Primary Critical Performance Requirements Determination Guidelines CPR Criteria Item Explanation Requirement is directly tied to the NAS business case Heavily consider requirements that directly contribute to a program’s business case as candidates for CPR status. During investment analysis, the program office usually develops a Business Case Analysis Report (BCAR) as well as a Shortfall Analysis Report (SAR) as part of their investment approval process. The BCAR and SAR may define metrics or measure that can form the basis for developing CPRs. Requirement is directly tied to an Investment COI At least some of the CPRs are able to address a program’s critical operational issues, although there does not have to be a relationship. A tie-in contributes to a given requirement’s potential to be a CPR. Requirement poses a high level of technical risk Requirements that are technically more difficult to achieve may pose a higher level of risk to the program. In addition to posing higher risk to the program, certain requirements may have greater risk associated to the NAS, as determined by following the FAA’s Safety Management System. As a result, the program may want to monitor these requirements with greater attention. Therefore, consider requirements with a higher risk rating as candidates for CPR status. Requirements poses a high risk to enterprise strategy Requirements allocated to investments from the enterprise can represent a risk to the plans of the enterprise. These requirements often represent capabilities that are necessary for multiple investments to deliver on their expected benefits. The disruption enterprise-level strategies is possible if an investment is not able to deliver on one of these requirements. Requirements that cannot be ‘traded off’ to other investments have a higher level of risk. Table 3 asks some general questions about the nature of the requirements that are candidate CPRs. These are not meant to be specific selection criteria. The list below clarifies the role of a specific requirement compared to the others within the program. This can help determine the relative importance of larger sets of requirements. Table 3. Second-Pass Critical Performance Requirements Determination Guidelines Secondary Critical Performance Requirements Determination Guidelines CPR Criteria Item Explanation Requirement provides new functionality Consider if a program consolidates, eliminates or duplicates any of the existing legacy NAS capabilities. Consolidation and elimination of legacy capabilities, in particular may have
cascading effect on existing NAS capabilities, and therefore the requirements associated with these investments may have a significant set of CPRs. Duplication of functionality may or may not result in identification of CPRs. A program whose business case depends on having redundant or duplicate systems, may want to consider identifying duplicate functionality requirements as CPRs. However, merely having duplicate functionality requirements without a strong business is not a strong indicator for having CPRs. New functions are often critical to a program’s business case. If the requirement provides a new capability, consider it for CPR designation; however, just because a requirement is new, it does not mean that it is necessarily a CPR. (E.g., a function to turn off nuisance alarms benefits controllers, but is not critical to the program). Requirement consolidates existing functionality Requirement removes existing functionality Requirement duplicates existing functionality Requirement improves existing function performance Not all CPRs are new functions to the agency. The purpose of some investments is to enhance existing capabilities (e.g. via a Tech Refresh). If the benefits for the program are tied to those improvements, then those performance requirements could be CPRs. Requirement affects NAS safety Safe movement of aircraft is a primary mission of the agency. A requirement that directly affects NAS safety is a candidate for CPR status. Requirement affects NAS Information Security Information security is critically important to the FAA. A requirement that directly contributes to Information security is a candidate for CPR status. Requirement has a direct effect on an external interface Functionality is not the only characteristic of a program that can be critical. Interface requirements often enable the significant benefits of a program. If an interface requirement is necessary to provide the benefits of the program, heavily consider the requirement as a candidate for CPR status. Examples of these can include addition, modification, removal, or consolidation of cables between two systems. Given the criteria outlined in Tables 2 and 3, it may be necessary to use an objective means to determine which requirements are critical to the investment. Section 4.6 Decision Analysis (in the SEM) outlines several methods for doing this. Document the means and the results for determining the CPRs in this appendix or the VRTM.