# Presentation: 185946

## Straight Talk

- VADM Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., USN (Ret.)Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and AtmosphereNOAA Administrator
- November 30, 2005

**Notes:**
I want to first thank you for taking time away from what I know are your already full schedules to participate in this summit.  This is an important event where I want us to focus on developing an actionable way forward for NOAA.  We are a good organization with dedicated people such as yourselves – but we need to continue to analyze the future plans for NOAA and find a way to implement them.   

## Today’s Menu

- Goals of the Summit
- Update from Previous Summit
- Recent One NOAA Success
- Current Challenges
- Got an Act-On Plan?
- Straight Talk: Communications

- Straight Talk

## Goals of the Summit

- Where is NOAA as an organization going and how can we improve in Challenge areas?
- Building Hazard Resilient Communities
- NOAA’s Value to Business
- Capitalizing on Policy Opportunities
- Building External Relationships
- Government/Academia/NGO/Private Sector/Congress/Media
- NOAA’s Workforce Needs
- Planning, Recruiting, Retention, Training & Education

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
What we are doing, we are doing well. But where we are not acting and moving forward, we are failing NOAA and the US public.

These are areas you have identified as important.  These are the areas you will be addressing tomorrow and Friday.

## Goals of the Summit

- How well is NOAA implementing the Strategic Plan?
- What are the impediments to successful action?
- How are we going to meet our Strategic Plan Goals?
- Sit down together
- Identify obstacles and figure out ways to move forward to action
- Not about creating new management processes – but using existing structures

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
We are stuck in trying to make decisions and not bring items to completion – where are various reports? Where is the implementation plans? Its not just about deciding – we need to move forward and act on our planning efforts.

Also – I want to make sure we use NOAA Processes – not create new one off shops – needs to be integrated, needs to be part of the processes we have in place. Where is the final Fleet Modernization Plan? Where is the IOOS plan? Where is the implementation of GEOSS?

I am not here to give you the answer –  I want  us as an organization to think creatively about our challenges and come up with actionable plans for moving NOAA forward.  
This is not about “painting clouds in the sky” – this is about how we do business.

We have a lot of programs/data/information/services – how do we bring them all to mature utilization to benefit the nation

## Update from Previous SummitOODA Loop

- Observe

- Decide

- Act

- Orient

- Straight Talk

## Update from Previous SummitOODA Loop

- Ecosystem Approachto Management

- Straight Talk

## Update:Communications

- Office of Communications:Goal to provide effective communications both within and outside of NOAA
- Required notification to Hill on Office of Communications is at DOC
- Chief Administrative Office working necessary steps to make Communications Office a reality

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
This is an area in which I am pleased with the progress we are making in developing a Corporate NOAA.  We are moving on ideas you generated at last December’s meeting in developing communications strategy for a Corporate NOAA.

We’ve been moving forward on the Communications Office you wanted – the paperwork is done and in the Department of Commerce ready to go to the Hill for notification.  Bill Broglie’s office is continuing with the necessary steps so we can make this a reality as soon as we notify the Hill.

## Update:Communications

- Update:Communications

- NOAA Executive Intranet central, dynamic location for information for NOAA leadership
- NOAA Web Presence
- Single point of access to NOAA products and services
- Prototype NOAA Intranet created June 2005
- Rollout of New Look and Organization for NOAA.gov—3rd Quarter FY06

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
This is an area in which I am pleased with the progress we are making in developing a Corporate NOAA.  We are moving on ideas you generated at last December’s meeting in developing communications strategy for a Corporate NOAA.

We’ve created the NOAA Executive Intranet to consolidate information for NOAA leadership – this includes the AAs, DAAs, Goal leads and their staff.

The NOAA Web Team is looking at the NOAA Web Presence – looking at the issues of NOAA-wide web management and transitioning that to operations – with a single point of access for people looking for information from NOAA.  We are also building a NOAA-wide intranet.  The new web presence and the intranet should be rolled out this fiscal year.

## Update:Integration

- Important to reward integration efforts
- Awards and promotions based on effective integration
- Linking integration to performance plans
- Important to act on it in our management structure
- Integrating NOAA infrastructure, e.g. facilities, IT
- Multi-disciplinary job announcements
- In what ways have you made progress in these areas?

- Straight Talk

## Update:Organizational & Mission Excellence

- Requirements based PPBES
- Real program tradeoff analysis
- GPRA Goals
- Realistic measures
- Integration of Performance Plans with GPRA goals
- Real progress towards achieving NOAA mission goals
- Completed operational ocean observing system?
- Ecosystems based fishery management plan?
- Operational climate monitoring system?
- Real hurricane intensity forecasting improvement?
- Assimilation of NASA & NSF research into operational satellites?

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
NOAA has worked hard to put some good management processes in place – This week is not about creating new processes but using the ones we have efficiently and identifying any areas we may need to strengthen.

But it also requires action from all SES.  For requirements-based PPBES, we need to get off of straight-line planning and do actual analysis on the future of your program– if you are straight-lining your program in the PPBES process, where is the future in your program, where is your program going? 

## Update:Organizational & Mission Excellence

- Have you planned for success in your program?

- Straight Talk

## Recent One NOAA Success

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
NOAA has had some good success this year and we want to highlight that NOAA is a good organization with important goals.  This shows the hurricane success stories of all our partners both internal and external coming together for a common goal – to better predict the hurricanes to save lives and property.

Forecasting
P-3s
Response to opening ports
Fisheries management

This hurricane season is a wonderful example of NOAA working together – all parts of NOAA contributing to the various phases of a hurricane disaster like Katrina – but what benefits do we get out of it if there are so many organizations needing recognition?  This is not representing  NOAA.  It distracting from the message of how many wonderful things NOAA has.

(SLIDE CHANGES TO ONLY NOAA LOGO)

NOAA, NOAA, NOAA.  NOAA did it.  And we need to keep hammering this concept of One NOAA home, to our employees, to the media, to the Administration, to Congress and to each other.  Together we are are a much stronger organization than we are in our own splintered divisions.

## Recent One NOAA Success

- NOAA Incident Coordination Center (ICC)
- NOAA Safety Program
- A shared success—attributable to the integrated efforts of the many, rather than the few
- GEOSS
- NOAA Target Architecture developed for future integrated observations
- NOSC developing iterative process to move NOAA towards the target

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
NOAA Incident Coordination Center
In the aftermath of the hurricanes Katrina and Wilma this summer, when the hit the U.S. we activated the Incident Coordination Center.  This was a great success – we had streamline flows of information from all lines – we were pooling our resources into one Center. 
This is how one NOAA should work – coordinated, integrated, working together.  Helped us to look after NOAA people and respond to the tragedies at hand.

NOAA Safety Program
- We have established and are continuously emphasizing the importance of the Safety Program--establishing a clear directional indicator and sense of urgency and allowing the implementation to be planned and executed at appropriate levels in the organization.
- The concerted efforts by the AAs/DAAs in reinforcing this Program as a priority within their organizations, and assisting the corporate-level Safety Program (e.g., NWS leveraging their web incident reporting system to support a broader NOAA application).
 - Special note to Bill Hogarth and John Oliver in supporting John Pierson doing a leadership development rotation to the Safety and Environmental Compliance Office (SECO), prior to being named the Director of SECO in early September.  John Pierson has brought extensive previous safety program experience (both within and outside of NOAA), and renewed leadership and management direction to the organization and Safety Program.

Integrated Observations
NOAA’s observation system architecture is defined as the unifying structure of NOAA Earth observation system features and functions expressed in terms of relationships, interfaces, processes, and constraints. It consists of three components: 
1. A baseline architecture, which describes the features and functions of NOAA’s current observation systems. 
2. A target architecture, which describes the desired features and functions of NOAA’s future observation system. 
3. An iterative process, which is used to move NOAA from the baseline to the target architecture. 
Progress has been made in developing corporate capabilities for developing an integrated Earth observation and data management system. 

## Recent One NOAA Success

- Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA)
- Adopted in 1976, and last reauthorized by the Sustainable Fisheries Act in 1996
- provides for federal management of fisheries in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.
- NOAA & Administration wrote a bill to reauthorize Magnuson-Stevens Act & transmitted it to Congress Sept 19
- Chairman Stevens (R-AK) and Co-Chairman Inouye (D-HI), co-authored S2012, (Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation & Management Reauthorization Act of 2005) and introduced it Nov 19
- NOAA received accolades for their efforts & coordination from Senate & DOC

- Straight Talk

## NOAA Organic Act: Working Success

- NOAA Formed by Executive Order #4 in 1970
- Since 1970 over 200 Disconnected Authorities
- NOAA Organic Act serves as a Charter Providing Coherent, Cohesive Set of Authorities
- Key Recommendation of the Ocean Commission
- Explicitly Authorizes Broad Education and Outreach Effort that Bridges Programs

- Straight Talk

## Current Challenges:NOAA Budget

- Current Challenges:NOAA Budget

- Conference Mark

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
Budgets are growing, but other priorities make it tight. $3.9 billion for NOAA is $364.8 million above the request.  This is Good – Matches record number for NOAA both in the President’s request and in the enacted budget.  There may be some problems with the budget – lots of earmarks which could have impact on the mission – but overall this is good for NOAA.  The Hill is more interest in controlling the deficit – showing change in the thought process by the deficit hawks.  There is a need to justify budgets; No guarantee agencies will even get inflation costs.  Even with our planning process, some of our well-justified programs took huge hits this year.

NOAA is being asked to do more and is frequently in the public eye – Ocean Action Plan, Global Earth Observations,  Tsunami, Hurricanes, the deadly tornado at the beginning of November.

Hurricane recovery activities for Hurricane Katrina, Rita, and Wilma are putting enormous burden on the Treasury, the Budget and NOAA’s ability to carry out its entire mission; and continuing war debts and war on terrorism put additional strains on the federal budget.

The game has changed too:  We are now competing for dollars against two of the big science agencies:  NASA/NSF.  And they did pretty well this year - 
NASA/NSF: $22.1 billion
$16.5 billion for National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): $260.3 million above the FY05 level and $1 million above the request. 
$5.65 billion for National Science Foundation: $180.5 million above the FY05 level and $48 million above the request. 
We will also need to work our partnerships with these agencies to best leverage our funds.

## Current Challenges:NOAA Funding Trends(Constant Dollars in Billions)

- Data Source:  DOC Summary of enacted BA

- Straight Talk

## Current Challenges:One NOAA vs. Budget Year 2007

- In FY06....

- NSF: $5.6B

- NASA: $16.5B

- NOAA: $3.9B

- NASA vs. NWS
- NASA vs. OAR
- NASA vs. NOS
- NASA vs. NMFS
- NASA vs. NESDIS

- NSF vs. NWS
- NSF vs. OAR
- NSF vs. NOS
- NSF vs. NMFS
- NSF vs. NESDIS

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
Our fractured approach has led to incoherence and losses spread inconsistently through NOAA

## Current Challenges:Presenting One NOAA

- Acting as One NOAA
- Internally
- How are you communicating this to all NOAA employees?
- How are we coordinating with each other?
- Are we efficiently and continuously making decisions?
- Externally
- With the Public and With Constituents?
- On the Hill—Legislative Affairs?
- On the Web?

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**

The Communications ideas I presented earlier are a good start – but we need to continue to act as one NOAA.  In this tight budget environment, unless we act as one we are hurting ourselves.  This needs to be communicated to all levels of NOAA.  

## Understand you are a part of this organization 

- Understand you are a part of this organization
- —
- This organization is a part of You

- Straight Talk

## Current Challenges:Presenting One NOAA

- “NOAA is one of the best-kept secrets in government.”

- “It’s remained a collection of somewhat separate agencies as opposed to a coherent whole.”

- Andrew Rosenberg, member of the Commission on Ocean Policy and former deputy director of NOAA Fisheries.Government Executive, August 1, 2005

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
Quote from Government Executive, August 1, 2005, pg 59.
This is the impression we still have with the public.  Its great that they like us – but are we best serving the public if we are viewed as a collection of separate agencies?

Information on Yahoo Example of stovepipes from Fortune Magazine

## Current Challenges:Workforce Management

- 52% of all NOAA employees are eligible for retirement in the next five years
- Are we investing in the future leaders of NOAA?
- Mentoring
- Training
- Rotational Opportunities
- Are we effectively using career development programs?
- Leadership Development Competency Program
- Presidential Management Fellows
- Sea Grant Knauss Fellows
- Are we filling our critical occupation positions with good people?

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
Additionally,  84 percent of NOAA SES are eligible for retirement in 5 years

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION ACTIVITY:
Everyone who is NOT eligible to retire, either regular retirement or early retirement, in 2006 – please stand up. (PAUSE)

Now, everyone sitting – if you have full confidence that there are three people in your organization who could replace you today, you can also stand up.

This is what NOAA has to work with for its leaders.  We need to make sure we are training our replacements and ensuring critical occupations within NOAA are filled.  

## Action Plan 

- Are you representing One NOAA in your communications and actions?
- Are you involved in continuous decision making?
- Are you growing future NOAA leaders?
- Are you moving NOAA forward and making it a “good”—not just a “lucky”—organization?

- Straight Talk

**Notes:**
It’s Better to be Good than Lucky – what are we doing to make this a good organization, not just one that gets lucky in the budget process, gets stuck in the elevator with the right congressional staffer, etc.

In addition to the work you do here – it is about your personal actions.  Are your actions representative of the goals and needs for NOAA?  Are you practicing what you preach to your employees?  Are you setting a forward thinking example?

## Action Plan 

- Breakout Sessions
- Use existing processes and mechanisms to find executable paths around road blocks
- Find opportunities, create action plans, be accountable to these plans
- Not to add work—but to find ways forward for NOAA

- Straight Talk

## Rigorous vs. Ruthless

- Straight Talk

## Straight Talk:Communication

- Straight Talk:Communication

- Good “internal”
- communication...

- ...begins to look like “external” communcation

- Everything we do, say, or write that is apparent to one or more individuals

- We Live in A Sea Of Bubbles...

- 1

- EASY

- EASY

- EASY

- EASY

- REALLY DIFFICULT

- DIFFICULT

- EASY

- Straight Talk

## Questions