Tag: AY 2023-24

MLD-601: Operations Management with Mark Fagan

Greg Dorchak

Operations are at the heart of public service delivery. Considering essential service providers currently in the spotlight like the U.S. Postal Service, state-level providers of unemployment insurance, and public health agencies throughout the world charged with distributing the COVID-19 vaccines to populations across the globes, we see that optimal operations management can be critical to people’s lives.  What, then, does it take for leaders of organizations like these to optimize for both effectiveness and efficiency, delivering for the public, and satisfying those to whom they are accountable?  MLD-601: Operations Management taught by versatile Lecturer in Public Policy Mark Fagan explores how operations management is critical to value creation in the public sector. Featuring experiential learning through consulting projects with local government agencies and non-profit organizations, Fagan’s course helps students tackle real operations management issues. Past clients have included the City of Boston, Boston Public Schools, Children’s Hospital, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, Massachusetts Department of Youth Services, Massachusetts Department of Revenue, and Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy.  One recent notable student project was on “Improving Data Operations at Pine Street Inn’s Workforce Development Unit,” which aimed to help this major Boston organization understand and manage its job training program for homeless people.

At the end of this rigorous but fun course students will be able to:

  1. See opportunities to improve operations.
  2. Diagnose the problems and barriers to creating value.
  3. Design effective and efficient solutions.
  4. Apply concepts to solve client issues.

In addition to Operations Management, Fagan also teaches MLD-605: Systems Thinking and Supply Chain Management : Climate, Poverty and Human Rights (Spring) and a  section of the MPP core course API-501 Policy Design and Delivery I.

Learn more about the work of Fagan and his students in these courses by exploring the Autonomous Vehicles Policy Initiative at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government,
Listen to Fagan discuss how policymakers can navigate the robot car revolution on this HKS PolicyCast podcast.

Read how students in the Spring 2020 Supply Chain Management course went to work to help when the COVID-19 struck

From taking notes in the classroom to helping the front lines

For questions about any of Mark Fagan’s courses, or any other in the MLD curriculum, email Greg Dorchak, MLD Area Administrator.

MLD-420 Federal Budget Policy with Howell E. Jackson

Greg Dorchak

The goal of MLD-420  Federal Budget Policy is to introduce students to the law and practice of budgeting in the United States. Taught by Howell Jackson, James S. Reid, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, students in this course will explore the basic structure of the federal budget process, including the President’s budget and congressional budgeting procedures that are supposed to govern federal spending. Over the course of the semester, students examine in greater detail the roles of all three branches of federal government in setting budget policy in the United States, discussing government shut-downs, debt ceiling crises, and ongoing debates over budget reforms and fiscal challenges. The course will also take up the budgeting of entitlements and coordination of fiscal policies within a federal system. Of special interest, students will also explore several budgeting topics that received considerable attention in recent years: funding issues related to military spending/national security, entitlement reform, appropriate fiscal targets in a post-COVID-19 world, and the Biden Administration’s efforts to establish budget priorities over the past two years.

Full Topic list includes:

  • Introduction to Federal Budget Process and Policy
  • The Role of Congress & the President in Federal Budgeting
  • Modern Federal Budgeting & Scoring Baselines
  • Budgetary Aggregates
  • Modern Federal Budgeting and Normative Frameworks
  • Presidential Budgeting and its Boundaries
  • Government Shutdowns and Budgeting in the Trump Administration
  • Accounting for the Federal Government and Student Loans
  • Executive Powers and Defense Budgeting
  • Fiscal Federalism
  • Entitlements
  • Comparative Budget Policy and Reform Proposals

MLD-420 is jointly listed at Harvard Law School (Link here). It will be taught Tuesdays, 8:00 am to 10:00 am on Harvard Law School Campus. For additional information about this course contact Prof. Jackson or Vincenza Rico at HLS.