Standing Up the Department of Homeland Security: The Importance of Process

 

Bayside Consulting Group, a company that specializes in performance process analysis and design, presents this think piece. Their most recent work within the Federal government was the design, just completed, of the future Collection Requirements Management Process for IC MAP, an effort we believe would be similar in scope to standing up the new Department. Bayside has a unique understanding of the US government, and specializes in process development that relies on extensive input from the customer(s).  Put another way, we do not design processes in the abstract, but rather work with the people who must execute and implement our product(s).  Nor do we believe our tasks require a host of contractors: our work with IC MAP involved exactly two full-time Bayside personnel.

 

                The creation of the Department of Homeland Security presents a galaxy of challenging problems and opportunities; the first of which are defining what it will do and how it will do it.  President Bush defined what the Department will do when he announced its threefold mission:

 

1.        Preventing terrorist attacks within the United States;

2.        Reducing Americas vulnerability to terrorism; and

3.        Minimizing damage from terrorist attacks and assisting in the recovery from attacks that occur.

 

Further, the President announced that the new Department would have four divisions: 

 

1.        Border and Transportation Security;

2.        Emergency Preparedness and Response;

3.        Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Countermeasures;

4.        Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection.

 

These four divisions will be assembled by transferring and combining 22 existing elements of 12 Federal departments.  In a business sense that means that the creation of this department is somewhere between an alliance, a partnership, and a merger.  What it also means is that there will be a lot of changes.  What those changes will be for each component, and how they will work together as a whole are not apparent.   Additionally, it is important to determine how this new department will integrate with the FBI and CIA, key sources for security related intelligence.

 

What is apparent is that the next challenge is making it happen. In our view the single most important immediate step is to design the processes that will enable component elements to optimize both their own internal functions and activities and their contributions to the larger entity.

 

It seems to us that the immediate goals for the new Department should be to: design strategic and tactical objectives and the procedures needed to achieve those objectives; optimize resource allocation; systemize and integrate tasking and reporting functions; and develop an all-source analytical capability.  We believe that the single most important means to achieve these goals is the development and deployment of appropriate processes.

 

Process design enables organizations to chart an integrated course and manage their business at all levels of production and performance.  It does so by identifying relationships between components; determining inputs and outputs and their requirements; defining cross-functional relationships; identifying steps in the process and the roles and responsibilities for each function; identifying handoffs from one function to another, and measures of performance. 

 

In the case of the Department of Homeland Security, designing the processes will enable the Departments components to:

·         define their missions

·         determine their points of  interaction with each other 

·         allow optimum cooperation and coordination between the individual components

·         define the role of the Secretarys office, and

·         define how the components will interact with the Secretarys office. 

 

In some cases, the role of each component and its relationship with the entire organization will be obvious.  In other instances individual components will have to modify their activities to better address the overall mission.  Unnecessary redundancies must be reduced or eliminated.

 

The four basic elements of process design are performance analysis, solution design, solution deployment, and performance planning and management.  Performance analysis is the framework within which an organization looks at what it does and how well it does it relative to its critical business issues and mission.  It maps and analyses the organizations business landscape, strategy, functions and process structure, economics, performance measurement system, culture, leadership readiness and current initiatives. 

 

Solution design is the process of redesigning the current process or designing a new process.   Using a building block methodology, it includes mapping the cross-functional future-state process, identifying appropriate process measures, validating the future-state process relative to the critical business issues, defining high level roles and responsibilities and deployment requirements, and developing a high-level deployment plan.    

 

Solution deployment includes building deployment strategies, assessing the organizations readiness, defining the deployment infrastructure, identifying deployment roles and responsibilities, and building a detailed deployment plan with budget guidelines.

 

Performance planning and management is comprised of the three key and integral aspects to all performance planning, execution and management.  These apply whether that performance is related to the organization, a process, or the individual.  Planning includes the analysis of the business landscape, development of strategy, goal setting, and the use of performance feedback to assist in strategy development.  Execution includes those steps and cross-functional interdependencies that provide products and services to the internal or external customer, and the capture of measurement information.  Management consists of monitoring performance execution and the analysis of measures in order to provide feedback to the planning process.  To achieve success, all three of these must be recognized and aligned in order to manage the business.

 

The analysis and design of organization, process, or jobs does not require years of effort to accomplish.  The goal is to attain 80% of the solution design early, and begin deployment quickly.  This permits necessary changes to take effect and produce dramatic results responsive to the need, and smoothing will occur over time.

 

The effort also does not need large numbers of people.  What it does require are a few people who understand what the journey will entail, a methodology for getting there, and key stakeholders within the organization to assist with subject matter, communication, and the building of ownership within the ranks.

 

Therefore, the design of certain processes for the Secretarys Office may be completed in as little as 60 to 90 days. Analysis and redesign of current processes within component organizations could be accomplished within another 120 to 180 days.  Solution deployment planning, planning and management processes can be completed within another 60 to 90 day period.

 

The assembly of the Department of Homeland Security presents both unique and daunting challenges.  Cross-department and agency-specific processes must be integrated with each other, altered, or newly created in order to provide proactive, strong and impenetrable protection and security for our country.