Deliverology 101: A Field Guide For Educational Leaders 1st Edition

Rarely has a more simplistic book been written about such an important topic. Barber is convinced that he has the answer to all that ails government--just create a delivery unit and give it marching orders. This little books stands in sharp contrast with Sir Michael's mind-numbing autobiography--rarely has an autobiography of a short stint in government earned so many pages. It's all a joke for sure--simpler policy and more decentralization appears to be the key. Lord knows that governments have tried every centralizing device known to human kind over the centuries--Chief Financial Officers, Deputy Directors of the Office of Management and Budget, Chief Information Officers, czars of all kinds, etc., etc. It can't come from the top--it has to come from implementable policy with strong capacity. As FDR once argued, ordering the bureaucracy to attention is like punching a feather pillow--one side caves, the other plumps out. Deliverology is just such a book except that the feathers go flying only to be cleaned up by the next administration.

This an outstanding book on how to deliver real change in education. It is full of strategies, templates and excellent commentary. Michael Barber is one of the few people in education who has really delivered change to a large system. He uses well known models plus his own work developed whilst working in the Blair Government as Head of the Delivery Unit. Hence the title. A recommended read for all those wanting to implement real change in education for the benefit of the students. Deliverology 101: A Field Guide For Educational Leaders

A sad testament to 'delusionology'. Barber destroyed the notion of "Public Service" with his crackpot "theories". His blinkered advocacy of a system of managing public services through the heavily rationalist and reductionist approach of imposing allegedly objective performance targets on service delivery continues in this sad tome. Compliance with targeted outcomes is assumed to evidence success and the easy measurement of performance against targets allows effective management and monitoring of that performance. Devilology deserves to be condemned for its actual effects: constraining innovation, creating an obsessive concern with a contrived and ill-conceived series of numbers and measures (to the detriment of actual performance), detracting from good quality service, and even encouraging cheating to meet mandated targets.Please read "Systems Thinking in the Public Sector" by John Seddon published by Triarchy Press in 2008. Seddon presents a rigorous and belligerent critique of the Barberous ideology which was part of the failed and misguided reform regime of the Blair years which rather than reform public services in fact led to the dismantling and demoralization of Health, Education and Policing in the UK.Barber's book is a dreadful effort based on self-aggrandization and a desire to carry on pedalling his tawdry wares.

Although this book was specifically written for an audience of American education system leaders it is equally relevant to leaders in education systems worldwide, that is once you get past the Americanisms and the term 'deliverology' itself. If we understand any education system as being made up of the frontline institutions that deliver learning (e.g. schools or colleges), the middle tier (usually a form of regional administration) and central government, then Barber's book models a delivery chain method that joins up all three levels. The three levels are co-dependent and therefore jointly accountable for delivery of improvement policy. Traditionally there has been a disconnect between each level in terms of accountability, with each level being held independently responsible, often with separate audit methods, for its part within policy delivery. The implementation model Barber outlines will work if the policy for reforming an education system is owned by each level of the system, is based on robust and honest self-evaluation of where the system currently is and linked to appropriately challenging targets and trajectories for improvement. To me this is common sense but then the common sense barrier is often the hardest one to overcome in policy development and implementation.

I like this book because it tells me what i need to know on deleivering reform resultsThis is more foxed and written by expert in the field who have undewent the tasks