Results

IT Strategy and Governance

USDA: IT Program Management

THE CHALLENGE
The US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (USDA/FNS) has an initiative to plan, develop, and deploy three model management information systems (MIS) in support of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program run by State agencies. WIC is funded by a Federal grant program and is available in all 50 States, 35 Indian Tribal Organizations, America Samoa, District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. These SAM systems provide the backbone for WIC agencies to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, and children (WIC) up to age five who are at nutrition risk by providing nutritious foods to supplement diets, information on healthy eating, and referrals to health care. The FNS required expertise to align and communicate with a complex array of disparate stakeholders and forge a long term strategy for developing and maintaining each of the SAM systems.

THE SUNTIVA SOLUTION
Suntiva provided experienced management consultants with an average of 20 years of experience to guide the FNS in long term strategic planning, while identifying quick hits where immediate benefits could be realized. All tasks included the participation of Suntiva’s organizational performance consultants to proactively manage and align the various interests of federal and state stakeholders. The tasks included the following: IT Acquisitions, Strategic Planning, System Assessment, Strategic Communications Planning and Cost Benefit Analysis.

THE RESULTS

Streamlined end-to-end acquisitions processes were implemented with Suntiva’s guidance to ensure accurate requirements were captured with stringent service levels and a clear path to source selection. Broad vendor audiences were achieved through implementation of an acquisitions communications plan that included social networking.
Stakeholder alignment and buy-in around collaboratively established strategic goals for the short and long term. This included transparency into decision making processes to ensure traceability and accountability.
Removed doubt about how the SPIRIT system functioned with our independent and transparent infrastructure and code analysis which will enable the stakeholders to focus on moving forward with an unbiased evaluation for opening up the SPIRIT SAM to more State agencies.
Established a 12 month communications plan for the SPIRIT SAM which provides a template for the other State Agency Models. The plan promotes positive and informative exposure of SAMs, through the publication of fact sheets geared to different audiences, articles promoting SAM related efforts, and new methods for internal SAM stakeholders to more effectively communicate.
Suntiva expects to deliver results for the cost benefit analysis by June 2012.

DLA: IT Strategy

THE CHALLENGE
J-64 is the Defense Logistics Agency’s (DLA) global, 4,000+ person Information Technology (IT) and data services organization delivers logistics mission success through IT solutions sustainment, IT service strategy, management, and delivery; as well as cyber operations, mission assurance, and continuous improvement.

DLA J64 intends to improve the efficiency while maintaining/increasing effectiveness of the organization through a structured analysis leading to a targeted transformation of service delivery. Part of the transformation will include establishing a second Network Operating and Security Center (NOSC) to expand the services provided to DLA as well as significantly enhancing the DLA’s Disaster Recovery capability. Simultaneously, DLA J64 will undertake an analysis of the current workforce staffing levels to identify efficiencies that will be leveraged to contribute to the staffing of the new NOSC and the appropriate regional staffing.

THE SUNTIVA SOLUTION
DLA J64 engaged Suntiva to design and deliver an Organization Assessment, Organization Design, and Transition Planning and Implementation/Execution Recommendations. Suntiva will enhance the progress that the DLA J64 has already made in planning for a successful organization transformation in a way that minimizes risks by providing analytical support to facilitate the transition process, communicating with stakeholders, and identifying and mitigating human capital issues. In addition, Suntiva’s deep knowledge and experience in IT Strategy and Governance, as well as in-depth expertise of the associated “people aspects” are essential to identifying and resolving the DLA J64’s business challenges.

THE RESULTS

An improved Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery capability.
An organizational transformation realigning people, processes and technology to fulfill efficiency targets and improved customer service goals.
Updated and improved Service Management processes supporting DLA’s streamlined IT Service delivery and organization models.
Stakeholder Alignment around IT investment decisions mapped to the organization’s strategic goals, and transparency into decision making processes to ensure traceability and accountability.

ACC: IT Governance

THE CHALLENGE
The Army Contracting Command (ACC) is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC). This relatively new, one-of-a-kind Army organization performs the majority of contracting work for the U.S. Army, and consists of two subordinate commands responsible for installation and expeditionary contracting, and other Army contracting elements. The ACC requires the ability to enable IT Portfolio and Investment Management though the development and implementation of IT Governance

THE SUNTIVA SOLUTION
Suntiva developed and implemented program requirements, processes and deliverables for the review, adjudication and management of IT investments – all with the prudent level of oversight without introducing unnecessary delays. We began with the refinement of the Portfolio Management process, including decision-making bodies, processes, and investment reviews to evaluate net new, changes, and retirement decisions. Suntiva supported the ACC by bringing industry best practices and standards for charters, requirements definition, testing and signoff, configuration and change management, transition, and ongoing evaluation of projects and technologies. IT Governance was designed with appropriate checks and balances and segregation of duties, recommend roles, responsibilities, processes, policies and procedures. Suntiva interacted with government personnel and external stakeholders to affect a comprehensive and lasting model.

THE RESULTS

Application of the federal Clinger–Cohen Act requirements by establishing a comprehensive approach for executive agencies to improve the acquisition and management of their information resources.
Stakeholder Alignment around IT investment decisions mapped to the organization’s strategic goals, and transparency into decision making processes to ensure traceability and accountability.
IT governance that relies on a limited set of governance mechanisms (e.g. committees, project management, business cases, architecture exception processes) designed to ensure effective use of IT.
IT governance that focuses on a small set of critical IT-related decisions: IT principles, enterprise architecture, IT infrastructure capabilities, business application needs, and IT investment and prioritization.
Processes that effect clear sequence, methods, roles and responsibilities for developing comprehensive business cases with established requirements, high-level technical direction, costs, impacts and risks.
A process framework that serves as the basis of, and input to IT Portfolio Management capabilities – i.e. monitor, reporting and oversight of IT projects.

WHS: Software Tool Support for SPS Procurement Data

THE CHALLENGE
The Washington Headquarters Services (WHS), Acquisition & Procurement Office (A&PO) supports the warfighter by providing contracting support to ensure that goods and services required by our armed services are provided in a timely and efficient fashion. The A&PO requires the ability to benchmark and measure its performance as a contracting organization through a set of defined, objective, and measurable metrics extracted from the SPS databases it manages.

THE SUNTIVA SOLUTION
Suntiva implemented our Acqnowledge© business intelligence solution that provides timely insights and analysis into complex acquisition and procurement data via easy to navigate reports. Through an automated Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) process that accurately extracts only relevant data from multiple SPS databases, Acqnowledge turns this complex data into usable and reportable information. Procurement personnel and decision makers can use these reports to track procurement metrics and create benchmarks to analyze ongoing performance.

THE RESULTS

Acqnowledge reports provide WHS with an “Enterprise” view of acquisition data by reporting on data merged from the multiple SPS databases managed by WHS.
Summary reports on contract actions which used to take WHS Acquisition professionals up to four days to assemble using built-in SPS reports and SQL Scripts, are now available in seconds at the push of a button.
Detailed Procurement Action Lead Time (PALT) data is now available as Acqnowledge measures lead time at both the document (contract action) and line item (CLIN) level.
PR Funding (commitments) and Award Funding (obligations) are matched.
Acqnowledge tracks and reports not only acquisition performance but also provides indicators of how SPS is being utilized (are SOPs being followed, are Awards created from the PR, etc.)
End of year fiscal reporting from a enterprise-view is made easier.

NRC: Acquisition Strategy & Procurement, Program Management, Change and Transition Management

THE CHALLENGE
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was created as an independent agency by Congress in 1974 to enable the nation to safely use radioactive materials for beneficial civilian purposes while ensuring that people and the environment are protected. NRC’s Acquisition Support, Transition Management, and Service Delivery Enhancement group streamline acquisition of services for NRC data center contracts, as well as other potential services to meet the evolving programmatic and business needs of the agency. In the Information Technology (IT) group, some of these core and optional services include IT and business system hosting and system administration, user-level desktop support services, enterprise telecommunications and voice/video support, Enterprise Operations Center (EOC) support, help desk services, and overall service integration and support. Specific needs of the NRC program acquisition staff can include wide-ranging market research, source selection plans, pricing analysis, and various contract administration tasks.

THE SUNTIVA SOLUTION
Suntiva supports NRC with a team of acquisition professionals with thought leadership, managerial support, and consulting services throughout the procurement lifecycle based on Suntiva’s combined expertise in Federal acquisition and procurement, organizational transformation, and information technology. Specifically Suntiva provided the NRC with change, facilitation, Transition Management, and Program/Project Management, and brought our unique understanding of when IT issues stem from “human factors,” and how to implement solutions.

THE RESULTS

Very early on in the project, the Suntiva program manager identified key potential risks to the project, and relayed those perspectives to the government leadership team. All of these potential risks were mitigated or eliminated through careful and steady application of a strict protocol of Suntiva’s change management and stakeholder alignment methodologies;
Suntiva supported the NRC in change and transition management – the team developed a transition risk management plan that identified potential risks during the transition from the current support model to the future support model and sets out mitigations for each of the identified risks. Suntiva also conducted facilitated change management sessions with a variety of stakeholders across the United States and constructed a communications plan to improve alignment and engagement of the stakeholders;
Suntiva conducted nearly one hundred impartial interviews and focus groups across a representative range and depth of the agency, providing recommendations across a variety of contract vehicles and approaches, helping to frame the scope of the new contract, and providing best practices from industry and government for both contracting and IT Service Management;
In addition to describing 22 core service delivery areas, Suntiva and the NRC worked together to describe IT service provisioning in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) V3 framework to ensure that government and contractor responsibilities across the scope of the contract were clearly delineated.