The Forum -  History and Rationale

Texas’ Survey of Organizational Excellence began as an employee attitude or climate survey requested by Governor Bill Clements in 1979. A new and more sophisticated instrument and design were made available in 1993. Today the Survey is widely used by Texas State government as a means of assessing the use of human resources and to improve organizational performance.

In 1995 Governor Bush in efforts to improve strategic planning of state organizations initiated the Governor’s Conference on Organizational Excellence to be held each two years at the start of the state’s biennium. The 1999 Conference brought a focus upon improvements in organizational performance and inaugurated the Texas Star Award. The Forum series was begun in the summer of 2001 to showcase some of the State’s Best Practices in governmental agency organizational excellence and to capture these innovations as organizational and policy research scholarship. Texas Star Award winners are asked to present in a Forum the year after their award. 

The presentations in this Forum and the successful efforts of the past five Governor’s Conferences provide an exciting basis for this year’s Forum. In the 5th Conference in November of 2001, Governor Perry called for higher rates of creativity and efficiency in meeting the needs of the state. With a rapidly growing and complex state facing great opportunities and challenges, never has there been a time in Texas history when effective organizations were more important!