When I, coauthor Cash Alaee, Palo Alto, California’s senior management analyst, asked City Manager Jim Keene if I could go to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to shadow City Manager Lee Feldman, Jim stopped jogging, looked at me, and asked, “Spring break on the city’s dime?”

The running continued, and so did the conversation on the importance of exchanges and how, if carefully designed, the one I was considering could enormously impact both organizations.

Professional exchanges are not a new concept. Government organizations have been conducting them for years. ICMA, for instance, has several formal exchange programs in place that promote learning and knowledge sharing among local government professionals.

But the Palo Alto–Fort Lauderdale Analyst Exchange program was designed specifically to fit the needs of our respective organizations and our specific professional development goals. Both Keene and Feldman serve on the Alliance for Innovation’s board of directors and have brought innovative strategies to their organizations.

Keene has implemented design thinking, a human-centered approach to innovation, and a start-up environment in Palo Alto, and Feldman has implemented a strategic and performance management philosophy in Fort Lauderdale. We, the analysts, benefited greatly by being able to share these concepts and watch them in action.

Managers Take Mentor Role

A key to success was having the involvement of each local government manager. After the initial exchange idea was breached, Keene and Feldman took ownership of the exchange and ensured ample time was set aside on their calendars to mentor Paula and me.

Coauthor Paula Romo, Fort Lauderdale’s senior performance analyst, traveled to Palo Alto, and both she and I had unfettered access to our respective host manager. We met with the host manager several times to discuss the exchange city’s overall strategies, and both of us were able to attend multiple operational and elected officials’ meetings, where we witnessed firsthand Keene’s and Feldman’s management and leadership styles in action.

A month prior to our visit, we worked together to craft an action-packed, week-long agenda where all meetings or shadowing experiences were coordinated to include travel to and from off-site locations. Finally, it was crucial that both organizations were fully aware of the exchange in advance, allowing staff to prepare meaningful site visits and learning opportunities. To help with this, we e-mailed the respective leadership teams about the exchanges several weeks before our visits, and the managers discussed the visits at their weekly executive meetings.

During the exchange, I observed firsthand how several of Fort Lauderdale’s key strategies are being implemented and being used by the organization at cross-disciplinary collaboration/action meetings called FL2STAT, Fort Lauderdale’s version of PerformanceSTAT. These strategies included Fast Forward Fort Lauderdale: Our City, Our Vision 2035 and Press Play Fort Lauderdale: Our City, Our Strategic Plan 2018.

I also learned about police services (both land and marine), special events coordination, and the Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. Since I’m a member of the Palo Alto Special Events Committee, comparing both cities’ programs was especially valuable, as I was able to identify areas of opportunity, including staffing structure, meeting structure, and approval process that can be implemented in Palo Alto.

Romo’s Report

For this Fort Lauderdale analyst, my experience was as much learning as it was sharing. I was exposed to Palo Alto’s sustainability programs, its customer-centric philosophy, and its use of technology to engage the community; specifically the 311 app, Open Data initiative, and the city’s recent Hackathon, which is a collaboration on software projects.

On the sharing side, I had the opportunity to present to Palo Alto’s leadership team Fort Lauderdale’s strategic and performance management framework and later, meet one-on-one with most department directors to discuss the implementation details.

The activities we participated in were similar to attending a conference session but were much more robust. The cost, too, was similar to attending, minus the registration fee, but the experience allowed full emersion into another organization and hands-on know-how.

Again, being from Palo Alto, I found that watching an FL2STAT meeting demonstrated Fort Lauderdale’s ability to organize the resources to meet the needs of the community and be accountable for it.

In reflecting about experiences in Palo Alto, coauthor Romo observes that “Learning about the 311 app and Open Data initiative made me understand the complexities of working with different stakeholder to make these projects a reality.”

Building New Relationships

Last, and definitely not least, the best part of the exchange was the new relationships that were built among the analysts and organizations. Long after the exchange ended, we have stayed connected, communicating often. Both of us also regularly tap the individuals we met in our respective host organizations for further details on the programs and services we learned about.

Ultimately, both of us believe that these direct exchanges should happen more often. They foster Tenet 8 of ICMA’s Code of Ethics: “Make it a duty continually to improve the member’s professional ability and to develop the competence of associates in the use of management techniques.”

Hopefully, our experience shared briefly in this article will help create a wave of informal, invaluable, and inexpensive exchanges between other local governments.