Management of Large Facility Projects Within the NSF

1
Management of Large Facility Projects Within the
NSF

• Mark Coles
• Deputy Director for Large Facility Projects
• BFA

2
Role of the Deputy Director for Large Facility
Projects/BFA

• The LFP Deputy serves as NSFs principal agent
  for advising Program Officers on project
  management issues
• monitoring the business operations aspects of
  facilities
• ensuring consistent representation on Project
  Advisory Teams for the purpose of transferring
  lessons learned
• chairing and convening the Facilities Panel
• The LFP Deputy is consulted on all policy matters
  involving facilities, including responses to
  inquiries made by
• NSF management
• NSF Office of Inspector General
• Office of Management and Budget
• Congress

3
View of NSF from LIGO vantage point

• Successful 292 million construction project with
  excellent Foundation support
• LIGO progress was always limited by rate of
  technical progress, never limited by cash flow or
  pace of NSF oversight
• Cooperative agreement with NSF set a
  collaborative framework for establishment of a
  robust baseline scope, budget, schedule, and
  contingency
• As the number of MREFC projects increases, there
  is greater need for resources to support their
  effective oversight
• Creation of resources and formal processes for
  dealing with large projects will be of
  significant benefit to aid emerging projects in
  other disciplines.

4
Initial view (ctd)

• Its also obvious that there are pressures to
  promote greater external visibility of the formal
  processes by which NSF conducts its oversight
  responsibilities.
• The Deputy for Large Facility Projects position
  should facilitate visibility and transparency.

5
Activities to date

• Initial familiarization with broader scope of NSF
  facility related activities
• Site visits in support of NEES U of Illinois and
  Oregon State, NSCL, NHFML, IceCube at U
  Wisconsin, other visits planned.
• Started a monthly reporting system for MREFC
  projects summarizing financial and technical
  status, concerns, and near term milestones.
• Goes to NSF Director and Deputy Director each
  month, via Tom Cooley, to brief them on the
  status of these projects

6
More activities

• Developing supplementary materials to elaborate
  on newly released Large Facilities Management
  and Oversight Guide
• Creation of an LFP web site with resource
  material
• Began a monthly lessons learned seminar series
  on NSF oversight and management of MREFC projects

7
Life Cycle Cost Accounting

• NSB report on Science and Engineering
  Infrastructure for the 21st Century recommends
• Develop and implement budgets for infrastructure
  projects that include the total costs to be
  incurred over the entire life-cycle of the
  project, including research, planning, design,
  construction, commissioning, maintenance,
  operations, and to the extent possible, research
  funding.

8
Plan to introduce enhancements to financial
tracking system to facilitate full life cycle
costing

• Full cost accounting should tell an accurate
  story of the project, like a stock prospectus
• Successful projects may have significant cost
  growth as user community utilizes and adds scope
  to initial project.
• This should be represented as success!
• Cost accounting needs to distinguish this success
  from cost and schedule overruns with respect to
  initial scope.
• Work with BFA and Bearing Point to augment
  existing financial reporting software to allow
  collecting this data
• Work with Program Officers to utilize these tools

9
More about future plans

• Work with emerging projects to create Cooperative
  Agreements, MOUs, Internal Management Plans, and
  Project Execution Plans that reflect best
  practices adapted to each projects specific
  needs.
• Assist NSF Program Officers with external reviews
  to insure that best practices are used to assess
  project management, planning, and reporting.
• Work with NSF Academy to ensure that project
  management training needs are met.

10
Future plans (ctd)

• Promote facility-related policy issues
• Inclusion of education/outreach objectives within
  allowed scope of MREFC where it makes sense to do
  so
• Structure of MREFC scope to align technical
  boundaries and cost accounting boundaries
• Manage interfaces between construction,
  commissioning, early operations
• Avoid potential funding hiatus due to gaps in
  funding between proposal development and MREFC
  award
• Work with projects to make sure that awardees
  have flexibility to adapt a project to utilize
  new technical developments (example LHC grid
  computing)

11
Some open questions

• Should Deputy Director for Large Facility
  Projects be a line management responsibility?
• Influence over project conduct results from good
  communication, building consensus, and providing
  resources, working closely with colleagues in BFA
  and Directorates
• What is the appropriate size and skills mix
  needed for the Facilities Team?

12
Open questions (ctd)

• Can a liens list be created and managed within
  the NSF to anticipate and support full life cycle
  costs for each project?
• A current list of possible future expenditures,
  such as maintenance,contingency repairs and
  spares, upgrades, possible scope expansions,
  interdisciplinary utilization, etc.
• Useful to know what impact will be on future
  Directorate budgets as a consequence of taking on
  a new project.

13
Supplementary Material

• The Large Facility Projects Team

14
Mark Coles

• New to NSF since June 9, 2003
• Previously Observatory Head, Laser
  Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory
  (LIGO NSF funded) Caltech
• Project management experience at LIGO, SSC, and
  Schlumberger
• PhD High Energy Physics, MBA

15
Team Members

• Thad Konopnicki
• On detail from DOE
• 25 years experience in program and project
  management, cost and schedule control systems,
  project assessment tools
• BS mechanical engineering, MS electrical
  engineering, MBA
• Patti McNamara
• 14 years experience with budget and planning
  within NSF
• On detail from MPS Directorate

16
Administrative Team Members

• Joan Miller (BFA Administrative Officer)
• Shirley Byrd
• Aprile Ryans