**ABC STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING**

**3 March 2005**

**9:00 -- 10:30 AM**

**MIB Rm. 7000A**

**MINUTES**

**[Announcements:]{.underline}**

Bureau work activity to DOI work activity mappings distributed for
review/correction at the 15 February 2005 combined Performance
Management Council (PMC)/ABC Steering Committee meeting, and via e-mail
to ABC Steering Committee members/Activity Oversight Team (AOT) is the
basis for Grant Thornton's activity analysis. If bureaus had any
corrections, they need to forward them to Ms. Sugiyama ASAP.

An output file format to capture workload from DOI ABC activities was
distributed. DOI is now requesting all bureaus and OS offices to provide
workload data for FY04 and the first two quarters of FY05 for the FY04
and FY05 DOI ABC activities. Memo formally requesting the workload data
to be forwarded to Bureau Deputy Directors and ABC Program Staff (memo
dated 21 March 2005 was forwarded electronically to ABC Steering
Committee members and AOT). Memo requested workload data to be provided
to Stephanie Taylor of the NBC by 15 April 2005. (Memo and format are
attachment 1 to the minutes).

**[Consistency in ABC/M Activity/Output Definitions; Bureau ABC/M
Activity Mapping to DOI Activities]{.underline}**

This steering committee meeting was entirely devoted to discussion of
the ABC/M Program's major initiative for FY05 -- achieving consistency
in how bureau ABC work activities map to DOI ABC work activities, and in
how bureau/DOI activities and outputs are defined. Ms. Sugiyama
announced that the Dept. has partnered with Grant Thornton to conduct
the activity analysis. Grant Thornton would address in this steering
committee meeting how that analysis would be conducted. (briefing charts
for discussion are attachment 2 to the minutes)

Ms. Hatfield gave the Departmental perspective on achieving consistency.
In times of austere budgets, we cannot afford not to understand what our
cost of doing business is, and to improve our work processes. Ergo, it
is important to understand what work the Department and bureaus do, what
resources are committed to achieving targeted levels of performance, and
what it costs to do work. Bureaus should be looking at their costs to
determine what efficiencies they can achieve, and these efficiencies
should be tied to PART. Consistency means a common approach to
discussing the cost of doing business --knowing what the costs represent
in terms of the work activities (both DOI work activities and the bureau
work activities that map to the DOI work activities) that generated the
costs. This is not to say that the bureaus will not retain flexibility
to create/define work activities they need to execute their missions and
manage their business.

ABC is a way of articulating the full cost of achieving our mission,
reflected in the end outcome goals in the Department's Strategic Plan.
OMB is looking for examples of how the Department uses ABC to justify
funding requests. The Department recognizes that this point in the
calendar year is not necessarily conducive to doing activity analysis --
bureau and Departmental resources are stretched due to preparing for
FBMS deployment, but the analysis is necessary to build a foundation for
a stable structure for migrating ABC/M into FBMS.

Bottom line -- the Department wants timely, usable financial information
for managing programs. We need to develop a repeatable process to
understand the cost of doing business (reflected in bureau and DOI ABC
activities), and we need to have a clear, consistent linkage of bureau
activities/outputs to DOI activities/outputs. The activity analysis --
and the ensuing bureau/Departmental discussions on resolving consistency
issues that the activity analysis will produce -- will build the
repeatable process and the consistent linkage.

Key points from Grant Thornton presentation:

-   The "as is" and "to be" crosswalk showing alignment of bureau work
    activities to DOI work activities will be produced as an IDEF0 model
    in Popkin System Architect. The "to be" model will then be
    integrated into the Department's Business Reference Model (BRM)
    which is also an IDEF model in Popkin System Architect.

    -   BIA: Will this be a data model or a process model?

> Answer: Process model

-   FWS: Clarification -- Department is aligning costs to end outcome
    goals/mission components, not measures.

> Answer: the activity analysis shows alignment to end outcome
> goals/mission
>
> areas. It will look at workload measures, i.e. outputs.

-   NPS: Comment - No performance at mission/goal level

-   USGS/NPS: Comment -- BRM is a system focus and, in the context of
    ABC, doesn't work for them.

> OSM: What is the focus of this effort?
>
> Answer: BRM will use the crosswalk as the structure for building out
> the functional tiers of the BRM -- at DOI and bureau level

-   Four possible scenarios for aligning bureau outputs to DOI outputs,
    to remain consistent with the "one bureau activity aligns with only
    one DOI activity" business rule:

    -   \(1\) If a bureau activity produces more than one output and
        that other output is not tracked at DOI, should DOI deem that
        the other output is important for the Department to track, DOI
        will create a new Department activity capturing the work
        associated with that other output.

    -   \(2\) If a bureau activity produces more than one output, and
        that other output appears to be in alignment with a DOI output
        resulting from a DOI activity that the bureau activity is not
        aligned with, the bureau should create a new work activity
        capturing the work associated with that other output. The bureau
        will then align that new work activity under the DOI work
        activity that produces the output that the new bureau activity
        output is similar to.

    -   \(3\) If there is no consistency between the DOI activity output
        and the bureau activity outputs for those bureau activities that
        align to the DOI activity in question, yet there is consistency
        between the bureau activity outputs, DOI will replace the DOI
        activity output with the bureau activity output.

    -   \(4\) If there is no consistency between the DOI activity output
        and any of the bureau activity outputs for those bureau
        activities that align to the DOI activity in question, and no
        consistency between the bureau activity outputs, then either DOI
        and the bureaus must come to agreement on a new output that all
        can populate, or one of the bureau activity outputs becomes the
        DOI activity output if all can agree.

    -   NPS/FWS/BLM/USGS: Comment -- the activity analysis effort won't
        result in true budget/performance integration. Outputs will
        align with end outcome goals, but the performance measures don't
        relate to the work done.

    -   FWS: Comment -- need to work performance measures in tandem with
        ABC work activity outputs.

-   Consistency in mapping entails looking across bureau work activities
    that map to a single DOI work activity to verify that there is
    indeed a correlation between the DOI work activity and the bureau
    work activities that map to it. If there is no correlation, then the
    bureau work activity will be flagged as inconsistent. That bureau
    work activity would be realigned with another DOI work activity (if
    existent) to which there is a greater correlation, or if designated
    as a bureau-unique work activity, and there is no need to track this
    bureau work activity separately at the Departmental level, then the
    inconsistency will be validated and the bureau work activity will
    not be realigned under another DOI work activity.

-   Grant Thornton has already begun activity analysis. Among their
    initial findings is that there are several DOI work activities with
    only one or two bureau work activities aligned under it. There are
    other DOI work activities that, perhaps, should be subsumed under
    another DOI work activity (work is fragmented). Ground rule for
    realignment recommendation is that a DOI work activity should have a
    minimum of three bureau work activities aligned under it to stand
    alone.

    -   BLM/FWS: Comment -- what is the impact to the bureaus of
        applying the ground rule for realignment? If you eliminate
        bureau-uniques, you may misrepresent bureau performance under an
        end-outcome goal.

> Answer: Need to revisit why bureau-unique activities exist.
> Materiality issues must be considered as well.

-   The venue for issue resolution depends on the issue. Issues
    impacting only one bureau will be worked in one-on-one sessions with
    that bureau. Issues impacting more than one bureau will be worked in
    workshops and in conjunction with on-line collaboration tools (i.e.
    chat rooms/discussion boards) that Grant Thornton will make
    available to the Department. Issues impacting Departmental work
    activities will be worked in workshops or via on-line collaboration
    tools.

## ATTENDEE ROSTER

**ABC STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING**

**3 March 2005**

**NAME BUREAU PHONE**

Nina Hatfield OS/PMB (202) 208-1829

Dorothy Sugiyama OS/PAM (202) 208-3433

Bill Webber OS/PFM (202) 208-5684

Richard Beck OS/PPP (202) 208-1818

LeRon Bielak OS/PPP (202) 208-5340

Joel Lynch OS/PPP (202) 208-7770

Bob More OS/OHA (703) 235-3810

Dianne Shaughnessy OS/POB (202) 208-5308

David Behler OS/PEP (202) 208-4305

Regina Gilbert OS/OST (505) 816-1090

Lew Moore BOR (202) 513-0608

Debra Burrell BOR (202) 513-0648

Kathy Marshall BOR (208) 378-5060

Kathy Tynan FWS (703) 358-2091

Ruth Stokes OSM (202) 208-2611

Kathryn O'Toole OSM (202) 208-2533

Betty Buxton BLM (202) 452-5181

Marty Heinze MMS (703) 787-1010

John Kinley MMS (202) 208-4343

Angela Herring MMS (202) 208-6405

Barbara Desiderio MMS (202) 208-3973

Marlene Walker BIA (703) 390-6518

Lou Baldassari Baldassari Assoc (BIA) (703) 390-6308

Charlene Raphael USGS (703) 648-4145

Michael Brown NPS (202) 208-7029

David Paine Bradson (NPS) (202) 208-4228

Srikant Sastry Grant Thornton (703) 637-2866

Bob Misch Grant Thornton (703) 637-3042

Kathryn East Grant Thornton (703) 837-4406