Center for Administrative Innovation

The Center for Administrative Innovation (A/CAI) was established in July 2001 to champion innovative methods of delivering services to overseas and domestic customers and explore ways to improve the overall management performance of the Department of State.

First and foremost our mission is to support U.S. Government personnel stationed overseas by providing better tools, training and techniques to the managers and service providers who operate the logistical infrastructure on which U.S. Government agencies and the Congress depend when they go overseas. Our ultimate goal is to make  management of the State Department's overseas operations the very best in its class.

The Center's charter is to explore new management techniques and processes that hold promise for improving the Department's services. We participate actively in the American Productivity and Quality Consortium and are constantly harvesting new ideas that can be used by our colleagues. A/CAI has consulted with officials at the Army, ICAF, Navy, GSA, and other government agencies. We learned about Gain-sharing from the County of Baltimore. (Employees figure out ways to save money and get a piece of the savings as a reward). We stay in touch with successful businesses and academics that specialize in management. And, we share ideas with colleagues from other nations as well.

The Center is a rather small operation--just a handful of experts chosen from the ranks of successful Civil Service and Foreign Service personnel, assisted from time to time by contractors and employees from other offices on a short-term basis. Our activities range from running relatively large projects to acting as in-house management consultants. We are assisting our embassies in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Vienna and Cairo to obtain ISO 9000 certification for their management operations. The Center hosts conferences around the world at which we encourage our overseas colleagues not just to share their good ideas, but to produce management tools that they can take home and use. We operate a knowledge database to help people find answers to both simple and complex questions. And, inside the Department we market management improvement techniques such as Six Sigma, the Balanced Scorecard and Knowledge Management through various media including the Management Speakers Series, print, video and the web.

And, like the name says, we promote innovation every chance we get. We take pride in “thinking outside the box” and we encourage others to try that kind of unorthodox approach to problem solving.

For more information: acaimail@state.gov