Book excerpt: Agencies across the federal government are embarking on large-scale organizational transformations to address 21st century challenges. One proposed approach to address systemic federal governance and management challenges involves the creation of a senior-level position-a chief operating officer (COO)/chief management officer (CMO)-in selected federal agencies to help elevate, integrate, and institutionalize responsibility for key management functions and business transformation efforts. GAO was asked to develop criteria and strategies for establishing and implementing COO/CMO positions in federal agencies. To do so, GAO (1) gathered information on the experiences and views of officials at four organizations with COO/CMO-type positions and (2) convened a forum to gather insights from individuals with experience in business transformation.