10 Secrets to a Successful Fellowship Program

One: Create a Tough (But Surmountable) Barrier to Entry

If you’re using a simple resume review and interview process to find talented analysts, stop. There’s a better way. One of the worst things to happen to the field of “analytics” was the ubiquity of the “program analyst” in government positions. The word “analyst” means different things to different people, so governments often hire individuals assuming they have quantitative analytics skills when they’ve only been trained in policy analysis. On the flip side, a pure quant often lacks the communications and people skills necessary to navigate decision makers at executive levels of government, so recruiting someone with multi-dimensional skills is sometimes challenging when searching through a pool of “program analyst” resumes.

So how can you search through the haystack to find the talent? You have to create a higher barrier to entry by initiating a screening process designed to test applicants performance on four dimensions:

• Can they do rigorous quantitative analysis to generate insights relevant to the problem at hand?
• Can they convey those insights in coherent and digestible visual presentation?
• Can they communicate their ideas verbally to busy executives?
• Can they get their most salient point across succinctly in writing?

Most people can’t do all of these well, but your screening process should test all of these capabilities so you know where the strengths and weaknesses are before the analytical fellowship begins. We have posted two sample analytical assessments in the appendix. Feel free to modify them to suit your needs. However, the assessment must be identical across all candidates, must test all four of the capabilities above, and must follow these three steps:

• STEP 1: Candidate is asked to spend a fixed amount of time analyzing a specific dataset and submit two products as a result: (1) Visual presentation (slides); and (2) One-page memo.
• STEP 2: Candidate gives an in-person presentation of slides, explaining his or her findings (and methodology) and choices about what he or she included in the memo
• STEP 3: Interviewer(s) asks the candidate probing questions about his or her analysis and memo

Two: Keep Them Longer Than Three Months

Everyone has a learning curve. So plan for spending about three months getting a new analyst up to speed on the methods, subjects, players, and issues in your organization; because they are likely different from the analyst’s home organization. If the engagement is too short, the analysts will never quite hit her stride and feel confident in her contributions. Everyone needs time to settle in, practice, make a few mistakes, and adapt before his or her contribution is firing on all cylinders.

Three: Make Them Work Outside Their Comfort Zone

Human beings often want two contradictory things in their jobs: They want to feel confident that their contributions matter, and they want to feel challenged by learning new things. As you manage an analytics fellowship, the fastest route to delivering the former is to assign analysts to subjects they already know a lot about. But resist the urge to have the fire department analyst work on public safety issues. Instead, focus on exposing them to new issues and ideas. They will benefit by gaining exposure to people and issues they never normally work on, and the enterprise will benefit from having a fresh eyes on its data. So make the public safety analyst work on human services. Make the human services analyst work on public works, and make the public works analyst work on affordable housing. By cross-pollinating the talent across issues, everyone wins, and the fellows will quickly gain confidence in applying their skills to a wider range of issues.

Four: Give Them Appreciative Feedback

Giving constructive feedback is hard for both the giver and the receiver. Most people do not enjoy telling others about their shortcomings and even fewer like hearing them. However, feedback should never be about immutable characteristics. In other words, it’s not about telling an inherently pessimistic person that they are too negative. Instead, think of feedback as an opportunity to help someone optimize his strengths to mitigate his weaknesses. One of the best ways to practice is called appreciative inquiry.

Appreciative inquiry is very simple. Start by saying something you appreciate about what the analyst has done. Then ask them a question about something that strikes you as a potential opportunity for improvement. For example, if the analysts failed to investigate an obvious outlier in the dataset, don’t attack them by saying “why did you ignore this outlier?” Instead, ask them if they considered exploring the reasons for the outlier.

There is real science behind appreciative inquiry, because the act of telling something you appreciate about them disarms their amygdala response, causing people to be less defensive when you then suggest a potential area of further exploration.

Five: Kick Them Out After Six Months

A fellowship wouldn’t be a fellowship if it lasted forever, and six months is the upper limit of what most offices can maintain. First, you’ve probably snagged top talent and the fellow’s home office is likely missing them. Not many managers can live without their best and brightest for too long. Second, the whole point is to get them back out to the programs to fertilize these capabilities across the enterprise. If you hoard the talent for too long, no one else benefits, including you. Once a fellow has returned to her home office, you now have a stronger partner in that program to leverage. It may seem counterintuitive, but if you love something . . . let it go.

Six: Ask Them for Feedback

Feedback is a two-way street, and every fellowship program can benefit from some self-reflection. Self-reflection should occur at (at least) three different times during the life of the fellow. During the fellowship, managers should check in with the analysts on how their experience is going so it can be adjusted mid-flight.

At the conclusion of the fellowship, fellows should complete a user-friendly survey to express how they felt about the experience overall and what recommendations they have for improvement. After the fellowship, managers should check-in with the analysts on whether the fellowship is having an effect (positive or negative) on their professional growth and experiences. To get you started, here are some questions to consider asking:

• Did you feel welcome and included?
• Did you gain valuable knowledge?
• Did you gain valuable experience?
• Are you glad you accepted the fellowship?
• Did your work directly support senior leadership's ability to make decisions?
• Did your work help the organization focus on the most critical challenges we face?
• Did your work influence the future direction of the organization?
• Did you receive valuable feedback from the Fellowship Director?
• Did you feel comfortable enough to share honest and constructive feedback with the Fellowship Director?
• Did you feel comfortable enough to share honest and constructive feedback with other fellows?
• Has the fellowship helped you advance your own career goals?
• What are the top three changes you would make to the fellowship program to make it more valuable?
• How likely are you to recommend this fellowship to other employees?

Seven: Maintain a Relationship

One of the main reasons Baltimore promoted analysts into program management jobs when their tour with the Mayor’s Citistat ended is because it helps drive the practices into the organization while simultaneously installing feedback loops between executive offices and programs. Those feedback loops can provide a valuable ground truth to executive decision makers as they strive to make lasting impacts on programs and outcomes. But feedback loops only exist through relationships, and relationships require nurturing and support.

Consider creating an alumni network of past fellows who stay connected and communicate honestly about the reality of post-fellowship life in the programs. As their work on the front lines shapes the way business gets done, it also informs leadership about cultural dynamics, opportunities for improvement, and resistance to change. Alumni of the Presidential Management Fellowship program created a group focused on continuously improving the program and supporting current and former fellows.

Former fellows are the ambassadors of analytics in the organization, and people look to them for insights about “what it’s really like” in the box seats. So make sure to maintain a positive and supportive relationship with them. By building a lasting bond of trust with each fellow, strong relationships will flourish and the enterprise will reap benefits for years to come.

Eight: Celebrate Their Successes

Data isn’t the hero, the people who use it are. So find ways to celebrate their professional (and personal successes) from the moment they walk in the door and never stop making them feel appreciated. Celebrate their birthdays. Ask about their families, and celebrate major life milestones with them (having a child, buying a house, kid’s graduation, years of service). People want to matter, and you should make every fellow feel like they matter to you.

As they complete analytical projects, give them credit for their work and highlight how profoundly important it is, not just for now, but for those in the organization whose brains were stimulated by the experience of working with them. Celebrate their role helping build a culture of inquiry informed by data and evidence.

Even after they leave, communicate future successes (promotions, big projects, etc.) to the alumni network. Make it clear that you care about their career advancement, not just their career as it relates to your work. As you celebrate them publicly, invite others to submit stories or milestones they are proud of. There are countless people working tirelessly in the shadows who deserve recognition, so use your position to elevate theirs.

Nine: Keep Them Out of the Pigeonhole

One of the biggest dangers in doing an analytics fellowship is that you get pigeonholed as “the analyst” or “the Stat guy.” The home organization treats the fellow like their highest valued use is to be the liaison between the program and the mayor’s office. One fellowship program tried to mitigate this by writing language similar to the following into the Memorandum of Agreement with the program offices:

At the conclusion of the fellowship, the program agrees to assign the fellow a workload that does not involve direct interaction with the STAT Fellowship program as a primary responsibility. Instead, the program agrees to make every effort to expand the fellow’s breadth of experiences to foster continuous professional growth.

Putting explicit language in an MOA is not necessary, but it useful to spell out the expectations up front, so everyone involved is clear that this is ultimately about the development of talent within the organization.

Ten: Share Beyond Your Borders

Finally, consider creating a fellowship that extends beyond the bounds of your organization. The most iconic fellowship program – the federal government’s Presidential Management Fellowship – advertises itself as an opportunity to leap from one organization to another:

Your two-year appointment will provide a fast-paced opportunity to gain experience and develop your talents. You will be challenged with opportunities to flourish into a problem solver, strategic thinker and future leader. In addition to working at a single Federal agency, you may have the option to participate in a rotational opportunity at another agency. These rotational opportunities will challenge you even further and give you insight into how other areas of government operate.

Cities have taken notice. Long Beach, CA has a fellowship program for recent grads to spend a year rotating through four different departments. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab has a 2 to 12 month fellowship for federal government employees. ICMA even has a three-month talent exchange program between local governments.