficient through high staffing ratios, duplication of technology platforms, disparate data systems, lack of standardization, and poor modernization. Congress focuses on individual agencies independently and not holistically on the opportunity for government-wide efficiency. Because improving operations has no mandate and GSA serves only in a coordinating role, agencies are free to approach operations any way they wish, resulting in a lack of standardization and the interoperability of systems. Many systems are still operating on extremely old software code, and the Administration and Congress lack government-wide data capacity to have the facts they need to govern. With a burdening national debt, we need to streamline government. To illustrate this opportunity, the federal government operates hundreds of human resources functions, whereas Walmart, the second largest U.S. employer with two million employees, operates just two, one for American and one for Europe.  

There are several small examples in government demonstrating the ability to realize large cost savings and improved services. When the NASA shared services operations were established, it saved over $200 million through consolidation in their first several years. The consolidation of federal payroll services from 24 to 4 functions saved over $3.2 billion. The Technology CEO Council report “The Government We Need” estimated savings of over $1 trillion by the federal government moving to shared services. Commercial sector entities such as Johnson & Johnson saved approximately $2 billion in just two years. 

Plan of Action

Over 85% of Fortune 500 companies and growing numbers of public sector governments around the world have committed to shared services as a mainstream business model. Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and others have realized significant reduction in cost and improved delivery. While shared services have been attempted in many forms since the 1980s in the federal government, implementation has been inconsistent and incomplete due to Congressional and Administration inattention.  As part of past PMAs, a GSA Office of Shared Solutions and Performance (OSSPI) was established, along with a Technology Management Fund (TMF) to support modernization, yet little action has been taken to set goals and achieve results. Most government shared service centers operate on antiquated technology platforms, are at high risk of failure, and are in critical need of modernization. 

Immediate legislative and executive action are necessary to enable robust, cross-government benefits. Transforming government into an efficient and effective operation will take time, measurement, and accountability. It’s important that this be done correctly and begin by building the requisite capacity to realize success and regularly report to the Administration and Congress. To ensure success, the following initial actions should be taken:

1. Congress should make the consolidation of common service operating and business models statutorily mandatory and provide resources for GSA to conduct the appropriate analysis, design, and transformation to consolidated common services.
2. The Administration should install the leadership with the responsibility, authority, and accountability for transforming government operations. This would be a Senate-confirmed Commissioner of Government Operations at GSA directing operations with policy authority resting with the OPM Deputy Director for Management (DDM).  
3. The Administration should enhance GSA/OSSPI to create an effective governance structure and increase their capacity and role. Governance would be structured through the DDM, the GSA Commissioner for government operations, the establishment of a Shared Services Advisory Board (SSAB) made up of agency Deputy Secretaries, and the inclusion of the existing chief operating councils. OSSPI would take on the lead role for transformation and operations oversight and have the staff resources and authority necessary to execute.
4. Congress should direct and the Administration should conduct a deep analysis and design the most effective operating and business models. It is necessary to identify current resources, cost, and performance as well as benchmarks against other entities. This would be led by GSA and conducted by an independent, non-conflicted entity. Based on this analysis GSA would design optimized models, provide a clear business case, and prepare a transformation/modernization plan. The Commission would then approve and recommend further Congressional and/or executive action required to implement the transformation. In parallel, GSA would develop selected government staff and managers to participate in the analysis and transformation process.
5. The Administration, through OMB and GSA, should implement the multi–year transformation and modernization effort and implement, measure, report results, and realize the requisite Return on Investment (ROI). 

These initial activities should cost approximately $80 million and be cost-neutral by allocating funding from existing redundant operational and modernization efforts. This would fund cross-government analysis, GSA operations, government staff training, and transformation planning with an ROI to the taxpayer. Impacted federal staff would be retrained in new associated shared services roles and/or other mission support functions where needed.

Conclusion

The time to act boldly is now. The Administration needs to immediately begin reducing costs and improving services to taxpayers and government programs through the implementation of a shared services business model with strong leadership, a proven approach, and accountability to demonstrate results. Trillions of dollars fed back into supporting governments financial needs are necessary and attainable.

It often takes the federal government months to hire for critical science and technology (STEM) roles, far too slow to respond effectively to the demands of emerging technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence), disasters (COVID), and implementing complex legislation (CHIPS). One solution is for the Federal Government to create a pool of pre-vetted STEM talent to address these needs. This memo outlines how the federal government can leverage existing authorities and hiring mechanisms to achieve this goal, making it easier to respond to staffing needs for emerging policies, technologies, and crises in near-real time.

To lead the effort, the White House should appoint a STEM talent lead (or empower the current Tech Talent Task Force Coordinator or Senior Advisor for Talent Strategy). The STEM talent lead should make a national call to action for scientists and technologists to join the government. They should establish a team in the Executive Office of the President (EOP) to proactively recruit and vet candidates from underrepresented groups, and establish a pool of talent that is available to every agency on-demand.

Challenge and Opportunity

In general, agencies are lagging in adopting best practices for government hiring. This includes  the Subject Matter Expert Qualifications Assessment (SMEQA, a hiring process that replaces simple hiring questionnaires with efficient subject-matter-expert-led interviews), shared certificate hiring (which allow qualified but unsuccessful candidates to be hired into similar roles without having to reapply or re-interview), flexible hiring authorities (which allow the government to recruit talent for critical roles (e.g. cybersecurity) more efficiently and allow for alternative work arrangements, such as remote work), proactive sourcing (individual identification and relationship building), and continuous recruiting.

Failure to effectively leverage these hiring tools leads to significant delays in federal hiring, which in turn makes it difficult or impossible for the federal government to nimbly handle rapidly emerging and evolving STEM issue areas (e.g., AI, cybersecurity, extreme weather, quantum computing) and to execute on complex implementation demands.

There is an opportunity to correct this failure by empowering a STEM talent lead in the White House. The talent lead would work with agencies to build a national pool of pre-vetted STEM talent, with the goal of making it possible for federal agencies to fill critical roles in a matter of days – especially when crises strike. This will save the government time, effort, and money while delivering a better candidate experience, which is critical when hiring for in-demand roles.

Plan of Action 

The federal government should adopt a four-part plan of action to realize the opportunity described above.

Recommendation 1. Hire and empower a STEM talent lead for critical hiring needs

The next administration should recruit, hire, and empower a STEM talent lead in the Executive Office of the President. The STEM lead should be offered a senior role, either political (Special Assistant to the President) or a senior-level civil service role. The role should sit in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy  (OSTP) and report to the OSTP director. The STEM talent lead would be tasked with coordinating hiring for critical STEM roles throughout the government. Similar roles currently exist, but are limited to specific subject areas. For instance, the Tech Talent Task Force Coordinator coordinates tech talent policy in an effort to scale hiring and manages a task force that seeks to align agency talent needs. The Senior Advisor for Talent Strategy serves a similar function. The Senior Advisor leads a “tech surge” at the Office of Management and Budget, pulling together workforce and technology policy implementation, including efforts to speed up hiring. Either of these roles could be elevated to the STEM lead, or a new position could be created.

The STEM talent lead would also coordinate government units that have already been established to help deliver STEM talent to federal agencies efficiently. Such units include the United States Digital Service, 18F, Presidential Innovation Fellows, the Lab at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Department of Homeland Security’s Artificial Intelligence Corps, and the Digital Corps at the General Services Administration. The STEM talent lead should be empowered to pull experts from these teams into OSTP for short details to define critical hiring needs. The talent lead should also be responsible for coordinating efforts among the various groups. The goal would not be to supplant the operations of these individual groups, rather to learn from and streamline government-wide efforts in critical fields.

Recommendation 2. Proactive, continuous hiring for key roles across the government

The STEM talent lead should work with the administration and agencies to define the most critical and underrepresented scientific and technical skill sets and identify the highest impact placement for them in the federal government. This is currently being done under the Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence which could be expanded to include all STEM needs. The STEM Lead should establish sourcing strategies and identify prospective hires, possibly building on OPM’s Talent Network goals.

The lead should also collaborate with public and private subject matter experts and use approved and tested hiring processes, such as SMEQA and shared certificates, to pre-vet candidates. These experts would then be placed on a government-wide hiring certificate so that every federal agency could make them a job offer. Once vetted and placed on a government-wide hiring certificate, experts would be available for agencies to onboard within days.

Recommendation 3. Implement a “shared-certificate-by-default” policy

Traditionally, more than one qualified applicant will apply to a federal job opening. In most cases, one applicant will be chosen and the rest rejected, even if the government (even the same agency) has another open role for the same job class. This creates an unnecessary burden on qualified applicants and the government. Qualified applicants should only have to apply once when multiple opportunities exist for the same or similar jobs. This exists, to a limited extent, for excepted service applicants but not for everyone. To achieve this, all critical, scientific, and national security roles should default to shared hiring certificates. Sharing hiring certificates is an approved federal policy but is not the default. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) could issue a policy memo making shared certificates the default, and then work with the OPM to implement it. 

Furthermore, the STEM talent lead should coordinate a centralized list of qualified applicants who were not chosen off of shared certificates if they opt-in to receiving job offers from other agencies. This functionality, called “Talent Programs,” has been piloted through USAJobs but has had limited success due to a lack of centralized support.

Recommendation 4. Let departing employees remain available for rapid re-hire into federal roles

Departing staff in critical roles (as determined by the STEM talent lead; see Recommendation 2) with good performance reviews should be offered an opportunity to join a central pool of experts that are available for rehire. The government invests heavily in hiring, training, and providing security clearances to employees with an expectation that they will serve long careers. 20+ year careers, however, are no longer the norm for most applicants. Increasingly, talent is lost to burnout, lack of opportunity inside government, or a desire to do something different. Current policy offers only “reinstatement” benefits, which allow former federal employees to apply for jobs without competing with the broader public. Reinstatement job seekers are still required to apply from scratch to individual positions.

Former employees are a critical group when staffing up quickly. Immediate access to staff with approved security clearances is particularly critical in national emergencies. Former employees also bring their prior training and cultural awareness, making them more effective, quicker than new hires. To incentivize participation from departing employees, the government could offer to maintain their security clearance, give them access to their Thrift Savings Plan and/or medical insurance, and other benefits. This could be piloted through existing authorities (e.g., as intermittent consultants) and OMB and/or OPM could develop a new retention policy based on the outcomes of that pilot.

Conclusion 

The federal government needs to establish processes to proactively recruit for key roles, help every qualified candidate get a job, and rapidly respond to STEM staffing needs for critical and complex policies, technologies, and crises. A central pool of science and technology experts can be called upon to fill permanent roles, respond to emergencies, and provide advisory services. Talent can enter and exit the pool as needed, providing the government access to a broad set of skills and experience to pull from immediately.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

A federal agency takes over 100 days on average to hire a new employee — with significantly longer time frames for some positions — compared to 36 days in the private sector. Factors contributing to extended timelines for federal hiring include (1) difficulties in quickly aligning position descriptions with workforce needs, and (2) opaque and poor processes for screening applicants.

Fortunately, federal hiring managers and HR staffing specialists already have many tools at their disposal to accelerate the hiring process and improve quality outcomes – to achieve better hires faster. Inside and outside their organizations, agencies are already starting to share position descriptions, job opportunity announcements (JOAs), assessment tools, and certificates of eligibles from which they can select candidates. However, these efforts are largely piecemeal and dependent on individual initiative, not a coordinated approach that can overcome the pervasive federal hiring challenges.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) Council should integrate these tools into a technology platform that makes it easy to access and implement effective hiring practices. Such a platform would alleviate unnecessary burdens on federal hiring staff, transform the speed and quality of federal hiring, and bring trust back into the federal hiring system.

Challenge and Opportunity 

This memo focuses on opportunities to improve two stages in the federal hiring process: (1) developing and posting a position description (PD), and (2) conducting a hiring assessment.

Position Descriptions. Though many agencies require managers to review and revise PDs annually, during performance review time, this requirement often goes unheeded. Furthermore, volatile occupations for which job skills change rapidly – think IT or scientific disciplines with frequent changes to how they practice (e.g., meteorology) or new technologies that upend how analytical skills (e.g., data analytics) are practiced – can result in yet more changes to job skills and competencies embedded in PDs.

When a hiring manager has an open position, a current PD for that job is necessary to proceed with the Job Opportunity Announcement (JOA)/posting. When the PD is not current, the hiring manager must work with an HR staffing specialist to determine the necessary revisions. If the revisions are significant, an agency classification specialist is engaged. The specialist conducts interviews with hiring managers and subject-matter experts and/or performs deeper desk audits, job task analyses, or other evaluations to determine the additional or changed job duties. Because classifiers may apply standards in different ways and rate the complexity of a position differently, a hiring manager can rarely predict how long the revision process will take or what the outcome will be. All this delays and complicates the rest of the hiring process.

Hiring Assessments. Despite a 2020 Executive Order and other directives requiring agencies to engage in skills-based hiring, agencies too often still use applicant self-certification on job skills as a primary screening method. This frequently results in certification lists of candidates who do not meet the qualifications to do the job in the eyes of hiring managers. Indeed, a federal hiring manager cannot find a qualified candidate from a certified list approximately 50% of the time when only a self-assessment questionnaire is used for screening. There are alternatives to self-certification, such as writing samples, multiple-choice questions, exercises that test for particular problem-solving or decision-making skills, and simulated job tryouts. Yet hiring managers and even some HR staffing specialists often don’t understand how assessment specialists decide what methods are best for which positions – or even what assessment options exist.

Both of these stages involve a foundation of occupation- and grade-level competencies – that is, the knowledge, skills, abilities, behaviors, and experiences it takes to do the job. When a classifier recommends PD updates, they apply pre-set classification standards comprising job duties for each position or grade. These job duties are built in turn around competencies. Similarly, an assessment specialist considers competencies when deciding how to evaluate a candidate for a job.

Each agency – and sometimes sub-agency unit – has its own authority to determine job competencies. This has caused different competency analyses, PDs, and assessment methods across agencies to proliferate. Though the job of a marine biologist, Grade 9, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is unlikely to be considerably different from the job of a marine biologist, Grade 9 at the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), the respective competencies associated with the two positions are unlikely to be aligned. Competency diffusion across agencies is costly, time-consuming, and duplicative. 

Plan of Action

An Intergovernmental Platform for Competencies, PDs, Classifications, and Assessment Tools to Accelerate and Improve Hiring

To address the challenges outlined above, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Chief Human Capital Officers (CHCO) should create a web platform that makes it easy for federal agencies to align and exchange competencies, position descriptions, and assessment strategies for common occupations. This platform would help federal hiring managers and staffing specialists quickly compile a unified package that they can use from PD development up to candidate selection when hiring for occupations included on the platform.

To build this platform, the next administration should:

• Invest in creating Position Description libraries starting with the unitary agencies (e.g. the Environmental Protection Agency) then broadening out to the larger, disaggregated ones (e.g., the Department of Health and Human Services).  Each agency should assign individuals responsible for keeping PDs in the libraries current at those agencies. Agencies and OPM would look for opportunities to merge common PDs. OPM would then aggregate these libraries into a “master” PD library for use within and across agencies. OPM should also share examples of best-in-class JOAs associated with each PD. This effort could be piloted with the most common occupations by agency.
  Adopt competency frameworks and assessment tools already developed by industry associations, professional societies and unions for their professions. These organizations have completed the job task analyses and have developed competency frameworks, definitions, and assessments for the occupations they cover. For example, IEEE has developed competency models and assessment instruments for electrical and computer engineering. Again, this effort could be piloted by starting with the most common occupations by agency, and the occupations for which external organizations have already developed effective competency frameworks and assessment tools.
• Create a clearinghouse for assessments at OPM indexed to each occupation associated in the PD Library. Assign responsibility to lead agencies for those occupations responsible for the PDs to keep the assessments current and/or test banks robust to meet the needs of the agencies. Expand USA Hire and funding to provide open access by agencies, hiring managers, HR professionals and program leaders.
• Standardize classification determinations for occupations/grade levels included in the master PD library. This will reduce interagency variation in classification changes by occupation and grade level, increase transparency for hiring managers, and reduce burden on staffing specialists and classifiers.
• Delegate authority to CHCOs to mandate use of shared, common PDs, assessments, competencies, and classification determinations. This means cleaning up the many regulatory mandates that do not already designate the agency-level CHCOs with this delegated authority. The workforce policy and oversight agencies (OPM, OMB, Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)) need to change the regulations, policies, and practices to reduce duplication, delegate decision making, and lower variation (For example, allow the classifiers and assessment professionals to default to external, standardized occupation and grade-level competencies instead of creating/re-creating them in each instance.)
• Share decision frameworks that determine assessment strategy/tool selection. Clear, public, transparent, and shared decision criteria for determining the best fit assessment strategy will help hiring managers and HR staffing specialists participate more effectively in executing assessments.
• Agree to and implement common data elements for interoperability. Many agencies will need to integrate this platform into their own talent acquisition systems such as ServiceNow, Monster, and USA Staffing. To be able to transfer data between them, the agencies will need to accelerate their work on common HR data elements in these areas of position descriptions, competencies, and assessments.

Data analytics from this platform and other HR talent acquisition systems will provide insights on the effectiveness of competency development, classification determinations, effectiveness of common PDs and joint JOAs, assessment quality, and effectiveness of shared certification of eligible lists. This will help HR leaders and program managers improve how agency staff are using common PDs, shared certs, classification consistency, assessment tool effectiveness, and other insights.

Finally, hiring managers, HR specialists, and applicants need to collaborate and share information better to implement any of these ideas well. Too often, siloed responsibilities and opaque specialization set back mutual accountability, effective communications, and trust.  These actions entail a significant cultural and behavior change on the part of hiring managers, HR specialists, Industrial/Organizational psychologists, classifiers, and leaders. OPM and the agencies need to support hiring managers and HR specialists in finding assessments, easing the processes that can support adoption of skills-based assessments, agreeing to common PDs, and accelerating an effective hiring process.

Conclusion

The Executive Order on skills-based hiring, recent training from OPM, OMB and the CHCO Council on the federal hiring experience, and potential legislative action (e.g. Chance to Compete Act) are drivers that can improve the hiring process. Though some agencies are using PD libraries, joint postings, and shared referral certificates to improve hiring, these are far from common practice. A common platform for competencies, classifications, PDs, JOAs, and assessment tools, will make it easier for HR specialists, hiring managers and others to adopt these actions – to make hiring better and faster.

Opportunities to move promising hiring practices to habit abound. Position management, predictive workforce planning, workload modeling, hiring flexibilities and authorities, engaging candidates before, during, and after the hiring process are just some of these. Making these practices everyday habits throughout agency regions, states and programs rather than the exception will improve hiring. Looking to the future, greater delegation of human capital authorities to agencies, streamlining the regulations that support merit systems principles, and stronger commitments to customer experience in hiring, will help remove systemic barriers to an effective customer-/and user-oriented federal hiring process.

Taking the above actions on a common platform for competency development, position descriptions, and assessments will make hiring faster and better. With some of these other actions, this can change the relationship of the federal workforce to their jobs and change how the American people feel about opportunities in their government.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

“The decisions that humans make can be extraordinarily costly. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were multi-trillion dollar decisions. If you can improve the accuracy of forecasting individual strategies by just a percentage point, that would be worth tens of billions of dollars.” – Jason Matheny, CEO, RAND Corporation

Predicting the future—a notoriously hard problem—is a core function of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Crowd forecasting methods offer a systematic approach to quantifying the U.S. intelligence community’s uncertainty about the future and predicting the impact of interventions, allowing decision-makers to strategize effectively and allocate resources by outlining risks and tradeoffs in a legible format. We propose that ODNI leverage its earlier investments in crowd-forecasting research to enhance intelligence analysis and interagency coordination. Specifically, ODNI should develop a next-generation crowd-forecasting program that balances academic rigor with policy relevance. To do this, we propose partnering a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) with crowd forecasting experience with executive branch agencies to generate high-value forecasting questions and integrate targeted forecasts into existing briefing and decision-making processes. Crucially, end users (e.g. from the NSC, DoD, etc.) should be embedded in the question-generation process in order to ensure that the forecasts are policy-relevant. This approach has the potential to significantly enhance the quality and impact of intelligence analysis, leading to more robust and informed national security decisions.

Challenge & Opportunity 

ODNI is responsible for the daunting task of delivering insightful, actionable intelligence in a world of rapidly evolving threats and unprecedented complexity. Traditional analytical methods, while valuable, struggle to keep pace with the speed and intricacy of global events where dynamic reports are necessary. Crowd forecasting provides infrastructure for building shared understanding across the Intelligence Community (IC) with a very low barrier to entry. Through the process, each agency can share their assessments of likely outcomes and planned actions based on their intelligence, to be aggregated alongside other agencies. These techniques can serve as powerful tools for interagency coordination within the IC, quickly surfacing areas of consensus and disagreement. By building upon the foundation of existing Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) crowd forecasting research — including IARPA’s Aggregative Contingent Estimation (ACE) tournament and Hybrid Forecasting Competition (HFC) — ODNI has within its reach significant low-hanging fruit for improving the quality of its intelligence analysis and the use of this analysis to inform decision-making.

Despite the IC’s significant investment in research demonstrating the potential of crowd forecasting, integrating these approaches into decision-making processes has proven difficult. The first-generation forecasting competitions showed significant returns from basic cognitive debiasing training, above and beyond the benefits of crowd forecast aggregation. Yet, attempts to incorporate forecasting training and probabilistic estimates into intelligence analysis have fallen flat due in large part to internal politics. Accordingly, the incentives within and among agencies must be considered in order for any forecasting program to deliver value. Importantly, any new crowd forecasting initiative should be explicitly rolled out as a complement, not a substitute, to traditional intelligence analysis. 

Plan of Action

The incoming administration should direct the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to resume its study and implementation of crowd forecasting methods for intelligence analysis. The following recommendations illustrate how this can be done effectively.

Recommendation 1. Develop a Next-Generation Crowd Forecasting Program

Direct a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) experienced with crowd forecasting methods, such as MITRE’s National Security Engineering Center (NSEC) or the RAND Forecasting Initiative (RFI), to develop a next-generation pilot program. 

Prior IARPA studies of crowd-sourced intelligence were focused on the question: How accurate is the wisdom of the crowds on geopolitical questions? To answer this, the IARPA tournaments posed many forecasting questions, rapid-fire, over a relatively short period of time, and these questions were optimized for easy generation and resolution (i.e. straightforward data-driven questions) — at the expense of policy relevance. A next-generation forecasting program should build upon recent research on eliciting from experts the crucial questions that illuminate key uncertainties, point to important areas of disagreement, and estimate the impact of interventions under consideration.   

This program should:

1. Incorporate lessons learned from previous IARPA forecasting tournaments, including difficulties with getting buy-in from leadership to incentivize the participation of busy analysts and decision-makers at ODNI.
2. Develop a framework for generating questions that balance rigor, resolvability, and policy relevance.
3. Implement advanced aggregation and scoring methods, leveraging recent academic research and machine learning methods.

Recommendation 2. Embed the Decision-Maker in the Question Generation Process

Direct the FFRDC to work directly with one or more executive branch partners to embed end users in the process of eliciting policy-relevant forecasting questions. Potential executive branch partners could include the National Security Council, Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Homeland Security, among others.

A formal process for question generation and refinement should be established, which could include:

1. A structured methodology for transforming policy questions of interest into specific, quantifiable forecasting questions.
2. A review process to ensure that questions meet criteria for both forecasting suitability and policy relevance.
3. Mechanisms for rapid question development in response to emerging crises or sudden shifts.
4. Feedback mechanisms to refine and improve question quality over time, with a focus on policy relevance and decision-maker user experience.

Recommendation 3. Integrate Forecasts into Decision-Making Processes

Ensure that resulting forecasts are actively reviewed by decision-makers and integrated into existing intelligence and policy-making processes.

This could involve:

1. Incorporating forecast results into regular intelligence briefings, as a quantitative supplement to traditional qualitative assessments.
2. Developing visualizations/dashboards (Figure 1) to enable decision-makers to explore the reasoning, drivers of disagreement, unresolved uncertainties and changes in forecasts over time.
3. Organizing training sessions for senior leadership on how to interpret and use probabilistic forecasts in decision-making.
4. Establishing a simple, formal process by which policymakers can request forecasts on questions relevant to their work.
5. Creating a review process to assess how forecasts influenced decisions and their outcomes.
6. Using forecast as a tool for interagency coordination, to surface ideas and concerns that people may be hesitant to bring up in front of their superiors.

Figure 1. Example of prototype forecasting dashboards for end-users, highlighting key factors and showing trends in the aggregate forecast over time. (Source: Metaculus)

Conclusion 

ODNI’s mission to “deliver the most insightful intelligence possible” demands continuous innovation. The next-generation forecasting program outlined in this document is the natural next step in advancing the science of forecasting to serve the public interest. Crowd forecasting has proven itself as a generator of reliable predictions, more accurate than any individual forecaster. In an increasingly complex information environment, our intelligence community needs to use every tool at its disposal to identify and address its most pressing questions about the future. By establishing a transparent and rigorous crowd-forecasting process, ODNI can harness the collective wisdom of diverse experts and analysts and foster better interagency collaboration, strengthening our nation’s ability to anticipate and respond to emerging global challenges.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

This policy proposal was incubated at the Energy for Growth Hub and workshopped at FAS in May 2024. 

Increasingly, U.S. national security priorities depend heavily on bolstering the energy security of key allies, including developing and emerging economies. But U.S. capacity to deliver this investment is hamstrung by critical gaps in approach, capability, and tools. 

The new administration should work with Congress to give the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) the mandate and capacity to lead the U.S. interagency in implementing ‘Energy Security Compacts’, bilateral packages of investment and support for allies whose energy security is closely tied to core U.S. priorities. This would require minor amendments to the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003 to add a fourth business line to MCC’s Compact operations and grant the agency authority to coordinate an interagency working group contributing complementary tools and resources. 

This proposal presents an opportunity to deliver on global energy security, an issue with broad appeal and major national security benefits. This initiative would strengthen economic partnerships with allies overseas, who consistently rank energy security as a top priority; enhance U.S. influence and credibility in advancing global infrastructure; and expand growing markets for U.S. energy technology. This proposal is built on the foundations and successes of MCC, a signature achievement of the G.W. Bush administration, and is informed by lessons learned from other initiatives launched by previous presidents of both parties. 

Challenge and Opportunity 

More than ever before, U.S. national security depends on bolstering the energy security of key allies. Core examples include: 

• Securing physical energy assets: In countries under immediate or potential military threat, the U.S. may seek to secure vulnerable critical energy infrastructure, restore energy services to local populations, and build a foundation for long-term restoration.
  
• Countering dependence on geostrategic competitors: U.S. allies’ reliance on geostrategic competitors for energy supply or technologies poses short- and long-term threats to national security. Russia is building large nuclear reactors in major economies including Turkey, Egypt, India, and Bangladesh; has signed agreements to supply nuclear technology to at least 40 countries; and has agreed to provide training and technical assistance to at least another 14. Targeted U.S. support, investment, and commercial diplomacy can head off such dependence by expanding competition.
• Driving economic growth and enduring diplomatic relationships: Many developing and emerging economies face severe challenges in providing reliable, affordable electricity to their populations. This hampers basic livelihoods; constrains economic activity, job creation, and internet access; and contributes to deteriorating economic conditions driving instability and unrest. Of all the constraints analyses conducted by MCC since its creation, roughly half identified energy as a country’s top economic constraint. As emerging economies grow, their economic stability has an expanding influence over global economic performance and security. In coming decades, they will require vast increases in reliable energy to grow their manufacturing and service industries and employ rapidly growing populations. U.S. investment can provide the foundation for market-driven growth and enduring diplomatic partnerships.
• Diversifying supply chains: Many crucial technologies depend on minerals sourced from developing economies without reliable electricity. For example, Zambia accounts for about 4% of global copper supply and would like to scale up production. But recurring droughts have shuttered the country’s major hydropower plant and led to electricity outages, making it difficult for mining operations to continue or grow. Scaling up the mining and processing of key minerals in developing economies will require investment in improving power supply. 

The U.S. needs a mechanism that enables quick, efficient, and effective investment and policy responses to the specific concerns facing key allies. Currently, U.S. capacity to deliver such support is hamstrung by key gaps in approach, capabilities, and tools. The most salient challenges include: 

A project-by-project approach limits systemic impact: U.S. overseas investment agencies including the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), and the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) are built to advance individual commercial energy transactions across many different countries. This approach has value–but is insufficient in cases where the goal is to secure a particular country’s entire energy system by building strong, competitive markets. That will require approaching the energy sector as a complex and interconnected system, rather than a set of stand-alone transactions. 

Diffusion of tools across the interagency hinders coordination. The U.S. has powerful tools to support energy security–including through direct investment, policy support, and technical and commercial assistance–but they are spread across at least nine different agencies. Optimizing deployment will require efficient coordination, incentives for collaboration; and less fragmented engagement with private partners.

Insufficient leverage to incentivize reforms weakens accountability. Ultimately, energy security depends heavily on decisions made by the partner country’s government. In many cases, governments need to make tough decisions and advance key reforms before the U.S. can help crowd in private capital. Many U.S. agencies provide technical assistance to strengthen policy and regulatory frameworks but lack concrete mechanisms to incentivize these reforms or make U.S. funding contingent on progress.

Limited tools supporting vital enabling public infrastructure blocks out private investment. The most challenging bottleneck to modernizing and strengthening a power sector is often not financing new power generation (which can easily attract private investment under the right conditions), but supporting critical enabling infrastructure including grid networks. In most emerging markets, these are public assets, wholly or partially state-owned. However, most U.S. energy finance tools are designed to support only private sector-led investments. This effectively limits their effectiveness to the generation sector, which already attracts far more capital than transmission or distribution. 

To succeed, an energy security investment mechanism should: 

• Enable investment highly tailored to the specific needs and priorities of partners;
• Provide support across the entire energy sector value chain, strengthening markets to enable greater direct investment by DFC and the private sector; 
• Co-invest with partner countries in shared priorities, with strong accountability mechanisms.

Plan of Action

The new administration should work with Congress to give the Millennium Challenge Corporation the mandate to implement ‘Energy Security Compacts’ (ESCs) addressing the primary constraints to energy security in specific countries, and to coordinate the rest of the interagency in contributing relevant tools and resources. This proposal builds on and reflects key lessons learned from previous efforts by administrations of both parties. 

Each Energy Security Compact would include the following: 

• A process led by MCC and the National Security Council (NSC) to identify priority countries.
• An analysis jointly conducted by MCC and the partner country on the key constraints to energy security.
• Negotiation, led by MCC with support from NSC, of a multi-year Energy Security Compact, anchored by MCC support for a specific set of investments and reforms, and complemented by relevant contributions from the interagency. The Energy Security Compact would define agency-specific responsibilities and include clear objectives and measurable targets.
• Implementation of the Energy Security Compact, led by MCC and NSC. To manage this process, MCC and NSC would co-lead an Interagency Working Group comprising representatives from all relevant agencies.
• Results reporting, based on MCC’s top-ranked reporting process, to the National Security Council and Congress. 

This would require the following congressional actions: 

• Amend the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003: Grant MCC the expanded mandate to deploy Energy Security Compacts as a fourth business line. This should include language applying more flexible eligibility criteria to ESCs, and broadening the set of countries in which MCC can operate when implementing an ESC. Give MCC the mandate to co-lead an interagency working group with NSC.
• Plus up MCC Appropriation: ESCs can be launched as a pilot project in a few markets. But ultimately, the model’s success and impact will depend on MCC appropriations, including for direct investment and dedicated staff. MCC has a track record of outstanding transparency in evaluating its programs and reporting results.
• Strengthen DFC through reauthorization. The ultimate success of ESCs hinges on DFC’s ability to deploy more capital in the energy sector. DFC’s congressional authorization expires in September 2025, presenting an opportunity to enhance the agency’s reach and impact in energy security. Key recommendations for reauthorization include: 1) Addressing the equity scoring challenge; and 2) Raising DFC’s maximum contingent liability to $100 billion. 
• Budget. The initiative could operate under various budget scenarios. The model is specifically designed to be scalable, based on the number of countries with which the U.S. wants to engage. It prioritizes efficiency by drawing on existing appropriations and authorities, by focusing U.S. resources on the highest priority countries and challenges, and by better coordinating the deployment of various U.S. tools.

This proposal draws heavily on the successes and struggles of initiatives from previous administrations of both parties. The most important lessons include: 

• From MCC: The Compact model works. Multi-year Compact agreements are an effective way to ensure country buy-in, leadership, and accountability through the joint negotiation process and the establishment of clear goals and metrics. Compacts are also an effective mechanism to support hard infrastructure because they provide multi-year resources.
• From MCC: Investments should be based on rigorous analysis. MCC’s Constraints Analyses identify the most important constraints to economic growth in a given country. That same rigor should be applied to energy security, ensuring that U.S. investments target the highest impact projects, including those with the greatest positive impact on crowding in additional private sector capital.
• From Power Africa: Interagency coordination can work. Coordinating implementation across U.S. agencies is a chronic challenge. But it is essential to ESCs–and to successful energy investment more broadly. The ESC proposal draws on lessons learned from the Power Africa Coordinator’s Office. Specifically, joint-leadership with the NSC focuses effort and ensures alignment with broader strategic priorities. A mechanism to easily transfer funds from the Coordinator’s Office to other agencies incentivizes collaboration, and enables the U.S. to respond more quickly to unanticipated needs. And finally, staffing the office with individuals seconded from relevant agencies ensures that staff understand the available tools, how they can be deployed effectively, and how (and with whom) to work with to ensure success. Legislative language creating a Coordinator’s Office for ESCs can be modeled on language in the Electrify Africa Act of 2015, which created Power Africa’s interagency working group.

Conclusion

The new administration should work with Congress to empower the Millennium Challenge Corporation to lead the U.S. interagency in crafting ‘Energy Security Compacts’. This effort would provide the U.S. with the capability to coordinate direct investment in the energy security of a partner country and contribute to U.S. national priorities including diversifying energy supply chains, investing in the economic stability and performance of rapidly growing markets, and supporting allies with energy systems under direct threat. 

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

Validating the Need and Planning for Success in the Federal Hiring Process

Most federal agencies consider the start of the hiring process to be the development of the job posting. However, the federal hiring process really begins well before the job is posted and the official clock starts. There are many decisions that need to be made before an agency can begin hiring. These decisions have a number of dependencies and require collaboration and alignment between leadership, program leaders, budget professionals, hiring managers, and human resource (HR) staff. What happens in these early steps can not only determine the speed of the hiring process, but the decisions made also can cause the hiring process to be either a success or failure. 

In our previous blog post, we outlined the steps in the federal hiring process and identified bottlenecks impacting the staffing of roles to support permitting activities (e.g., environmental reviews). This post dives into the first phase of the process: planning and validation of the hiring need. This phase includes four steps:  

1. Allocate Budget for Program Staffing and Workload
2. Validate Hiring Need Against Workforce, Staffing, and Recruiting Plans
3. Request Personnel Action to Fill the Job
4. Launch Recruiting Efforts for the Position

Clear communication and quality collaboration between key actors shape the outcomes of the hiring process. Finance staff allocate the resources and manage the budget. HR workforce planners and staffing specialists identify the types of positions needed across the agency. Program owners and hiring managers define the roles needed to achieve their mission and goals. These stakeholders must work together throughout this phase of the process.

Even with collaboration, challenges can arise. For example, there may be:  

• A lack of clarity in the budget appropriation and transmission regarding how the funds can be used for staffing versus other program actions;
• Emergent hiring needs from new legislation or program changes that do not align with agency workforce plans, meaning the HR recruiting and hiring functions are not prepared to support these new positions; and
• Pressure from Congressional appropriators and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to speed up hiring and advance implementation, which is particularly acute with specific programs named in legislation;
• New tools outside of the boundaries of individual staffing (e.g., shared certificates of eligibles) that need to be considered and integrated into this phase.

Adding to these challenges, the stakeholders engaging in this early phase bring preconceptions based on their past experience. If this phase has previously been delayed, confusing, or difficult, these negative expectations may present a barrier to building effective collaboration within the group.

Breaking Down the Steps

For each step in the Planning and Validation phase, we provide a description, explain what can go wrong, share what can go right, and provide some examples from our research, where applicable. This work is based on extensive interviews with hiring managers, program leaders, staffing specialists, workforce planners and budget professionals as well as on-the-job experience.  

Step I. Allocate Budget for Program Staffing and Workload

In this first step, the agency receives budget authorization or program direction funding through OMB derived from new authorizing legislation, annual appropriations, or a continuing resolution. Once the funds are available from the Treasury Department, agency budget professionals  allocate the resources to the particular programs inside the agency. They provide instructions regarding how the money is to be used (e.g., staffing, contracting, and other actions to support program execution). For example, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) provided funding for grants to build cell towers and connections for expanding internet access to underserved communities. This included a percentage of funds for administration and program staffing.

In an ideal world, program leaders could select the best mix of investments in staffing, contracting, equipment, and services to implement their programs efficiently and effectively. They work toward this in budget requests, but in the real world, some of these decisions are constrained by the specifics of the authorizing legislation, OMB’s interpretation, and the agency’s language in the program direction. 

What Can Go Wrong

• Prescriptive program direction funding can limit the options of program managers and HR leaders to craft the workforce for the future. In some cases, the legislation even identifies types of people to hire or the hiring authority to be used (e.g., Excepted Service, Competitive Service, Direct Hire Authority, etc.). This limits the program leaders’ options to build or buy the resource solutions that will work best for them.
• Legislation can be ambiguous regarding how programs can use the funding for staffing. This delays implementation because it requires deliberation by OMB, the agency budget function, program leaders, and even the agency attorneys to determine what is permissible with the funding. This can also increase risk aversion as agency leaders have grown concerned with trespassing on the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation, and from accepting voluntary services. For example, with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding, one agency we spoke with decided to only authorize term hires because of the time-limited nature of the funding, despite having attrition data that predicted permanent positions would become available in the coming years. This can limit recruiting to only those willing to take temporary positions and reduce the ability to fill permanent, competitive roles.
• Delays between the passing of legislation, Treasury Department authorization, and OMB budget direction can create impatience and frustration by Congressional appropriators and agency leaders who want to fill jobs and implement intended programs. This pressures program leaders and HR specialists to make faster, sometimes suboptimal, decisions about who to hire and the timeline. They tend to proceed with the positions they already have, instead of making data-based decisions to match future workload with their hiring targets. In one case, a  permitting hiring manager under this kind of pressure wanted to hire an Environmental Protection Specialist, but did not have a current PD or recruiting strategy. They opted for a management analyst position for which they already had a PD because they could hire for this position faster.

What Can Go Right

• Budget/Legislative Integration: Agency Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), program leaders and Legislative Affairs consult with each other to anticipate the impacts of new legislation and changes to budget language that alter resource management and staffing decisions. For example, one agency we spoke with anticipated the increased demand for HR services resulting from the yet-to-be passed BIL, and thus used existing open positions to hire the HR staff needed to recruit and hire the hundreds of new staff to support the legislation.
• Clear Guidance: Establishing clear budget guidance as early as possible and anticipating upcoming changes helps program and HR leaders plan for and implement optimal program resources. This frequently requires collaboration and consultation with all the parties involved in resource decisions, especially when new legislative mandates are ambiguous or provide no direction on resource use. In one of our discussions with a science agency, we learned that the agency engaged in collaborative negotiations across its programs to allocate the resources from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the absence of clear legislative direction.

Step II. Validate Hiring Need Against Workforce, Staffing, and Recruiting Plans

After receiving their budget allocation, program leaders validate their hiring need by matching budget resources with workload needs. A robust workforce plan becomes useful, as it allows leaders to identify gaps in the current workforce, workload, and recruiting plans and future workload requirements. Workforce plans that align with budget requests and anticipate future needs enable HR specialists and hiring managers to quickly validate the hiring need and move to request the personnel action. 

What Can Go Wrong

• Frequently, workforce plans do not address emergent needs coming from new legislation or abrupt program changes. This is often due to rapid technology changes in the job (e.g., use of geographical information systems or data analysis tools), dynamism in the external environment, or unfunded mandates. This means program leaders and hiring managers need to quickly adapt their workload estimates and workforce configurations to match these new needs. 
• Ambiguity in the legislative intent for staffing can extend into this step. This creates a delay as the program leads work to build consensus on the positions needed, the hiring authorities to be used, and the timeline for bringing new candidates onboard.
• If program leaders have been constrained in backfilling open positions (due to previous budget issues) these immediate needs limit their options to configure a workforce for the future. When coupled with competition across the agency for resources and a lack of workforce planning data, program leaders often sacrifice longer term, sustainable workforce needs for short-term solutions.

What Can Go Right

• Readiness: A mature process in which workforce planners, legislative analysts, and program leaders are anticipating and addressing changes in legislation and their external environment reduces surprises and enables HR staff and program managers to adapt when new staffing or changes are required. In one interview, a program leader described using empirical data on key workload indicators to develop workload projections and determine the positions needed for implementing their program requirements.
• Strike Teams: When legislation or outside changes result in a hiring surge, successful agencies form strike teams with sponsorship from senior leaders. These strike teams pull staff from across the agency – leaders, program leaders, HR leaders and implementers – to focus on meeting the demands of the hiring surge. In response to the infrastructure laws, affected agencies were able to accelerate hiring and target key positions with these teams. Many agencies are doing this to address the AI talent surge right now.
• Integration with Strategy Development: The best workforce planning emerges when key actors are embedded into the agency’s strategy; each strategic goal has a workforce component. Using scenario planning, simulation, and other foresight tools agencies can develop adaptive, predictive workforce plans that model the workforce of the future and focus on the skills needed across the agency to sustain and thrive in achieving its mission. When the future changes, the agency is ready to pivot. OPM’s Workforce of the Future Playbook moves in this direction.

Step III. Request Personnel Action to Fill the Job and Launch Recruiting Efforts for the Position

Note: Requesting personnel action to fill the job is a relatively straightforward step, so we have combined it with launching the recruiting process for simplification.

In most agencies, the hiring manager or program leader fills out an SF-52 form to request the hiring action for a specific position. This includes defining the position title, occupation, grade level, type of position, agency, location, pay plan, and other pertinent information. To do this, they verify that the funding is available and they have the budget authority to proceed. 

Though recruiting can begin before and after this step, this is the chance to begin recruiting in earnest. This can involve activating agency HR staff, engaging contract recruiting resources if they are available, preparing and launching agency social media announcements, and notifying recruitment networks (e.g., universities, professional organizations, alumni groups, stakeholders, communities of practice, etc.) of the job opening.

What Can Go Wrong

• If a hiring manager intimates that a potential candidate has an “inside track” on a position or promises that a candidate will be hired. These trespass on Merit Systems Principles and Prohibited Personnel Practices can result in financial damage to the agency and censure for the hiring manager.
• When an agency lacks recruiting resources and network connections, especially for highly specialized roles or a talent surge, this hinders agencies from reaching the right communities to attract strong applicants and restricts the applicant pool.
• Segmented recruiting to just HR and its resources results in a lack of expectation that the hiring manager plays a key role in recruiting and actively promotes the job to their networks.
• At any point in the process, funding can be pulled and the personnel action will need to be canceled. This disheartens the hiring manager and HR staff, who are ready to start the hiring process.

What Can Go Right

• Build The Pipeline: Hiring managers and recruiters who build and maintain pipelines of potential applicants for key positions have a ready base to begin outreach. This is permissible as long as there is no expectation that those on this list will receive any preferential treatment, as stated above. For example, in our discussion with one land-management agency, we learned that they keep in touch with potential candidates by sharing periodic updates on their programs and job opportunities. This continues to engage a pool of candidates and provides access to an interested community when launching a new position.
• Build Enthusiasm For The Job Across The Ecosystem: Rallying peers, fellow alumni, agency leaders, universities, contractor contacts, and others across HR and program networks to build enthusiasm for the open position and joining the agency. One sub-agency office we met promotes its positions on a variety of public sites (i.e., LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and their website). 
• Direct and Sustained Attention to Recruiting: Agencies that set clear expectations for hiring manager engagement in recruiting fare better at attracting qualified candidates because the hiring manager can directly speak to the job opportunity.
• Tell the Story: Hiring managers and recruiters that tell a compelling story of the agency and the importance of this job to the mission help potential applicants see themselves in the role and their potential impact, which increases the likelihood that they will apply.

Conclusion

Following What Can Go Right practices in this beginning phase can reduce the risk of challenges emerging later on in the hiring process. Delays in decision making around budget allocation and program staffing, lingering ambiguity in the positions needed for programs, and delayed recruiting activities can lead to difficulties in accessing the candidate pools needed for the roles. This ultimately increases the risk of failure and may require a restart of the hiring process.

The best practices outlined here (e.g., anticipating budget decisions, adapting workforce plans, and expanding recruiting) set the stage for a successful hiring process. They require collaboration between HR leaders, recruiters and staffing specialists, budget and program professionals, workforce planners, and hiring managers to make sure they are taking action to increase the odds of hiring a successful employee.

The actions that OPM, the Chief Human Capital Officers Council (CHCO), their agencies, and others are taking as a result of the recent Hiring Experience Memo support many of the practices highlighted in What Can Go Right for each step of the process. Civil servants should pay attention to OPM’s upcoming webinars, guidance, and other events that aim to support you in implementing these practices.

As noted in our first blog on the hiring process for permitting talent, close engagement between key actors is critical to making the right decisions about workforce configuration and workload management. Starting right in this first phase increases the chances of success throughout the hiring process.

Current hiring processes for political appointees are opaque and problematic; job openings are essentially closed off except to those in the right networks. To democratize hiring, the next administration should develop a public jobs board for non-Senate-confirmed political appointments, which includes a list of open roles and job descriptions. By serving as a one-stop shop for those interested in serving in an administration, an open jobs board would bring more skilled candidates into the administration, diversify the appointee workforce, expedite the hiring process, and improve government transparency.

Challenge and Opportunity

Hiring for federal political appointee positions is a broken process. Even though political appointees steer some of the federal government’s most essential functions, the way these individuals are hired lacks the rigor and transparency expected in most other fields.

Political appointment hiring processes are opaque, favoring privileged candidates already in policy networks. There is currently no standardized hiring mechanism for filling political appointee roles, even though new administrations must fill thousands of lower-level appointee positions. Openings are often shared only through word-of-mouth or internal networks, meaning that many strong candidates with relevant domain expertise may never be aware of available opportunities to work in an administration. Though the Plum Book (an annually updated list of political appointees) exists, it does not list vacancies, meaning outside candidates must still have insider information on who is hiring.

These closed hiring processes are deeply problematic because they lead to a non-diverse pool of applicants. For example, current networking-based processes benefit graduates of elite universities, and similar networking-based employment processes such as employee referral programs tend to benefit White men more than any other demographic group. We have experienced this opaque process firsthand at the Aspen Tech Policy Hub; though we have trained hundreds of science and technology fellows who are interested in serving as appointees, we are unaware of any that obtained political appointment roles by means other than networking.

Appointee positions often do not include formal job descriptions, making it difficult for outside candidates to identify roles that are a good fit. Most political appointee jobs do not include a written, formalized job description—a standard best practice across every other sector. A lack of job descriptions makes it almost impossible for outside candidates utilizing the Plum Book to understand what a position entails or whether it would be a good fit. Candidates that are being recruited typically learn more about position responsibilities through direct conversations with hiring managers, which again favors candidates who have direct connections to the hiring team.

Hiring processes are inefficient for hiring staff. The current approach is not only problematic for candidates; it is also inefficient for hiring staff. Through the current process, PPO or other hiring staff must sift through tens of thousands of resumes submitted through online resume bank submissions (e.g. the Biden administration’s “Join Us” form) that are not tailored to specific jobs. They may also end up directly reaching out to candidates that may not actually be interested in specific positions, or who lack required specialized skills.

Given these challenges, there is significant opportunity to reform the political appointment hiring process to benefit both applications and hiring officials.

Plan of Action

The next administration’s Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) should pilot a public jobs board for Schedule C and non-career Senior Executive Service political appointment positions and expand the job board to all non-Senate-confirmed appointments if the pilot is successful. This public jobs board should eventually provide a list of currently open vacancies, a brief description for each currently open vacancy that includes a job description and job requirements, and a process for applying to that position.

Having a more transparent and open jobs board with job descriptions would have multiple benefits. It would:

• Bring in more diverse applicants and strengthen the appointee workforce by broadening hiring pools; 
• Require hiring managers to write out job descriptions in advance, allowing outside candidates to better understand job opportunities and hiring managers to pinpoint qualifications they are looking for; 
• Expedite the hiring process since hiring managers will now have a list of qualified applicants for each position; and 
• Improve government transparency and accessibility into critical public sector positions.

Additionally, an open jobs board will allow administration officials to collect key data on applicant background and use these data to improve recruitment going forward. For example, an open application process would allow administration officials to collect aggregate data on education credentials, demographics, and work experience, and modify processes to improve diversity as needed. Having an updated, open list of positions will also allow PPO to refer strong candidates to other open roles that may be a fit, as current processes make it difficult for administration officials or hiring managers to know what other open positions exist.

Implementing this jobs board will require two phases: (1) an initial phase where the transition team and PPO modify their current “Join Us” form to list 50-100 key initial hires the administration will need to make; and (2) a secondary phase where it builds a more fulsome jobs board, launched in late 2025, that includes all open roles going forward. 

Phase 1. By early 2025, the transition team (or General Services Administration, in its transition support capacity) should identify 50-100 key Schedule C or non-career Senior Executive service hires they think the PPO will need to fill early in the administration, and launch a revised resume bank to collect applicants for these positions. The transition team should prioritize roles that a) are urgent needs for the new administration, b) require specialized skills not commonly found among campaign and transition staff (for instance technical or scientific knowledge), and c) have no clear candidate already identified. The transition team should then revise the current administration’s “Join Us” form to include this list of 50-100 soon-to-be vacant job roles, as well as provide a 2-3 sentence description of the job responsibilities, and allow outside candidates to explicitly note interest in these positions. This should be a relatively light lift, given the current “Join Us” form is fairly easy to build.

Phase 2. Early in the administration, PPO should build a larger, more comprehensive jobs board that should aim to go live in late 2025 and includes all open Schedule C or non-Senior Executive Service (SES) positions. Upon launch, this jobs board should include open jobs for whom no candidate has been identified, and any new Schedule C and non-SES appointments that are open going forward. As described in further detail in the FAQ section, every job listed should include a brief description of the position responsibilities and qualifications, and additional questions on political affiliation and demographics.

During this second phase, the PPO and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) should identify and track key metrics to determine whether it should be expanded to cover all non-Senate confirmed appointments. For example, PPO and OPM could compare the diversity of applicants, diversity of hires, number of qualified candidates who applied for a position, time-to-hire, and number of vacant positions pre- and post-implementation of the jobs board. 

If the jobs board improves key metrics, PPO and OPM should expand the jobs board to all non-Senate confirmed appointments. This would include non-Senate confirmed Senior Executive Service appointee positions.

Conclusion

An open jobs board for political appointee positions is necessary to building a stronger and more diverse appointee workforce, and for improving government transparency. An open jobs board will strengthen and diversify the appointee workforce, require hiring managers to specifically write down job responsibilities and qualifications, reduce hiring time, and ultimately result in more successful hires.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

The Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Innovation and Jobs Act are set to drive $300 billion in energy infrastructure investment by 2030. Without permitting reform, lengthy review processes threaten to make these federal investments one-third less effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why Congress has been grappling with reforming the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for almost two years. Yet, despite the urgency to reform the law, there is a striking lack of available data on how NEPA actually works. Under these conditions, evidence-based policy making is simply impossible. With access to the right data and with thoughtful teaming, the next administration has a golden opportunity to create a roadmap for permitting software that maximizes the impact of federal investments.

Challenge and Opportunity

NEPA is a cornerstone of U.S. environmental law, requiring nearly all federally funded projects—like bridges, wildfire risk-reduction treatments, and wind farms—to undergo an environmental review. Despite its widespread impact, NEPA’s costs and benefits remain poorly understood. Although academics and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) have conducted piecemeal studies using limited data, even the most basic data points, like the average duration of a NEPA analysis, remain elusive. Even the Government Accountability Office (GAO), when tasked with evaluating NEPA’s effectiveness in 2014, was unable to determine how many NEPA reviews are conducted annually, resulting in a report aptly titled “National Environmental Policy Act: Little Information Exists on NEPA Analyses.”

The lack of comprehensive data is not due to a lack of effort or awareness. In 2021, researchers at the University of Arizona launched NEPAccess, an AI-driven program aimed at aggregating publicly available NEPA data. While successful at scraping what data was accessible, the program could not create a comprehensive database because many NEPA documents are either not publicly available or too hard to access, namely Environmental Assessments (EAs) and Categorical Exclusions (CEs). The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) also built a language model to analyze NEPA documents but contained their analysis to the least common but most complex category of environmental reviews, Environmental Impact Statements (EISs).

Fortunately, much of the data needed to populate a more comprehensive NEPA database does exist. Unfortunately, it’s stored in a complex network of incompatible software systems, limiting both public access and interagency collaboration. Each agency responsible for conducting NEPA reviews operates its own unique NEPA software. Even the most advanced NEPA software, SOPA used by the Forest Service and ePlanning used by the Bureau of Land Management, do not automatically publish performance data.

Analyzing NEPA outcomes isn’t just an academic exercise; it’s an essential foundation for reform. Efforts to improve NEPA software have garnered bipartisan support from Congress. CEQ recently published a roadmap outlining important next steps to this end. In the report, CEQ explains that organized data would not only help guide development of better software but also foster broad efficiency in the NEPA process. In fact, CEQ even outlines the project components that would be most helpful to track (including unique ID numbers, level of review, document type, and project type).

Put simply, meshing this complex web of existing softwares into a tracking database would be nearly impossible (not to mention expensive). Luckily, advances in large language models, like the ones used by NEPAccess and PNNL, offer a simpler and more effective solution. With properly formatted files of all NEPA documents in one place, a small team of software engineers could harness PolicyAI’s existing program to build a comprehensive analysis dashboard.

Plan of Action

The greatest obstacles to building an AI-powered tracking dashboard are accessing the NEPA documents themselves and organizing their contents to enable meaningful analysis. Although the administration could address the availability of these documents by compelling agencies to release them, inconsistencies in how they’re written and stored would still pose a challenge. That means building a tracking board will require open, ongoing collaboration between technologists and agencies.

• Assemble a strike team: The administration should form a cross-disciplinary team to facilitate collaboration. This team should include CEQ; the Permitting Council; the agencies responsible for conducting the greatest number of NEPA reviews, including the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; technologists from 18F; and those behind the PolicyAI tool developed by PNNL. It should also decide where the software development team will be housed, likely either at CEQ or the Permitting Council.
• Establish submission guidelines: When handling exorbitant amounts of data, uniform formatting ensures quick analysis. The strike team should assess how each agency receives and processes NEPA documents and create standardized submission guidelines, including file format and where they should be sent. 
• Mandate data submission: The administration should require all agencies to submit relevant NEPA data annually, adhering to the submission guidelines set by the strike team. This process should be streamlined to minimize the burden on agencies while maximizing the quality and completeness of the data; if possible, the software development team should pull data directly from the agency. Future modernization efforts should include building APIs to automate this process.
• Build the system: Using PolicyAI’s existing framework, the development team should create a language model to feed a publicly available, searchable database and dashboard that tracks vital metadata, including:
  • The project components suggested in CEQ’s E-NEPA report, including unique ID numbers, level of review, document type, and project type
  • Days spent producing an environmental review (if available; this information may need to be pulled from agency case management materials instead)
  • Page count of each environmental review
  • Lead and supporting agencies
  • Project location (latitude/longitude and acres impacted, or GIS information if possible) 
  • Other laws enmeshed in the review, including the Endangered Species Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and the National Forest Management Act
  • When clearly stated in a NEPA document, cost of producing the review
  • When clearly stated in a NEPA document, staff hours used to produce the review
  • When clearly stated in a NEPA document, jobs and revenue created by the project
  • When clearly stated in a NEPA document, carbon emissions mitigated by the project

Conclusion

The stakes are high. With billions of dollars in federal climate and infrastructure investments on the line, a sluggish and opaque permitting process threatens to undermine national efforts to cut emissions. By embracing cutting-edge technology and prioritizing transparency, the next administration can not only reshape our understanding of the NEPA process but bolster its efficiency too.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

Without market-shaping interventions, federal and state subsidies for energy-efficient products like heat pumps often lead to higher prices, leaving the overall market worse off when rebates end. This is a key challenge that must be addressed as the Department of Energy (DOE) and states implement the Inflation Reduction Act’s Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates (HEAR) program. 

DOE should prioritize the development of evidence-based market-transformation strategies that states can implement with their HEAR funding. The DOE should use its existing allocation of administrative funds to create a central capability to (1) develop market-shaping toolkits and an evidence base on how state programs can improve value for money and achieve market transformation and (2) provide market-shaping program implementation assistance to states.

There are proven market-transformation strategies that can reduce costs and save consumers billions of dollars. DOE can look to the global public health sector for an example of what market-shaping interventions could do for heat pumps and other energy-efficient technologies. In that arena, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) has shown how public funding can support market-based transformation, leading to sustainably lower drug and vaccine prices, new types of “all-inclusive” contracts, and improved product quality. Agreements negotiated by CHAI and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have generated over $4 billion in savings for publicly financed health systems and improved healthcare for hundreds of millions of people. 

Similar impact can be achieved in the market for heat pumps if DOE and states can supply information to empower consumers to purchase the most cost-effective products, offer higher rebates for those cost-effective products, and seek supplier discounts for heat pumps eligible for rebates. 

Challenge and Opportunity 

HEAR received $4.5 billion in appropriations from the Inflation Reduction Act and provides consumers with rebates to purchase and install high-efficiency electric appliances. Heat pumps, the primary eligible appliance, present a huge opportunity for lowering overall greenhouse gas emissions from heating and cooling, which makes up over 10% of global emissions. In the continental United States, studies have shown that heat pumps can reduce carbon emissions up to 93% compared to gas furnaces across their lifetime. 

However, direct-to-consumer rebate programs have been shown to enable suppliers to increase prices unless these subsidies are used to reward innovation and reduce cost. If subsidies are dispersed and the program design is not aligned with a market-transformation strategy, the result will be a short-term boost in demand followed by a fall-off in consumer interest as prices increase and the rebates are no longer available. This is a problem because program funding for heat pump rebates will support only ~500,000 projects over the life of the program—but more than 50 million households will need to convert to heat pumps in order to decarbonize the sector.

HEAR aims to address this through Market Transformation Plans, which states are required to submit to DOE within a year after receiving the award. States will then need to obtain DOE approval before implementing them. We see several challenges with the current implementation of HEAR: 

• Need for evidence: There is a lack of evidence and policy agreement on the best approaches for market transformation. The DOE provides a potpourri of areas for action, but no evidence of cost-effectiveness. Thus, there is no rational basis for states to allocate funding across the 10 recommended areas for action. There are no measurable goals for market transformation.  

• Redundancy: It is wasteful and redundant to have every state program allocate administrative expenses to design market-transformation strategies incorporating some or all of the 10 recommended areas for action. There is nothing unique to Georgia, Iowa, or Vermont in creating a tool to better estimate energy savings. A best-in-class software tool developed by DOE or one of the states could be adapted for use in each state. Similarly, if a state develops insights into lower-cost ways to install heat pumps, these insights will be valuable in many other state programs. The best tools should be a public good made known to every state program. 

Despite these challenges, DOE has a clear opportunity to increase the impact of HEAR rebates by providing program design support to states for market-transformation goals. To ensure a competitive market and better value for money, state programs need guidance on how to overcome barriers created by information asymmetry – meaning that HVAC contractors have a much better understanding of the technical and cost/benefit aspects of heat pumps than consumers do. Consumers cannot work with contractors to select a heat pump solution that represents the best value for money if they do not understand the technical performance of products and how operating costs are affected by Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating, coefficient of performance, and utility rates. If consumers are not well-informed, market outcomes will not be efficient. Currently, consumers do not have easy access to critical information such as the tradeoff in costs between increased Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating and savings on monthly utility bills. 

Overcoming information asymmetry will also help lower soft costs, which is critical to lowering the cost of heat pumps. Based on studies conducted by New York State, Solar Energy Industries Association and DOE, soft costs run over 60% of project costs in some cases and have increased over the past 10 years.

There is still time to act, as thus far only a few states have received approval to begin issuing rebates and state market-transformation plans are still in the early stages of development.

Plan of Action 

Recommendation 1. Establish a central market transformation team to provide resources and technical assistance to states.

To limit cost and complexity at the state level for designing and staffing market-transformation initiatives, the DOE should set up central resources and capabilities. This could either be done by a dedicated team within the Office of State and Community Energy Programs or through a national lab. Funding would come from the 3% of program funds that DOE is allowed to use for administration and technical assistance. 

This team would:

• Collect, centralize, and publish heat pump equipment and installation cost data to increase transparency and consumer awareness of available options.
• Develop practical toolkits and an evidence base on how to achieve market transformation most cost-effectively.
• Provide market-shaping program design assistance to states to create and implement market transformation programs.

Data collection, analysis, and consistent reporting are at the heart of what this central team could provide states. The DOE data and tools requirements guide already asks states to provide information on the invoice, equipment and materials, and installation costs for each rebate transaction. It is critical that the DOE and state programs coordinate on how to collect and structure this data in order to benefit consumers across all state programs.

A central team could provide resources and technical assistance to State Energy Offices (SEOs) on how to implement market-shaping strategies in a phased approach.

Phase 1. Create greater price transparency and set benchmarks for pricing on the most common products supported by rebates.

The central market-transformation team should provide technical support to states on how to develop benchmarking data on prices available to consumers for the most common product offerings. Consumers should be able to evaluate pricing for heat pumps like they do for major purchases such as cars, travel, or higher education. State programs could facilitate these comparisons by having rebate-eligible contractors and suppliers provide illustrative bids for a set of 5–10 common heat pump installation scenarios, for example, installing a ductless mini-split in a three-bedroom home.

States should also require contractors to provide hourly rates for different types of labor, since installation costs are often ~70% of total project costs. Contractors should only be designated as recommended or preferred service providers (with access to HEAR rebates) if they are willing to share cost data.

In addition, the central market-transformation team could facilitate information-sharing and data aggregation across states to limit confusion and duplication of data. This will increase price transparency and limit the work required at the state level to find price information and integrate with product technical performance data.

Phase 2. Encourage price and service-level competition among suppliers by providing consumers with information on how to judge value for money.

A second area to improve market outcomes is by promoting competition. Price transparency supports this goal, but to achieve market transformation programs need to go further to help consumers understand what products, specific to their circumstances, offer best value for money. 

In the case of a heat pump installation, this means taking account of fuel source, energy prices, house condition, and other factors that drive the overall value-for-money equation when achieving improved energy efficiency. Again, information asymmetry is at play. Many energy-efficiency consultants and HVAC contractors offer to advise on these topics but have an inherent bias to promoting their products and services. There are no easily available public sources of reliable benchmark price/performance data for ducted and ductless heat pumps for homes ranging from 1500 to 2700 square feet, which would cover 75% of the single-family homes in the United States. 

In contrast, the commercial building sector benefits from very detailed cost information published on virtually every type of building material and specialty trade procedure. Data from sources such as RSMeans provides pricing and unit cost information for ductwork, electrical wiring, and mean hourly wage rates for HVAC technicians by region. Builders of newly constructed single-family homes use similar systems to estimate and manage the costs of every aspect of the new construction process. But a homeowner seeking to retrofit a heat pump into an existing structure has none of this information. Since virtually all rebates are likely to be retrofit installations, states and the DOE have a unique interest in making this market more competitive by developing and publishing cost/performance benchmarking data. 

State programs have considerable leverage that can be used to obtain the information needed from suppliers and installers. The central market-transformation team should use that information to create a tool that provides states and consumers with estimates of potential bill savings from installation of heat pumps in different regions and under different utility rates. This information would be very valuable to low- and middle-income (LMI) households, who are to receive most of the funding under HEAR.

Phase 3. Use the rebate program to lower costs and promote best-value products by negotiating product and service-level agreements with suppliers and contractors and awarding a higher level of rebate to installations that represent best value for money.

By subsidizing and consolidating demand, SEOs will have significant bargaining power to achieve fair prices for consumers.

First, by leveraging relationships with public and private sector stakeholders, SEOs can negotiate agreements with best-value contractors, offering guaranteed minimum volumes in return for discounted pricing and/or longer warranty periods for participating consumers. This is especially important for LMI households, who have limited home improvement budgets and experience disproportionately higher energy burdens, which is why there has been limited uptake of heat pumps by LMI households. In return, contractors gain access to a guaranteed number of additional projects that can offset the seasonal nature of the business.

Second, as states design the formulas used to distribute rebates, they should be encouraged to create systems that allocate a higher proportion of rebates to projects quoted at or below the benchmark costs and a smaller proportion or completely eliminate the rebates to projects higher than the benchmark. This will incentivize contractors to offer better value for money, as most projects will not proceed unless they receive a substantial rebate. States should also adopt a similar process as New York and Wisconsin in creating a list of approved contractors that adhere to “reasonable price” thresholds.

Recommendation 2. For future energy rebate programs, Congress and DOE can make market transformation more central to program design. 

In future clean energy legislation, Congress should direct DOE to include the principles recommended above into the design of energy rebate programs, whether implemented by DOE or states. Ideally, that would come with either greater funding for administration and technical assistance or dedicated funding for market-transformation activities in addition to the rebate program funding. 

For future rebate programs, DOE could take market transformation a step further by establishing benchmarking data for “fair and reasonable” prices from the beginning and requiring that, as part of their applications, states must have service-level agreements in place to ensure that only contractors that are at or below ceiling prices are awarded rebates. Establishing this at the federal level will ensure consistency and adoption at the state level.

Conclusion

The DOE should prioritize funding evidence-based market transformation strategies to increase the return on investment for rebate programs. Learning from U.S.-funded programs for global public health, a similar approach can be applied to the markets for energy-efficient appliances that are supported under the HEAR program. Market shaping can tip the balance towards more cost-effective and better-value products and prevent rebates from driving up prices. Successful market shaping will lead to sustained uptake of energy-efficient appliances by households across the country.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) currently funds multiyear technology projects to help agencies improve their service delivery. However, many agencies abdicate responsibility for project outcomes to vendors, lacking the internal leadership and project development teams necessary to apply a product model approach focused on user needs, starting small, learning what works, and making adjustments as needed. 

To promote better outcomes, TMF could make three key changes to help agencies shift from simply purchasing static software to acquiring ongoing capabilities that can meet their long-term mission needs: (1) provide education and training to help agencies adopt the product model; (2) evaluate investments based on their use of effective product management and development practices; and (3) fund the staff necessary to deliver true modernization capacity. 

Challenge and Opportunity

Technology modernization is a continual process of addressing unmet needs, not a one-time effort with a defined start and end. Too often, when agencies attempt to modernize, they purchase “static” software, treating it like any other commodity, such as computers or cars. But software is fundamentally different. It must continuously evolve to keep up with changing policies, security demands, and customer needs. 

Presently, agencies tend to rely on available procurement, contracting, and project management staff to lead technology projects. However, it is not enough to focus on the art of getting things done (project management); it is also critically important to understand the art of deciding what to do (product management). A product manager is empowered to make real-time decisions on priorities and features, including deciding what not to do, to ensure the final product effectively meets user needs. Without this role, development teams typically march through a vast, undifferentiated, unprioritized list of requirements, which is how information technology (IT) projects result in unwieldy failures. 

By contrast, the product model fosters a continuous cycle of improvement, essential for effective technology modernization. It empowers a small initial team with the right skills to conduct discovery sprints, engage users from the outset and throughout the process, and continuously develop, improve, and deliver value. This approach is ultimately more cost effective, results in continuously updated and effective software, and better meets user needs.

However, transitioning to the product model is challenging. Agencies need more than just infrastructure and tools to support seamless deployment and continuous software updates – they also need the right people and training. A lean team of product managers, user researchers, and service designers who will shape the effort from the outset can have an enormous impact on reducing costs and improving the effectiveness of eventual vendor contracts. Program and agency leaders, who truly understand the policy and operational context, may also require training to serve effectively as “product owners.” In this role, they work closely with experienced product managers to craft and bring to life a compelling product vision. 

These internal capacity investments are not expensive relative to the cost of traditional IT projects in government, but they are currently hard to make. Placing greater emphasis on building internal product management capacity will enable the government to more effectively tackle the root causes that lead to legacy systems becoming problematic in the first place. By developing this capacity, agencies can avoid future costly and ineffective “modernization” efforts.

Plan of Action

The General Services Administration’s Technology Modernization Fund plays a crucial role in helping government agencies transition from outdated legacy systems to modern, secure, and efficient technologies, strengthening the government’s ability to serve the public. However, changes to TMF’s strategy, policy, and practice could incentivize the broader adoption of product model approaches and make its investments more impactful.

The TMF should shift from investments in high-cost, static technologies that will not evolve to meet future needs towards supporting the development of product model capabilities within agencies. This requires a combination of skilled personnel, technology, and user-centered approaches. Success should be measured not just by direct savings in technology but by broader efficiencies, such as improvements in operational effectiveness, reductions in administrative burdens, and enhanced service delivery to users.

While successful investments may result in lower costs, the primary goal should be to deliver greater value by helping agencies better fulfill their missions. Ultimately, these changes will strengthen agency resilience, enabling them to adapt, scale, and respond more effectively to new challenges and conditions.

Recommendation 1. The Technology Modernization Board, responsible for evaluating proposals, should: 

1. Assess future investments based on the applicant’s demonstrated competencies and capacities in product ownership and management, as well as their commitment to developing these capabilities. This includes assessing proposed staffing models to ensure the right teams are in place.
2. Expand assessment criteria for active and completed projects beyond cost savings, to include measurements of improved mission delivery, operational efficiencies, resilience, and adaptability. 

Recommendation 2. The TMF Program Management Office, responsible for stewarding investments from start to finish, should: 

1. Educate and train agencies applying for funds on how to adopt and sustain the product model. 
2. Work with the General Services Administration’s 18F to incorporate TMF project successes and lessons learned into a continuously updated product model playbook for government agencies that includes guidance on the key roles and responsibilities needed to successfully own and manage products in government.
3. Collaborate with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to ensure that agencies have efficient and expedited pathways for acquiring the necessary talent, utilizing appropriate assessments to identify and onboard skilled individuals. 

Recommendation 3. Congress should: 

1. Encourage agencies to set up their own working capital funds under the authorities outlined in the TMF legislation. 
2. Explore the barriers to product model funding in the current budgeting and appropriations processes for the federal government as a whole and develop proposals for fitting them to purpose. 
3. Direct OPM to reduce procedural barriers that hinder swift and effective hiring. 

Conclusion 

The TMF should leverage its mandate to shift agencies towards a capabilities-first mindset. Changing how the program educates, funds, and assesses agencies will build internal capacity and deliver continuous improvement. This approach will lead to better outcomes, both in the near and long terms, by empowering agencies to adapt and evolve their capabilities to meet future challenges effectively.

This action-ready policy memo is part of Day One 2025 — our effort to bring forward bold policy ideas, grounded in science and evidence, that can tackle the country’s biggest challenges and bring us closer to the prosperous, equitable and safe future that we all hope for whoever takes office in 2025 and beyond.

PLEASE NOTE (February 2025): Since publication several government websites have been taken offline. We apologize for any broken links to once accessible public data.

The success of historic federal investments in climate resilience, clean energy, and new infrastructure hinges on the government’s ability to efficiently permit, site, and build projects. Many of these projects are subject to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which dictates the procedures agencies must use to anticipate environmental, social, and economic impacts of potential actions. 

Agencies use digital tools throughout the permitting process for a variety of tasks including permit data collection and application development, analysis, surveys, impact assessments, public comment processing, and post-permit monitoring. However, many of the technology tools presently used in NEPA processes are fragmented, opaque, and lack user-friendly features. Investments in permitting technology (such as software, decision support tools, data standards, and automation) could reduce the long timelines that plague environmental review. In fact, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)’s recent report to Congress highlights the “tremendous potential” for technology to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of environmental review.

The Permitting Council, a federal agency focused on improving the “transparency, predictability, and outcomes” of federal permitting processes, recently invested $30 million in technology projects at various agencies to “strengthen the efficiency and predictability of environmental review.” Agencies are also investing in their own technology tools aimed at improving various parts of the environmental review process. As just one example, the Department of Energy’s Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorizations and Permits (CITAP) Program recently released a new web portal designed to create more seamless communication between agencies and applicants. 

Yet permitting innovation is still moving at a slow pace and not all agencies have dedicated funding to develop needed technology tools for permitting. We recently wrote a case study about the Department of Transportation’s Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW) project to illustrate how agency staff can make progress in developing technology without large upfront funding investments or staff time. FLOW is a public-private partnership that supports transportation industry users in anticipating and responding to supply chain disruptions. Andrew Petritin, who we interviewed for our case study, was a member of the team that co-created this digital product with users. 

In a prior case study, Jennifer Pahlka and Allie Harris identified strategies that contributed to DOT FLOW’s success in building a great digital product in government. Here, we expand on a subset of these strategies and how they can be applied to build great digital products in the permitting sector. We also point to several permitting technology efforts that have benefited from independently applying similar strategies to demonstrate how agencies with permitting responsibilities can approach building digital products. These case studies and insights serve as inspiration for how agencies can make positive change even when substantive barriers exist. 

Make data function as a compass, not a grade.

Here is an illustrative example of how data can be used as a compass to inform decisions and provide situational awareness to customers. 

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) recently launched a ​​Permitting Mapping Tool to support grantees and others in deploying infrastructure by identifying permitting requirements and potential environmental impacts. This is a tool that both industry and the public can use to see the permitting requirements for a geographic location. The data gathered and shared through this tool is not intended to assess performance; rather, it is used to provide an understanding of the landscape to support decision making. 

NTIA staff recognized the potential value of the Federal Communication Commission’s (FFC) existing map of broadband serviceable locations to users in the permitting process and worked to combine it with other available information in order to support decision making. According to NTIA staff, NTIA’s in-house data analysts started prototyping mapping tools to see how they could better support their customers by using the FCC’s information about broadband serviceable locations. They first overlaid federal land management agency boundaries and showed other agencies where deployments will be required on federal lands in remote and unserved areas, where they might not have a lot of staff to process permits. The team then pulled in hundreds of publicly available data sources to illustrate where deployments will occur on state and Tribal lands and in or near protected environmental resources including wetlands, floodplains, and critical habitats before releasing the application on NTIA’s website with an instructional video. Notably, NTIA staff were able to make substantial progress prior to receiving Permitting Council funds to support grant applicants in using the environment screening to improve the efficiency of categorical exclusions processing. 

Build trust. Trust allows you to co-create with your users. Understand your users’ needs, don’t solicit advice. 

Recent recipients of Permitting Council grants for technology development have the opportunity to define their customers and work with them from day one to understand their needs. Rather than assuming their customer’s pain points, grant recipients can gather input from their customers and build the new technology to meet their needs. Recipients can learn from FLOW’s example by building trust early through direct collaboration. Examples of strategies agencies can use to engage customers include defining user personas for their technology; facilitating user interviews to understand their needs; visiting field offices to meet their customers and learn how technology integrates into their work processes and environment; conducting observations of existing technologies to assess opportunities for improvement; and rapidly prototyping, testing, and iterating their solutions with user feedback. 

In the longer term, the Permitting Council and other funding entities can drive the adoption of a user-center approach to technology development through their future grant requirements. By incorporating user research, user testing, and agile methodologies in their requests for proposals, the Permitting Council and others can set clear expectations for user involvement throughout the technology development process. 

In comparison to DOT FLOW, where the customers are largely external to the federal government, the customers and stakeholders for permitting technology include internal federal employees with responsibilities for preparing, reviewing, and publishing NEPA documentation. But even if your end-users are within your organization (or even on your same team!), the principles of building trust, co-creating, and understanding user needs still apply. 

Fight trade-off denial. 

When approaching the complex process of permitting and developing technological tools to support customers, it is critical for teams to focus on a specific problem and prioritize user needs to develop a minimum viable product (MVP). A great example of this is the Department of Energy (DOE)’s Coordinated Interagency Transmission Authorizations and Permits Program (CITAP). 

DOE collaborated with a development team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to create a new portal for interstate transmission applications requiring environmental review and compliance. The team applied a “user-centered, agile approach” to develop and deploy the new tool by the effective date for new CITAP regulations. The tool streamlines communication by allowing the project proponent to track the status of the permit, submit documentation, and communicate with DOE through the platform. Through iterative development, DOE plans to expand the system to include additional users, including cooperating agencies, and provide the ability for cooperating agencies to receive applicant-submitted materials. Deprioritizing these desired functions in the initial release required tradeoffs and a prioritization of user needs, but enabled the team to ultimately meet its deadline and provide near-term value to the public. 

Prioritizing functionality and activities for improvements in permitting can be challenging, but it is critical that agencies make decisions on where to focus and start small with any technology development. Having more accessible data can help inform these trade off decisions by providing an assessment of problem criticality and impact. 

Don’t just reduce burden – provide value. 

Our partners at EPIC recently wrote about the opportunity to operationalize rules and regulations in permitting technology. They discussed how AI could be applied to: (1) help answer permitting questions using a database of rulings, guidelines, and past projects; (2) verify compliance of permits and analyses with up-to-date legal requirements, and (3) automatically apply legal updates impacting permitting procedures to analyses. These examples illustrate how improving permitting technology can not only reduce burdens on the permitting workforce, but simultaneously provide value by offering decision support tools.

Fund products, not projects. 

The federal government often uses the project funding model for developing and modernizing technology. This approach provides different levels of funding based on a specific waterfall process step (e.g., requirements gathering, development, and operations and maintenance). While straightforward, this model provides little flexibility for iteration and little support for modernization and maintenance. Jen Pahlka, former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer, recommends the government move towards a product funding model that acknowledges software development never ends, rather there is ongoing work to improve technology over time. This requires steady levels of funding and has implications for talent.

Permitting teams should be considering these different models when developing new technology and tools. Whether procuring technology or developing it in-house, teams should be thinking about how they can support long-term technology development and hire employees with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively manage the technology. Where relevant, agencies should seek to fund products. While product funding models may seem onerous at first, they are likely to have lower costs and enable teams to respond more effectively to user needs over time. 

Several existing resources support product development in government. The 18F unit, part of the General Services Administration (GSA)’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), helps federal agencies build, share, and buy technology products. 18F offers a number of tools to support agencies with product management. GSA’s IT Modernization Centers of Excellence can support agency staff in using a product-focused approach. The Centers focused on Contact Center, Customer Experience, and Data and Analytics may be most relevant for agencies building permitting technology. Finally, the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) “collaborates with public servants throughout the government”; their staff can assist with product, strategy, and operations as well as procurement and user experience. Agencies can also look to the private sector and NGOs for compelling examples of product development. 

Looking forward

Agency staff can deploy tactics like those outlined above to quickly improve permitting technology using existing authorities and resources. But these tactics should complement, not substitute, a longer-term systemic strategy for improving the U.S. permitting ecosystem. Center of government entities and individual agencies need to be thinking holistically about shared user needs across processes and technologies. As CEQ stated in their report, where there are shared needs, there should be shared services. Government leadership must equip successful small-scale projects with the resources and guidance needed to scale effectively. 

Additionally, there needs to be an investment from the government in developing effective permitting technology, with technical talent (product managers, developers, user researchers, data scientists) hired to support these efforts). 

As the government continues to modernize to meet emerging challenges, it will need to adopt best practices from industry and compete for the talent to bring their visions to life. Sustained investment in interagency collaboration, talent, and training can shift the status quo from pockets of innovation (such as DOT FLOW and other examples highlighted here) to an innovation ecosystem guided by a robust, shared product strategy.