ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the productivity of a public sector agency requires an optimal interface between the agency and the human dimension of its environments. It examines optimization requires each government agency not only to search for the best way to carry out its mandate but to consider the consequences of its actions for various subgroups of the population. The chapter describes the demography of a target area, an agency has a chance of finding out what other organizations are active in the target area before charting a course of action. It addresses the inability of many managers to get information out of data and the need to improve the information literacy of public administrators. In particular, managers must have a better understanding of the nature of demographic data and the reliability of the various sources that produce them. The cumbersome access to demographic data has seriously constrained its widespread use in strategic planning efforts.
