Management Improvements
USAID's considerable progress in its business transformation is benefiting Agency employees, implementing partners, and beneficiaries. Through the efficiencies gained, USAID is able to better meet its mandate and ensure responsible use of American taxpayer funds. Management reform initiatives are directed at streamlining administrative processes and systems, eliminating redundancies, and improving customer service to enhance USAID's program delivery.
USAID's Business Transformation Plan
One of the most important keys to successful transformation is an effective governance structure. USAID created the Business Transformation Executive Committee (BTEC) to unite the most senior career executives across the Agency in a partnership to reform USAID's management systems and improve organizational performance. The BTEC is based on the recognized "best practice" that successful, large-scale transformation requires active collaboration, shared ownership, and accountability across an organization's entire top leadership team. Chaired by the Deputy Administrator, the BTEC meets monthly to review progress, set priorities, and make decisions. It serves as the Agency's capital investment review board to ensure that investments address USAID's highest priorities and meet employee needs. The BTEC has developed the major components of USAID's Business Transformation Plan to address the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Administrator's Management Reform Principles, and management strategic objectives of the Joint State-USAID Strategic Plan.
USAID's comprehensive plan to modernize the Agency's management systems, improve customer service, and implement performance-based results consists of the following four major business transformation initiatives:
Strategic Management of Human Capital: USAID is directly addressing the PMA's human capital goals through its comprehensive Human Capital Strategy (2004-2009). In FY 2006, USAID will:
- Implement workforce planning to close skill gaps through recruitment, retention, training, succession planning, and other strategies.
- Incorporate diversity strategies in outreach, recruitment, screening and selection processes.
- Target training and mentoring of Agency leaders and employees based on the results of the workforce analysis and planning effort.
- Expand the use of alternative learning modalities such as virtual classrooms and web-based training.
- Improve the link between Agency goals and individual employee performance plans, developing strategic objectives to cover 100 percent of the workforce.
- Complete the third year of the Development Readiness Initiative to recruit and train new staff to meet agency emerging program priorities.
Business Systems Modernization: USAID has undertaken a major multi-year effort to improve critical Agency business systems, including financial management and procurement, in accordance with the PMA objectives for e-government, financial performance, and competitive sourcing. To ensure success of these efforts, the Agency has developed best practice plans and procedures to prioritize Information Technology (IT) investments, produce detailed project management plans, and monitor and evaluate approved projects. The FY 2006 request will allow USAID to:
- Complete worldwide deployment of the Phoenix financial system, eliminating a material weakness under the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. This will also bring the Agency into compliance with the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act requirement that all financial transactions be posted as accounting events to the accounting system.
- Continue deployment of a new acquisition and assistance system to improve procurement efficiency and reporting capability.
- Begin a long-term effort to modernize the Agency's aging information technology infrastructure, critical for success of all business system improvements.
- Strengthen collaboration with the State Department through development of a joint enterprise architecture, use of a shared platform for the financial management system, and joint infrastructure projects.
Knowledge for Development: Through this effort, USAID is improving the strategic management of the Agency's intellectual capital, enhancing learning, capturing institutional knowledge, and strengthening partner collaboration through technology-enabled systems and processes as envisioned under the PMA objectives for e-Government and Human Capital. In FY 2006, USAID will:
- Improve internet search capability and use of collaboration tools, including a knowledge forum for contractors supporting USAID to minimize redundant investments.
- Support an Expertise Locator to better harness USAID staff resources and develop a "Yellow Pages" tool to provide a one-stop reference for USAID's core knowledge assets.
Strategic Budgeting corresponds to the PMA goals for Budget and Performance Integration. This Agency initiative encompasses strategic planning, budgeting, and decision-making reforms to better link performance and budget and make Agency decision-making performance-based. In FY 2006, USAID will:
- Develop improved efficiency measures and common performance indicators in accordance with the Performance Goals defined in the State-USAID Joint Strategic and Performance Plans to provide the foundation for allocation of resources toward priority areas based on demonstrated performance.
- Use the Agency's workforce planning model to inform administrative resource allocation decisions.
- Streamline the Agency's strategic planning and reporting processes.
President's Management Agenda
USAID has made significant progress on the PMA and embraces the PMA objectives to enhance performance through better control over resources used and accountability for program results. The Agency has improved its status ranking to "yellow" for e-government and budget and performance integration, and is implementing a number of management reforms and major investments to achieve "green" status in all areas. Accomplishments to date on all five government-wide PMA initiatives are detailed in the "Management Landscape" section of the FY 2006 Joint State-USAID Performance Plan. In FY 2006, USAID will focus on:
Strategic Management of Human Capital: The Agency is committed to fully implementing its Human Capital Strategy and achieving a "green" status rating in FY 2006. USAID will continue to analyze and optimize current organizational structures, work to close mission critical skill gaps, and implement an effective performance appraisal system for all employees. The recent establishment of a comprehensive human capital workforce model will allow the agency to more effectively analyze its current staffing patterns globally, across all staffing categories. In addition, USAID has been successful in reducing the time it takes to recruit new employees, and will continue to make improvements in staff training. USAID is implementing its human capital accountability system using metrics to evaluate performance. It will incorporate affirmative employment goals into recruitment strategies and develop strategies to address under representation.
Improved Financial Performance: USAID will complete the State-USAID Joint Financial Management System, including a worldwide transition to an integrated accounting system, and continue implementation of the Procurement System Improvement Plan. These investments will keep the Agency on track for achieving a "green" status rating in FY 2007.
Expanded Electronic Government: USAID will continue full participation in enterprise architecture improvements and strengthen management of its information technology portfolio, including e-Training, e-Grants, e-Travel and other government-wide e-government initiatives. These efforts address the criteria for the "green" status rating the Agency expects to achieve in FY 2005.
Budget and Performance Integration: The Agency is on-track for a "green" status rating in FY 2005 and is continuing efforts to improve in this area. USAID will apply a comprehensive strategic budgeting model to the FY 2006 budget requests and incorporate the results of the Program Assessment Rating Tool assessments into its budget formulation processes to better enable the Agency to link budget decisions to program performance. The Agency will continue to develop efficiency measures for programs scheduled for PART review and develop common performance indicators from previously PARTed programs for use in PART reviews in accordance with the Performance Goals defined in the State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan and the Joint Performance Plan.
Competitive Sourcing: USAID will conduct feasibility studies during the remainder of FY 2005, to begin evaluating whether to proceed with competitions for commercial activities identified as suitable for competition on its Federal Activities Inventory Reform (FAIR) Act inventory. Based on the results of these studies, USAID may initiate competitions. USAID intends to conduct the bulk of its feasibility reviews during FY 2006-08. If any competitions are announced in FY 2005, for completion if FY 2006, they would not likely cover more than 5-10 FTEs.
State-USAID Joint Management Council
The State-USAID Joint Management Council (JMC) is overseeing efforts to pursue collaborative management activities to advance the strategic goals of both organizations, support employees, and reduce costs. The Under Secretary for Management and USAID Deputy Administrator co-chair the Executive Committee, which also includes the Assistant Secretary for Resource Management and Assistant Administrator for Management. Eight senior-level working groups are implementing projects, identified in a joint business plan, in the following areas: resource management, management services and planning, management systems and processes, information and communication technology, e-government, facilities, security, and human capital.
To improve operational efficiencies and eliminate redundancies in administrative and management systems and processes, in FY 2006 USAID and State will:
- Continue to implement Phase I of the Shared Services Pilots, and move forward with Phase II pilots.
- Implement joint financial management and procurement systems.
- Develop a joint information technology strategic plan.
- Assess the feasibility of using the new Department of State e-mail system and potential for joint automated software distribution.
- Continue collaboration on a joint network operations center and help-desk operations.
Global Development Alliance
The Global Development Alliance (GDA) is a model for creating alliances that draws upon the resources and expertise of the private and public sectors to further USAID objectives. FY 2006 represents the fifth year of existence for GDA and the model has become integrated into Agency strategies and practices. USAID has created over 200 alliances in areas such as education, health, safe water, forest certification, and small-enterprise development. In Africa, for example, USAID is working with companies to prevent malaria by supplying low-cost insecticide-treated bednets while in Asia USAID is collaborating with major information technology companies to provide youth with computer skills.
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