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In 2004, Boston's preeminent homeless shelter, Pine Street Inn, faced the prospect of steadily dwindling funds for shelter services over the next few years.This stark reality-combined with persistent frustrations at finding permanent homes for homeless clients-persuaded Pine Street's director and board to regroup, gather data, and rethink Pine Street's organizational strategy. The Harvard Kennedy School has designed two cases that look at this juncture in Pine Street's history-this one, intended for a strategic management class, and another case, intended for an introductory statistics class. This case, designed to teach about the important role of organizational culture when changing an organization's mission, begins by introducing Pine Street's history and organizational identity as a place of last resort for many of the "hardest core" homeless in Boston. The case goes on to describe how, in 2004, faced with dwindling funding, Pine Street's director and board decided to commission a study that analyzed how long each incoming homeless client stayed at its shelters over a two-year period. The striking results: a small number of homeless people were "chronic" shelter-stayers, while the vast majority came and went in 10 days or fewer. About 20 per-cent stayed between 10 days and 20 weeks. Over the course of five years, these data, combined with Downie's frustrations at finding housing alternatives for shelter guests, lead Pine Street's director and board chair to propose a controversial new strategy: to shift from an organization that primarily provides the homeless with shelter beds and services to one that primarily provides permanent supportive housing to a subset of the homeless population-the chronically homeless-while providing a smaller pool of shelter beds to short-term stayers and a combination of shelter beds and transitional services to medium-term stayers. The case ends by posing board and staff concerns about the proposal. Case number 1989.0

In late September 2009, nine months after he took office, President Barack Obama appointed Shelley Metzenbaum to the position of associate director for performance and personnel management at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Metzenbaum's charge was to lead government-wide efforts to improve the performance of federal agencies: in short, to make government work better. To improve performance and public confidence in government, the Obama administration wanted agencies to set ambitious goals focused on improving outcomes. Metzenbaum was the administration's choice for advancing this agenda. Metzenbaum realized she had many options from which to choose, but few resources with which to carry out her charge: she had a tiny staff, strained budget and very little direct influence over the agencies tasked with improving their performance. This case focuses on the challenge facing Metzenbaum as she contemplates each of her choices in her approach to indirect management. Case number 1980.0