Scoping and Grouping Review

1
Defense Logistics Agency, Enterprise Support
DES A-76 Program Lessons Learned Preliminary
Planning
Commercial Activities Program Office November 15,
2006
2
DES A-76 Lessons Learned Topics

• Areas from which valuable insights were
  gained include
• Funding/Contracting for Services
• Market Research
• Leadership/Executive team involvement
• Changing FTE baselines
• Planning
• Communications

3
DES Lessons Learned Preliminary
PlanningFunding, Contracting, and Budgeting

• Funding
• A-76 funding is allocated by DLA HQ elements and
  Field Activities
• Funds must be pulled back to HQ to contract for
  vendor support
• Contracting
• Allocate more time than you think you could
  possibly need
• Single contract for all sites
• Ensure adequate burn rate throughout the entire
  preliminary planning period
• Budgeting
• Guidebook calls for 5000 per position studied
• Past historical data indicates that the target
  funding may not be sufficient

4
Market Research

• Issue How to conduct successful market research
• Solution
• Keep an open mind, dont automatically go with
  your original assumptions
• Differences in past performance and experience
• Do additional research on companies that respond
  to data calls
• Utilize DES Contracting Center of Excellence for
  past performance

5
DES Lessons Learned Preliminary PlanningUsing
the Enterprise Leadership Team

• Involving organization leadership resulted in
  a number of benefits including
• Ensuring leadership Buy In
• Better communication
• Smarter decisions
• Use of Paired Choice Analysis

6
Baseline Data

• Issue Baseline data numbers may change during
  preliminary planning
• Solution
• Be aware of areas that may cause changes
• FAIR Act Data
• BRAC
• Downsizing
• Restructuring
• Document everything so changes can be traced
• Effective communication is important

7
Documented Plan with Milestones

• Issue How to ensure that the preliminary
  planning stays on schedule and all tasks are
  accounted for
• Solution
• Have a written plan with milestones completed by
  the start of preliminary planning
• Use the plan to allocate resources and time to
  keep preliminary planning on time
• The plan allows you to
• Know what resources you have available
• Keep the work on schedule
• Help prevent any surprises
• Have a timeline of milestones and their
  completion dates

8
Preliminary PlanningCommunication

• Issue How to insure effective communication
  during preliminary planning
• Solution
• Study kick-off workshop with key players from
  each site
• Conduct site visits at each location included in
  the preliminary planning
• Visit made to each site by the Commercial
  Activity Program Office Program Manager
• Frequent virtual meetings
• VTCs
• Teleconference
• Regular Updates
• Monthly newsletters
• Detailed supervisors talking points
• Weekly or bi-weekly distribution of a compilation
  of A-76 related articles
• Senior Leader visit to each site
• Town Hall meetings
• Briefings and updates to the Executive Leadership
  Team (ELT)