# Presentation: 147167

## Competitive Sourcing at NIH: The Decision-Making Process

- Suzanne F. Grefsheim
-  Branch Chief
- NIH Library

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Goal of the Evaluation

- Help NIH determine which commercial activities should be “competitively sourced”
- Use an open, fair process for making the determination
- Involve functional managers and employee representatives (e.g., Unions) in the evaluation process

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## What does the evaluation do?

**INPUT **- Uses the program’s opinion of the current condition of the commercial activity in terms of: Customer satisfaction, workforce, processes, tools & technology, etc.
**OUTCOME** - Identifies activities that are:
- highly competitive today (Case 1)
- might benefit from re-engineering (Case 2)
- would not be good candidates for competitive sourcing and/or cost comparison at this time (Case 3)

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Criteria of Interest: Case 1 & 2

**Results **– current level of program performance
- Tools, efficiency, effectiveness, customer satisfaction, cost to sustain performance
**Work force** – characteristics of current work force
- Turnover, size, skills
**Demand** – nature of the demand for the function
- Capacity, trend, range
**Market** – availability of function in market place

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Criteria of Interest: Case 3

**Work force** – characteristics of current work force
- “Treasures,” under represented groups
**Readiness** – ability of function to undertake a study
- Size, climate
**Outcome** – ability to handle HR consequences of outsourcing function
**Mission** – risk to mission if function is outsourced
- Program integrity, role of function

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Full decision tree for Case 1

- Find High performers

- Results

- Work force

- Demand

- Market

- Tools

- Satisfaction

- Effectiveness

- Efficiency

- Cost to sustain

- Turnover

- Skills

- Size

- Capacity

- Trend

- Range

- High

- Neutral

- Low

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## How were the decision models created?

- Task team from the Competitive Sourcing and Workforce Planning Work Group developed criteria and decision trees
- Criteria weights behind model were also developed using “Expert Choice” decision support software by Task Team
- Model and Questionnaire tested using commercial activities in the Office of Research Services

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## What is “Expert Choice?”

- COTS software package for developing weighted decision criteria
- Based on making pair-wise comparisons between every option at each level in decision tree
- Creates ratio relationships:
-  2x better, 3x better, etc. among competing options
- User friendly, uses verbal comparisons
- Equally (more important), moderately, strongly, very strongly, extremely

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Outcome of criteria ranking

- Find High performers

- 65 Results

- 17 Work force

-  6 Demand

- 12 Market

-  5 Tools

-  8 Satisfaction

- 19 Effectiveness

- 17 Efficiency

- 16 Cost to sustain

-  5 Turnover

- 11 Skills

-  2 Size

-  2 Capacity

-  1Trend

-  3 Range

- 8 High

- 2 Neutral

- 1 Low

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Model 1 – highly competitive

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Model 2 – poised to improve

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Model 3 – don’t go there

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## How does the evaluation work?

- The evaluation instrument consists of 18 questions.
- Each question critically rates a characteristic of the activity
- Each answer is associated with a weighted value
- Behind the questions and the answers are three independent decision models that were used to create the weighted values
- Completed answers generate three “scores” for each commercial activity: one for each “case”
- NIH will use the scores to help select areas for competitive sourcing

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## What do the results look like?

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## What do the results look like?

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Slide 16

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Slide 17

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Slide 18

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Slide 19

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Statistics: All Functions

|  | Case 1 | Case 2 | Case 3 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Average | 59.05 | 60.05 | 61.05 |
| Mode | 81.71 | 16.64 | 43.07 |
| Median | 58.60 | 26.76 | 50.53 |
| Std Dev | 18.46 | 13.34 | 20.81 |
| High | 95.16 | 72.79 | 99.15 |
| Low | 18.54 | 12.27 | 8.34 |
| Range | 76.62 | 60.52 | 90.81 |

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative

## Acknowledgment

- Leonard Taylor, Deputy Director
- Office of Research Services, OD, NIH
- Co-Chair, NIH Commercial Activities Steering Committee

- NIH Competitive Sourcing Initiative