Professionals and practitioners

People deliver services to people. People make decisions on how to do so. People make systems, and people
make organizations. So, inherently, people (can) make change. The underlying role of people (individuals - as
employees, managers, the public, clients, etc.) has been central to our narrative throughout our numerous
discussions on the broad topic of public urban management. We have proposed in our class that (efficient and
effective) delivery of public and social services is dependent on understanding the crisis in public management
and public organizations and finding (innovative) approaches to address these. We have suggested that to do so,
we must further understand our knowledge on the processes of governance, leadership, decision/policy-making,
implementation, communication, learning and financing. We end our discussion with the need for practical
knowledge in our (professional) actions for improving delivery of public services. In your final essay, explore
and analyze on this notion of people (professionals and practitioners) reflecting in action to create
change.