The Certified Public Manager Program
The Certified Public Manager (CPM) Program is a nationally-recognized training and development program with the primary goal to develop public sector and public-serving managers who meet a prescribed set of professional standards.
Successful managers require certain skills, attitudes, and behaviors. Modern management, in theory and practice, is a dynamic relationship between tasks, process, and stewardship. It reflects the relatively new belief that long-term productivity and effectiveness require careful attention to human, fiscal, and technical resources, with a specific responsibility for outcomes.
The CPM program's intent is to guide public managers to incorporate state-of-the-art theory (the academic side) into their management behaviors through practical training (the applied side). The Institute for Public Service and the National CPM Consortium are working to professionalize the practice of public management, in much the same way that other associations organize to professionalize their occupations.
Begun at the University of Georgia in 1976, the Certified Public Manager (“CPM”) program was advanced by funding from the U.S. Civil Service Commission in 1978 and subsequently endorsed by other states as a model for training and developing professional public managers. To ensure that the original high standards were maintained, state governments and universities which had adopted the curriculum formed the National Certified Public Manager Consortium, to monitor and accredit CPM programs.
The Consortium has grown to include over 20 states and the federal government. Inquiries have also been made by foreign nations. Of the 20+ states involved in the program, the majority (including Texas) are fully accredited. As the Consortium has increased in size, the accreditation process has evolved to allow considerable diversity in curriculum and program format.
The goals of the CPM program are:
- To strengthen organizational performance by improving the performance of Texas’ public managers;
- To encourage the recognition of public management as a profession established upon an underlying body of knowledge;
- To set out a course of study by which such knowledge about self, groups, and organizations can be acquired;
- To foster and maintain high educational and ethical standards in the practice of public management;
- To assist federal, state and local agencies by establishing a more objective assessment for a public manager's professional knowledge and performance; and
- To provide enhanced professional recognition of management development for public managers.
The Institute for Public Service offers this accredited Certified Public Manager program in cooperation with the William P. Hobby Center for Public Service at Texas State University.