Index of Classes

(Core Courses) (Quantitative Methods Electives) (Public Policy Electives) (Organizational Management Electives) (Resource Management Electives) (Personnel Management Electives)

Core Courses

030 Management Assessment for Personal Planning and Development
Through the use of self-assessment tools, learn how your personal style and needs compare with agency goals and other public managers' styles.

100 The Public Management Profession and Environment
Learn current and relevant information on public management as a profession, including how the field is changing, how your position is affected by trends outside the organization and issues you will want to monitor in the coming year.

110 Presenting Yourself to One or Many
Learn the critical skills needed to present yourself orally in many different settings, from one-on-one conversations to formal speeches and interviews with the media.

120 Strategic Planning and Goal Setting
Discover how to use planning as a reliable management tool by learning how to develop measurable, obtainable goals; how to motivate others to understand these goals; and how to adapt your strategic plan to the future.

130 Productivity and Quality Improvement
Explore all aspects of public sector quality improvement, including the manager's role in QI, ways to establish and measure your product and success stories in other public agencies.

140 Problem Analysis and Problem Solving
Learn the systematic process of problem-solving, including communication processes to improve creativity; roles for groups and teams in problem-solving; how to define problems in different ways; and the limitations of your present problem-solving style.

160 Ethics, Values and the Public Manager
Learn how to promote ethical conduct, how to manage ethically and the potential problems in enforcing rules governing ethical behavior.

170 Leadership
Examine leaders and leadership--what determines who becomes a leader, how to develop leadership abilities and how the context affects your behavior as a leader.

Quantitative Methods Electives

200 Understanding and Using Research in Public Management
Learn to use research correctly, manage the research process, interpret research correctly and use findings.

201 Application of Microcomputers to Problems in Public Administration
Learn new roles for information professionals and managers, fundamentals of database and network management, ethical concerns and relevant security matters.

202 Organizational Performance Measurement
Learn to develop clear objectives and to analyze your organization's effectiveness in achieving objectives. Learn the most efficient ways of achieving success at every level of management. (Also listed as Class 269.)

203 Using Systems Approaches in a Chaotic World
Learn to use the language of systems, including when and how to apply systems methods to projects and the monitoring of project progress.

204 Managing Projects
Learn the tools and methods for planning for, managing and evaluating projects. Learn how to manage multiple projects and maintain effective reporting systems. (Also listed as Class 268.)

204A Productivity Tools
Learn to use a variety of tools and techniques to improve the productivity and quality of your agency's services, including those necessary for collecting and analyzing information, managing groups, making data-based decisions and monitoring the delivery of services. (Also listed as Class 268A.)

205 Reengineering Your Organization
Learn the processes and strategies of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) to restructure and streamline your organization. (Also listed as Class 251.)

206 Benchmarking for Program Improvement
Learn how to identify the measures of efficiency, effectiveness and productivity which measure the performance of your organization. Learn to set realistic performance targets for your agency to provide better services to clients and citizens.

207 Program Evaluation Techniques
Learn the major information sources for a program evaluation, specific evaluation methods, the variety of statistical measures for analyzing data and how to prepare a responsive evaluation report.

208 Advanced Reengineering
Expand upon the processes and strategies of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) to explore further ways to restructure and streamline your organization.

209 Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Explore why customer assessment is essential to government success and the various approaches for measuring customer satisfaction.

Public Policy Electives

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220 Policy Analysis for Non-Analysts
Learn established methods to evaluate policy decisions, predict outcomes, solve problems, make decisions and compare results.

221 The Public Official In Court
Learn the civil litigation process and why it happens as it does. Areas of focus include protection for the individual official, lawyers' procedures and rules of evidence, how to work with counsel, how to give a deposition, how to use expert witnesses and the judge's responsibility.

222 Policy Issues
Learn issues and concerns related to current policy issues. Topics change according to need and have included such areas as health care, welfare and the state budget.

222A The State Budget Process
Learn how the state biennial budget is created from the development of agency budget requests to the Governor’s signature on the final budget bill many months later. Discover what factors influence whether a specific agency request will be supported by the Legislature and the governor and the roles played by specific committees and members of the Legislature in the budget process.

223 Redefining the Public Sector: Insights and Strategies for Building Private Sector Partnerships
Learn the differences between the public and private sectors, the nature of the various relationships between them and their strengths and weaknesses.

224 External Relations
Learn to understand and respond to the public--clients who use your services, citizens with questions, special interest groups, legislative bodies and the media.

225 Media Relations
Learn the rules for establishing and managing a proactive media relations program for your agency. Includes a discussion of public/media relations planning and crisis management.

226 Working with Councils, Boards and Commissions
Learn to manage the tension between democracy and professionalism, how to describe your job and goals to elected or politically-appointed bodies, respond to policy-makers' questions and demands, build consensus on the board and develop leadership among elected officials.(Also listed as Class 247.)

227 Executive Writing
Improve your memos, letters and reports. Learn to select structure and supporting materials, choose appropriate language and analyze your intended audience. Participant writing samples will be analyzed.

228 Freedom and Control: Constitutional Law and the Public Manager
Understand your rights and limits as a public manager under the US and State Constitutions as we discuss privacy rights, counter-terrorism, and public-sector duties with reference to the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th Amendments. Gain an appreciation of how the Supreme Court's decisions are likely to affect your work, especially as the makeup of the Court changes.

229 Advanced Issues in Ethics
Learn to recognize, analyze and resolve complicated problems of unethical behavior. Discover how to create an ethical environment. Prerequisite: CPM Ethics class or consent of CPM Program Administrator.

230 Not Assigned

231 The Conduct of Public Meetings
Explore Wisconsin's open meetings law, the standard rules of parliamentary procedure and the public records law. Learn how to keep an accurate and useful record of the proceedings of a public meeting.

232 Customer Service as a Strategic Issue
Learn to motivate and orient the organization to the possibilities, challenges and rewards of improved customer service and discover how to apply marketing concepts. (Also listed as Class 246.)

233 Presenting Yourself to One or Many
Learn the critical skills needed to present yourself orally in many different settings, from one-on-one conversations to formal speeches and interviews with the media. (Also listed as Class 254.)

234 Legislative Relations
Learn how to plan for relations with elected bodies, including agenda-building and lobbying. Includes presentations by legislative relations professionals. (Also listed as Class 241.)

235 Liability in Public Administration
Explore civil liability in government, including a general outline of the procedures of a lawsuit involving government and a look at the different kinds of factual situations which can give rise to litigation.

237 Trustworthy Government
Learn how to build the needed trust and consequent high performance in your organization. Explore the barriers to trust and identify methods for overcoming those barriers.

238 Improving Public Participation
Discover the importance of including the public in government decision-making, policy formulation and service delivery. Learn specific methods for public participation and the strengths and weaknesses of each.

239 Analyzing and Presenting Your Survey Data
Learn how to present information from surveys and other sources to your audiences in a way that will best convey your intended message to get the results you want.

Organizational Management Electives

240 Managing Organizational Change
Learn to be an innovator and manager of change. Learn how people react to change and how you, as a manager, can help others to understand and accept change.

240A Transforming Your Organization: Developing Personal Strategies
Learn to use yourself as an instrument of change in your organization by identifying critical personal skills for change and developing a plan for using your skills to support organizational change.

241 Legislative Relations
Learn the general legal boundaries limiting the conduct of public officials and understand the difference between government practices and traditional business practices.

242 Team Management and Team Building
Learn proven team leadership methods and activities which will help to promote long-term enthusiasm for team projects. (Also listed as Class 289.)

242A Team Building for Elected Boards and Councils
Discover ways to build a sense of teamwork between elected boards or councils and the paid staff of the government. Learn the process and practice techniques which have worked well for others. (Also listed as Class 289A.)

242B Developing the Emotional Intelligence of Your Organization
Apply various organizational approaches or images as tools for guiding management action using these different 'lenses' to analyze, diagnose and transform your organization.

243 Leading and Managing from the Middle
Learn to use personal power and influence to increase effectiveness. Learn techniques to influence your boss, manage organizational politics in support of your goals and influence other agencies and the policy-making process.

244 Organizational Analysis and Assessment
Learn to define your role in redesigning--not reorganizing--your organization. Learn to assess efficiency and effectiveness and to engineer the changes needed for productive growth.

244A Understanding Your Organization's Culture and Values
Learn to understand your organization's cultural variables and values to help you frame and shape organizational change.

245 Advanced Issues in Conflict Management
Examine impasse, the most challenging phase of conflict, and explore strategies for handling conflicts between parties of widely disparate power positions. Prerequisite: CPM Conflict Management class or consent of instructor. (Also listed as Class 295.)

246 Customer Service as a Strategic Issue
Learn to motivate and orient the organization to the possibilities, challenges and rewards of improved customer service and discover how to apply marketing concepts. (Also listed as Class 232.)

247 Working with Councils, Boards and Commissions
Learn to manage the tension between democracy and professionalism by discovering how to describe your job and goals to elected or politically-appointed bodies, respond to policy-makers' questions and demands, build consensus on the board and develop leadership among elected officials. (Also listed as Class 226.)

248 Strategies for Building Communication
Learn how to apply your skills in interpersonal relations to more difficult workplace situations.

248A Communication Across Generations
Discover how generational differences can affect the workplace, including difference in preferred balance work and leisure, how one prefers to receive feedback, and how different generations generally prefer to be managed. Learn the value of these differences and to resolve conflicts that may arise.

249 Conflict Management
Learn what causes conflict and the effectiveness of different approaches in handling conflict in the workplace. (Also listed as Class 282.)

250 Advanced Problem Solving
Learn to identify and overcome barriers to solving more difficult workplace problems. Prerequisite: CPM Problem Analysis and Problem Solving class or consent of instructor.

251 Reengineering your Organization
Learn the processes and strategies of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) to restructure and streamline your organization. ( Also listed as Class 205.)

252 The Leader as Caring Steward
Learn to develop strategies and take risks in support of a leadership vision. Prerequisite: CPM Leadership class or consent of instructor.

253 Strategic Management
Learn to implement strategic planning through specific practices in program management, economic development personnel, labor relations and community relations.

254 Presenting Yourself to One or Many
Learn the critical skills needed to present yourself orally in many different settings, from one-on-one conversations to formal speeches and interviews with the media. (Also listed as Class 233.)

255 Managing in Permanent Whitewater
Leaders will be guided through the turbulent waters of today's organization by identifying methods they can use to navigate around dangerous boulders, discover the calm eddys behind each challenge and learn how to read the "river."

256 Promoting Diversity in the Workplace
Explore cross-cultural value differences and the impact of these differences on day-to-day interactions. Learn how to improve your intercultural communication skills.

257 Crisis Management
Learn to recognize key factors in crises, to analyze your organization's crisis-preparedness and to develop a crisis management and response plan.

258 Developing and Using Creativity to Improve Public Management
Learn and practice techniques for improving your own creativity, that of your coworkers, and that of your organization as a whole. Learn ways to apply creative approaches to decision-making, problem-solving, planning, program evaluation, customer service, and many other management functions.

259 Becoming a Department of Choice
Learn strategies to attract quality employees, but more importantly, to retain and grow those employees, making your organization desirable in a tight labor market.

Resource Management Electives

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260 Risk Management
Learn the issues involved in the risk management process, including types of risk, manageable risk, loss control programs, selling the concept of risk management, control techniques and insurance and liability in the public sector.

261 New Resources: Grants and Volunteers
Learn how to use "below-the-line" resources to augment the funded programs and activities of your agency. Learn tips for getting and managing grants and the special demands of a volunteer program.

262 Material Resource Management
Learn current practices in the acquisition, inventorying and distribution of equipment, supplies and other material resources.

262A Purchasing
Learn the most modern and successful purchasing procedures in use in Wisconsin government today. Learn to obtain the best prices for your agency in the most efficient manner.

263 Budgeting for Public Management
Learn the forms and varieties of budgeting in public administration and specific opportunities for improvement in the public manager's budget.

263A The State Budget Process
Learn how the state biennial budget is created, from the development of agency budget requests to the Governor's signature on the final budget bill many months later. Discover what factors influence whether a specific agency will be supported by the Legislature and the governor and the roles played by specific committees and members of the legislature in the budget process.

264 Financial Planning
Learn the elements of effective financial planning, how it differs according to type of public agency, how it relates to the budget process and how to monitor the effectiveness of this part of the policy implementation process.

265 Information Management
Learn the processes and tools for managing information in an agency, including issues of hardware and software selection and purchase, networks and databases and security and ethical issues. Includes discussion of both mainframe and microcomputer issues.

265A Records Management
Discover what distinguishes a record, how to conduct a records inventory, and how to set up a records management program for your agency. Other topics include electronic records, retention scheduling and records law.

266 Program Evaluation
Learn the language and steps of program evaluation, including the types of evaluation and their uses, planning for an evaluation, the role of the manager in evaluation, presenting and using evaluation findings and guidelines for selecting and managing an outside evaluator.

267 Time Management
Learn to identify priorities and allocate time accordingly. Learn when to delegate and when to say no.

267A Managing Managerial Time and Stress
Learn the relationship between time management and stress and how to develop your personal time management system to reduce your managerial stress.

268 Managing Projects
Learn to use a variety of tools and techniques to improve the productivity and quality of your agency's services, including those necessary for collecting and analyzing information, managing groups, making data-based decisions, and monitoring the delivery of services. (Also listed as Class 204)

268A Productivity Tools
Learn to use a variety of tools and techniques to improve the productivity and quality of your agency's services, including those necessary for collecting and analyzing information, managing groups, making data-based decisions and monitoring the delivery of services. (Also listed as Class 204A.)

269 Organizational Performance Measurement
Learn to develop clear objectives and to analyze your organization's effectiveness in achieving objectives. Learn the most efficient ways of achieving success at every level of management. (Also listed as Class 202.)

270 Managing in a Down-sized, Re-engineered World
Learn strategies to meet the challenges facing public management during times of down-sizing.

271 Capital Planning
Learn to assess your organization's short and long-term needs and discover how to develop a comprehensive capital plan which will strengthen your budget presentations.

273 Preparing RFP's and Bids
Learn the processes and procedures required to prepare "Requests for Proposals" which will generate proposals that address your programmatic needs and bids which will accurately respond to RFPs.

274 Contract Administration
Learn how public sector initiatives in privatization and outsourcing affect contracts administration. Gain an understanding of the components of a contract and the importance of contract monitoring.

275 Writing Effective Grant Proposals
Learn the craft of stating clear goals and objectives in your grants, building a budget and creating a dynamic abstract for funding proposals. Learn how to save time in planning and information gathering.

Personnel Management Electives

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281 Personnel Management Overview
This class covers a range of personnel activities, including recruitment and selection, promotion, training and career development, compensation, performance evaluation, discipline, labor relations and management of special problems, such as absenteeism and substance abuse (2 days).

282 Conflict Management
Learn what causes conflict and the effectiveness of different approaches in handling conflict in the workplace. (Also listed as class 249.)

283 Advanced Discipline and Grievance
Learn the manager's role in discipline and the steps in mediation and arbitration of disciplinary cases.

284 Advanced Performance Evaluation
Review the performance appraisal process and sharpen your skills in recognizing situations requiring a detailed performance analysis. Learn about ethical considerations and how to judge specific performance standards.

284A Performance Management
Learn the most effective techniques for supervising and managing the performance of subordinates.

285 Personnel Law and Practices Update
An update session on the most recent laws, cases and practices in personnel law and practice.

286 Supervising Supervisors
Learn the public manager's role as coach, disciplinarian, counselor and team builder, including how to establish and maintain a helping relationship with a supervisor; how to set performance standards for a supervisor; and how to build a supervisory team.

287 Labor Relations Overview
Learn the basics of the labor relations process, from initial steps in contract negotiations to managing the agreement (2 days).

287A Improving Employee Relations
Learn a variety of techniques to build a good relationship between management and labor, including successful methods shared by guest speakers from the employee relations field.

288 Human Resource Development (HRD)
Learn the benefits and pitfalls of current HRD practices (such as employee assistance, wellness, training and education programs) and why every manager must be an HRD manager, as well.

289 Team Management and Team Building
Learn proven team leadership methods and activities which will help to promote long-term enthusiasm for team projects. (Also listed as Class 242.)

289A Team Building for Elected Boards and Councils
Discover ways to build a sense of teamwork between elected boards or councils and the paid staff of the government. Learn the processes and practice techniques which have worked well for others. (Also listed as Class 242A.)

290 New Workforce Challenges
Learn how to handle challenging human relations issues, including topics such as violent and dangerous people, passive-aggressive and other difficult people, and new workers in the organization. Participants are expected to have had experience in managing human relations problems.

291 Personnel Issues
Issues and concerns related to the personnel issues. Topics change according to need and have included such areas as the changing workforce demographics and labor relations.

291A Succession Planning and Mentoring
Learn the critical elements of mentoring and succession planning programs; assess your own organization's readiness and ability to develop leaders; and learn of effective programs in other agencies.

292 Difficult People, Angry People: Managing Them, Managing Yourself
Learn to recognize the characteristics of difficult and angry people in the workplace and in the community and to develop a strategy for managing yourself and protecting yourself and your organization from their negative influence.

293 Dealing with Discrimination and Harassment
Learn the legal criteria which characterize discriminatory or harassing situations and the appropriate management responses to prevent or respond to those situations.

294 Developing Your Personnel Manual
Learn to create, evaluate or improve your agency's or unit's personnel manual. Learn what major issue areas and topics should be included in a personnel manual as well as the legal bases for personnel rules and policies.

295 Advanced Issues in Conflict Management
Examine impasse, the most challenging phase of conflict and explore strategies for handling conflicts between parties of widely disparate power positions. Prerequisite: CPM Conflict Management class or consent of instructor. (Also listed as Class 245.)

296 Supervising the Problem Employee
Learn to integrate your agency's various programs into a consistent approach to dealing with a problem employee and to identify conditions which may be contributing to the problem situation.

297 Keys to Coaching Your Employees
Learn how coaching helps make a great manager and practice coaching skills that you can use everyday at work. Explore the importance of body language, tone of voice and three levels of listening; practice open-ended questions, reflective responses, positive feedback, correcting statements and how to engage cooperation from your staff.

Other classes may be offered by special arrangement or request. Contact us about your idea.

WCPM is a program of the
Department of Professional Development & Applied Studies
610 Langdon St., Rm. 313.....Madison WI 53703
Phone: 608-263-2088 or .....(800) 442-4617
Fax: 608-265-2329.....E-mail: pdas@dcs.wisc.edu