Half-Day Workshops

ICMA is committed to providing workshops that are affordable, accessible, and designed to meet the specific needs of local government professionals. Each workshop is based on the Practices for Effective Local Government Management identified by ICMA members. By partnering with localities, state associations and universities in the delivery of these programs, we are able to reduce travel costs and provide high-quality workshops.

Building a Culture of Ethical Behavior in Your Organization

Building a culture of ethical behavior in the organization is one of a leader’s most challenging yet essential jobs. The local government environment is complicated: government employees come from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, often without strong knowledge of good government practices, and citizens have long held a basic distrust of government and its employees. We are all faced with ethical dilemmas in our jobs, and knowing the right thing to do is not always easy or clear. This workshop will offer a framework, complete with practical strategies and tools, through which you, as a leader, can foster an ethical workplace and effectively deal with the difficult situations that arise. Addresses Practice Group 17: Integrity

Capital Financing for Smaller Communities

This workshop will identify and illustrate practices and policies that make up a successful capital financing strategy for a smaller city or county. Specific topics will include capital financing in the broader context of capital planning, budgeting operating fund balances and capital budgeting; creating and funding capital reserves, impact fees, general obligation bonds, capital leases, and other sources of debt financing; choosing suitable financing for specific projects; balancing pay-as-go and debt sources; managing debt, financial forecasting, and bond ratings. Addresses Practice Group 11: Financial Analysis

Capital Planning and Budgeting for Small Communities

This workshop will provide practical information about multiyear capital improvement planning (CIP). Included will be such topics as determining what projects go into CIP, identifying participants in the CIP process, using project information for CIP requests, setting priorities, developing the CIP document, preparing for the governing board review and enactment of capital improvement, and addressing technical and political issues. The workshop will also address capital financing options; and policies and ways to achieve balance among the financing options. Addresses Practice Group 10: Budgeting

Developing Successful Orientations and Retreats (small communities)

New council members: Do these three words strike fear in you? What about being asked to put on a retreat? This three-hour workshop will focus on the manager’s role in developing and delivering successful orientations for elected officials, and in holding retreats for councils and commissions, and citizen groups. Participants will work in small teams to develop effective models and check lists of do’s and don’ts for each event.

The workshop leader, Lynn Tipton, is a faculty member for the Florida Association of County’s Certified County Commissioner program, and a faculty member for the Florida League of Cities’ Institute for Elected Municipal Officials. She also provides training for municipal clerks and other government staff through the Florida Institute of Government. Her graduate and undergraduate degrees are in public administration. Addresses Practice Group 2: Policy Facilitation

Employee Discipline: Managers Under Fire

When confronting employee discipline and termination issues, local government managers are often faced with the dilemma of how to balance the need for swift, effective, remedial measures with the vast array of laws that protect employee rights. During this workshop, participants will learn how to approach all discipline situations methodically and navigate their way to a successful resolution. Addresses Practice Group 12: Human Resources Management

Essential Management Skills

In this thought-provoking and challenging workshop, the case-study method will be used to focus on relations between elected officials and managers, ethics, and the essential skills of problem analysis, decision-making, and persuasion. Each participant will receive copies of three cases from the textbook Managing Local Government: Cases in Decision Making and must read the cases prior to attending the workshop. Addresses Practice Groups 2, 15 and 17: Policy Facilitation; Presentation Skills; Integrity

Expand Your Leadership Style—Increase Your Effectiveness

Every manager has a primary style of leadership and is able to use several styles to provide the kind of leadership that is required in different situations and with different people; however, an effective manager understands the needs of his or her people. This workshop will allow you to identify your primary and secondary leadership styles and teach you to diagnose the leadership needs of your followers.

The workshop, which is based on the work of Ken Blanchard, uses the Leader Behavior Analysis II Survey to identify leadership style. Addresses Practice Groups 1 and 14: Staff Effectiveness; Advocacy and Interpersonal Communication

Leadership: An Art of Possibility

Learn new leadership skills that will promote the development and performance of staff and senior management throughout the organization and will increase your effectiveness as a manager. This upbeat session will focus on the principles and practices of Ben and Rosamund Zander, authors of the book, The Art of Possibility. The ideas and exercises in this workshop will increase your skill in personal coaching and mentoring, team leadership, and empowerment.

Special emphasis will be given to facilitating teamwork and creating a work environment that encourages responsibility and decision making at all organizational levels and that requires skill in sharing authority and removing barriers to creativity. This workshop will help participants apply these ideas to local government management. The result will be better interpersonal interactions with your management team, staff, council and everyone you deal with. It is recommended that participants read The Art of Possibility prior to the session. Addresses Practice Group 1: Staff Effectiveness

Lean Thinking and Government: An Oxymoron?

Improving the performance of office and service processes will be the key to increased competitiveness and rising living standards in the next decade. Many pioneers in a wide range of service industries have already begun this journey, learning from the progress made by leading manufacturers in streamlining their factories and supply chains.

The most successful approach to the industrialization of office and service processes is Lean Thinking, originally pioneered by Toyota. This Lean Service workshop brings together leading-edge examples of Lean Management in practice and offers a unique opportunity to begin the lean transformation of your organization.

Objectives:

• To learn to see the new opportunities for creating value for customers, for removing waste from every process and for creating more rewarding jobs for employees opened up by Lean Thinking.
• To show how Lean Management can be applied in every kind of office and service activity in both the private and public sector.
• To learn how to choose the lean pathway that is right for you and to create your own action plan for implementing Lean in your organization.
• To give you the chance to question the leading experts and get practical advice from those well down the lean path.
• To create an ongoing movement of lean practitioners sharing experiences in Lean Service Management in Europe and across the world.

Addresses Practice Groups 5 and 6: Quality Assurance; Initiative, Risk Taking, Vision, Creativity and Innovation

Local Government Capital Planning, Budgeting, and Finance

This workshop examines policies, approaches, and practices for effective planning and financing of capital projects in smaller communities. The workshop will present a local government capital budgeting model and examine specific tools used in planning and financing capital projects. The topics that will be covered include:

• Capital budgeting and its relation to the operating budget
• Capital improvement programming
• Role of long-term comprehensive planning and needs assessment in capital planning; prioritizing capital projects
• Issues in authorizing, appropriating money for, and implementing capital projects
• Local capital financing strategy
• Financial policies
• Pay-as-go sources of capital financing including capital reserves and impact fees
• Debt financing--G.O. bonds, certificates of participation, special assessment debt, and tax-increscent bonds
• Issue in planning, structuring, and selling debt
• Multi-year financial forecasting, and
• Maintaining or improving a local government's bond ratings.

Key concepts in each of these areas will be discussed and illustrated using examples from local government capital improvement programs and budgets. A case study, called the “Parkrose Exercise,” will be used. In the exercise, workshop participants will be divided into small groups and asked to establish priorities among project requests, prepare a capital plan, identify capital financing policies, select financing for specific projects, and determine how much debt Parkrose should issue to help finance capital needs. Addresses Practice Groups 10 and 11: Budgeting; Financial Analysis

The Manager's Role in Moving Communities from Good to Great

Building on concepts from the conversation between Jim Collins and Bob O’Neill, captured on DVD, this workshop will focus on the special role of the manager in moving a community from good to great. Together we will work to answer key questions such as “What does it really mean to be a level 5 leader and to leave a legacy? How do you determine the right ‘who’ to make sure that the right people are on the bus and in the right seats? What does the flywheel represent and who is responsible for turning it? Are you an “incremental revolutionary” with a BHAG to fulfill? What are your core values? Does the Stockdale paradox fit your experience in local government?” Come ready to be challenged in different ways and to join a learning community of managers who are committed to moving local government from Good to Great. Addresses Practice Groups 1 and 6: Staff Effectiveness; and, Innovation, Vision and Creativity

Managing in Difficult Political Environments

Through the use of interactive media, real-life situations, and group discussion, this workshop will explore the challenges faced by public sector managers when local politics reaches the breaking point and the manager becomes the focus of attacks from elected officials and citizens. Workshop participants will learn to recognize the warning signs of community unrest gain insight into the manager’s unique role, examine personal and organizational costs, review the media’s role-for good and ill, and put the “fun” back in dysfunctional. Addresses Practice Groups 2 and 16: Policy Facilitation and Media Relations

The “Performance Dividend” of Professional Management: How You Can Demonstrate It Using Performance Measurement

Reflecting a core belief of all ICMA members, Executive Director Bob O’Neill emphasizes that there is a “performance dividend” for professionally managed communities. But, is this just an article of faith …or can you point to specifics in your community that demonstrate this? Are you measuring performance in your community? And, even if you are, are you using those measures to drive organizational effectiveness and improvement? Do you develop council agendas around performance outcomes? Are performance targets key components to your budget? Do you report the performance of your organization to your residents? Can you demonstrate the linkage between the performance of your departments, work teams, and employees and the overall performance goals for your community? This workshop will provide you with concrete steps you can take so that you can provide a confident “yes” to each of these questions, no matter what size your community or your level of financial resources. Addresses Practice Groups 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12: Staff Effectiveness; Policy Facilitation; Functional and Operational Expertise and Planning; Quality Assurance; Initiative, Risk Taking, Vision, Creativity and Innovation; Budgeting; Financial Analysis; Human Resources Management

Understanding and Appreciating Differences Using Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

This workshop is designed to explore differences of learning styles, preferences, culture, age, and race from the view that a better understanding of differences leads to better leadership, fellowship, management, and builds stronger communities. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and other methods of feedback will be used. Participants will learn to identify differences and appreciate the strength of diversity. Addresses Practice Groups 1, 9, and 14: Staff Effectiveness; Diversity; Advocacy and Interpersonal Communication