1

A Report by a Panel of the

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

for the U.S. Census Bureau

October 2011 March 2015

National Academy of Public Administration ®

Achieving and Sustaining Transformation at the U.S. Census Bureau

2

ABOUT THE ACADEMY

The National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, non-profit, and non-partisan organization established in 1967 and chartered by Congress in 1984. It provides expert advice to government leaders in building more effective, efficient, accountable, and transparent organizations. To carry out this mission, the Academy draws on the knowledge and experience of its over 800 Fellows—including former cabinet officers, Members of Congress, governors, mayors, and state legislators, as well as prominent scholars, business executives, and public administrators. The Academy helps public institutions address their most critical governance and management challenges through in-depth studies and analyses, advisory services and technical assistance, Congressional testimony, forums and conferences, and online stakeholder engagement. Learn more about the Academy and its work at www.NAPAwash.org.

3

A Report by a Panel of the

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION for the U.S. Census Bureau March 2015

Achieving and Sustaining Transformation at the U.S. Census Bureau

PANEL

Janice Lachance* Chair Scott Cameron*

Karen Evans* Kenneth Kizer*

Alan Shark*

* Academy Fellow

4

Officers of the Academy

Robert J. Shea, Chair of the Board Nancy R. Kingsbury, Vice Chair

Dan G. Blair, President and Chief Executive Officer B. J. Reed, Secretary

Sallyanne Harper, Treasurer

Study Team

Joseph P. Mitchell, III, Director of Project Development Roger Kodat, Project Director

Jonathan Tucker, Senior Research Analyst Jim Arkedis, Senior Advisor and Project Director

Joe Tasker, Senior Advisor Ken Ryder, Senior Advisor

Eric Christensen, Research Associate

* Academy Fellow The views expressed in this report are those of the Panel. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the Academy as an institution. National Academy of Public Administration 1600 K Street, N.W. Suite 400 Washington, DC 20006 www.napawash.org March 2015 Printed in the United States of America Academy Project Number: 2191

5

“The chief instrument of American statistics is the census, which should accomplish a two-fold object. It should serve the country by making a full and accurate exhibit of the elements of national life and strength, and it should serve the science of statistics by so exhibiting general results that they may be compared with similar data obtained by other nations.” -James Abram Garfield

6

Foreword The U.S. Census Bureau’s mission is “to serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy.” The Census Bureau fulfills a constitutional mandate to count each resident of the United States every 10 years, and this data is used to apportion seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and inform congressional redistricting. Besides the decennial census, the Census Bureau has a much broader set of on-going survey and census deliverables that help to allocate over $400 billion in federal funds every year and help states, local communities, and businesses make informed decisions. Faced with a rapidly changing marketplace for statistical data, and uncertain and constrained resources, the Bureau’s leadership moved forward in executing an ambitious transformation initiative in order to maintain the Census Bureau’s preeminent reputation as the worldwide leader among statistical data providers. The Bureau’s leadership embarked on this ambitious initiative to improve operating efficiency and effectiveness two years ago. While the changes identified are in various stages of implementation, taken together they will have substantial impact on Census Bureau workforce and organizational culture; require resource shifts; and represent significant process changes. The Census Bureau engaged the Academy to conduct an independent assessment and recommend practical actions needed to increase the likelihood that its transformation will be successful. The Academy appointed a five-member expert Panel of Academy Fellows to lead this study with support from a professional study team. The Panel evaluated the Census Bureau’s management of its transformation initiatives—concentrating on key indicators of success—and issued important findings and recommendations in such areas as leadership, communication, governance, matrix management, identification of priorities and critical linkages among various initiatives, and workforce-related issues. As a congressionally chartered non-partisan and non-profit organization with over 800 distinguished Fellows, the Academy brings nationally-recognized public administration experts together to help public organizations address future challenges. This report is expected to enhance the Bureau’s transformation efforts and to broaden awareness of effective practices for driving change that can be utilized across the federal government. We are pleased to have had the opportunity to assist the Census Bureau by conducting this study, and we appreciate the constructive engagement of its personnel who provided important insight and context needed to inform this report. Also, thanks to the Academy Panel, who provided invaluable expertise and thoughtful analysis to this undertaking, and the professional study team that provided critical support throughout the project.

Dan G. Blair

President and CEO

7

This page intentionally left blank

8

Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................................................................................. 6

Executive Summary........................................................................................................................................... 10

Chapter One: Project Background .............................................................................................................. 14

1.1 Background on the United States Bureau of the Census ............................................................. 14

1.2 Origin of the Study ...................................................................................................................................... 15

1.3 Study Scope ................................................................................................................................................... 16

1.4 Report Structure.......................................................................................................................................... 16

Chapter Two: Drivers of Census Bureau Transformation, a Vision for the Future, and the Role of Directorate Reorganizations .......................................................................................................... 18

2.1 The Case for Transformation ................................................................................................................. 18

2.2 Overview of Current Census Bureau Operations ........................................................................... 21

2.3 Key Elements of the Census Bureau’s Vision of Its Future ......................................................... 24

2.4 Census Bureau Plans for Transformation ......................................................................................... 26

2.5 Steps Toward Transformation at the Directorate Level .............................................................. 28

Chapter Three: Transformation Initiatives .............................................................................................. 33

3.1 Data Collection and Processing ............................................................................................................. 34

3.2 Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation (CEDSCI) ........ 39

3.3 IT Shared Services - An Initiative Aligned with Federal CIO Council Objectives ............... 41

Chapter Four: Organization for Managing Transformation and Continuing Innovation ....... 43

4.1 Transformation Planning ........................................................................................................................ 43

4.2 Strategy for Communicating Transformation Plans ..................................................................... 45

4.3 Governance ................................................................................................................................................... 47

4.4 Matrix Management ................................................................................................................................... 55

4.5 Allocating Resources to Support Transformation ......................................................................... 56

4.6 Institutionalizing Transformation ....................................................................................................... 59

4.7 General Workforce Issues ....................................................................................................................... 61

Chapter Five: Institutionalizing Innovation............................................................................................. 72

Appendix A: Panel and Staff ........................................................................................................................... 79

Appendix B: Acronyms..................................................................................................................................... 83

Appendix C: Participating Individuals and Organizations ................................................................. 84

Appendix D: Census Bureau Organizational Chart ............................................................................... 89

Appendix E: Select Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 90

Appendix F: Common Traits of Organizational Transformations ................................................. 100

9

Appendix G: Summary of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA).............................................................................................................................................................. 108

Appendix H: U.S. Census Bureau Statistical and Data Products ..................................................... 110

10

Executive Summary The Census Bureau’s mission is to serve as the leading source of quality data about America's people and economy. (The terms "the Bureau” or “the Census Bureau” are used interchangeably throughout this report). The principal duty of the Bureau is articulated in Article I, Section 2, of the Constitution, wherein it is stated that every resident shall be located and counted every 10 years. The data provided by the decennial census are used to apportion seats in the United States House of Representatives and inform congressional redistricting. In addition to the decennial census, the Bureau conducts dozens of other censuses and surveys on an ongoing basis, including the American Community Survey, the U.S. Economic Census, and the Current Population Survey. The various censuses and surveys conducted by the Census Bureau are used to annually allocate over $400 billion in federal funds and help federal, state, and local governments and the private sector make informed decisions. The Bureau’s leadership recognizes that in the context of flat or declining resources it must implement fundamental enterprise-wide operational changes if it is to accomplish its missions effectively and efficiently. Three particular trends make transformation imperative: (1) the rapidly changing nation and economy; (2) the increasing demand for timely, high-quality statistical information by American business, and state, local, tribal, and community leaders; and, (3) fast-changing and broadly available technology and information options. Historically, the Census Bureau has been organized around programs with each having its own operating processes supported by disparate information technology systems. This has hindered the Bureau’s ability to effectively and efficiently operationalize new capabilities and business improvements. To increase operational agility and flexibility, the Bureau has begun to reorganize itself along functional lines and implement a supporting enterprise-wide IT architecture.

The Bureau's ambitious transformation effort focuses on five cross-cutting initiatives aimed at developing enterprise-wide systemic capabilities in data collection, processing, and dissemination. The transformation includes establishing enterprise-wide systems and shared services for core functions like email, financial control and document management. Concomitantly, the Bureau is reorganizing its operating Directorates to effectuate the new functional-based organization. The Bureau is approximately two years into this complex multi-year effort and has been incrementally rolling-out changes as it continues to meet its mission requirements. During the course of implementing its transformation, the Bureau has requested congressional approval for changes needed to support its efforts. After reviewing the Census Bureau's various reorganization proposals, the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations staff requested the Bureau obtain an independent assessment of whether its proposed new organizational structure would support its business goals. Bureau leadership embraced the idea and contracted with the National

11

Academy of Public Administration ("the Academy") to have a Panel of Fellows, supported by an Academy study team, conduct the independent evaluation. This report conveys the Academy Panel’s evaluation and recommendations. This report provides context and background for the Bureau's transformation in Chapter 1. Using Bureau documentation, Chapter 2 describes the Bureau’s main missions and how it is organized. Chapter 3 presents each of the Bureau’s transformative initiatives and how they fit together. The Panel’s evaluation focuses on seven key elements contributing to an organizational transformation of this magnitude in Chapter 4; these include: planning, communication, governance, matrix management, resource allocation, institutionalizing transformation, and workforce planning. Chapter 5 offers eight principles that can help guide the Bureau’s efforts to institutionalize innovation and sustain the transformation. Research shows that most organizational transformations—in both the private and public sectors—fail to meet their objectives; the Panel agrees with the Bureau’s phased and incremental approach as a way to optimize the likelihood of achieving the planned functional reorganization. The Panel also broadly supports the Bureau’s approach to determining organizational changes within individual Bureau Directorates. However, the Panel’s report does not address specific organizational changes in the Directorates given the dynamic, ongoing nature of these changes, as well as the Bureau’s engagement with an outside consultant for this part of the transformation. In consultation with the Bureau, the Panel focused on more fundamental issues foundational to a successful transformation. The Panel believes the Bureau has taken many important steps to lay the foundation for a successful transformation. Specific ongoing actions involving the seven critical elements for success discussed in Chapter 4 include a substantial investment in transformation planning, the creation of a consistent enterprise-wide governance process, and strategic workforce planning. In these cases, Panel recommendations are intended to further enhance efforts already underway. The report also highlights some key areas where the Bureau needs to make more fundamental or initial progress to ensure successful transformation. These areas include planning, communication, institutionalizing transformation, and workforce management. The Panel understands the Bureau is taking steps to address these areas. While acknowledging the many challenges the Bureau faces in implementing substantive change, the Panel believes the Bureau’s strong executive leadership and can-do culture can navigate this important agency toward achieving a successful transformation. The principles of good practice reviewed in this report provide further guidance for the Bureau to draw upon its continuing efforts to adapt to changing circumstances.

12

Organizational transformation is never easy, but it is often necessary. The Census Bureau has embarked on a challenging organizational transformation aimed at maintaining its position as a preeminent statistical agency. The Panel commends this effort and offers the following 16 recommendations on matters where the Bureau needs to make further progress to enhance successful implementation of its efforts.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1 Census Bureau leadership should continue its efforts to document the prioritization of the five transformation initiatives and their component projects, critical dependencies, and contingency plans.

2 The Census Bureau should continue its efforts to develop plans for communicating transformation initiatives and their implications for Bureau employees and managers, external data users, Congress, and other external oversight entities. Moreover, these plans should be developed in concert to ensure consistency.

3 The Bureau should clearly articulate a plan that includes deadlines to terminate legacy systems, once the capacity of new systems to meet business needs is demonstrated.

4 The Bureau should further improve its website and access to its data and information by instituting an enterprise-level policy governing the management of website content.

5 The Bureau should continue its efforts to develop a Bureau-wide policy for implementing matrix management consistently across all Directorates and balancing enterprise-wide and Directorate priorities and addressing potential conflicts experienced by managers and staff.

6 The Bureau should continue its efforts to develop a Bureau-wide policy on and system to conduct performance appraisal processes for all employees and managers supporting matrix management of Bureau-wide initiatives.

7 The Bureau should better communicate its strategy for allocating resources across transformation initiatives and how they align with a clear set of priorities, including a cross-walk to the existing programmatic structure of appropriations.

8 The Bureau should continue its efforts to develop more transparent and accurate mechanisms for cost-based pricing to support the successful implementation of shared IT services.

9 The Bureau should institutionalize the newly established Office of Innovation and Implementation to ensure its capacity to safeguard matrix organizations critical to achieving transformation objectives. This should include the creation of a charter.

10 The Census Bureau’s senior leadership should clarify the Human Resource Division’s role in the transformation, facilitating strategic and transactional services during this period of change, empowering it with the capability to fully support the proposed transformation initiatives, and communicating its role to Bureau leadership.

11 The Census Bureau should consolidate its existing strategic workforce planning efforts, as described in multiple documents, into a single ongoing plan that serves as an institutional guide to managing the process over the long-term.

12 To develop a sustainable process, the Bureau should continue its current progress and institutionalize a long-term, dynamic workforce planning process into its five year

13

Strategic Plan, with appropriate resources dedicated to this initiative. The Census Bureau should enact a formal mechanism to measure the strategic workforce planning’s progress against goals.

13 The Census Bureau should articulate a vision for its workforce that supports its transformation initiatives, and work with senior management, professional staff, unions, and Congress to reach a consensus on a pathway to attain the future state of its workforce.

14 The Bureau should institutionalize its capacity to evaluate and monitor for skill gaps in information security management roles as it incorporates the transformation initiatives and as the pace of technological change increases.

15 The Bureau should build a leadership development capacity to develop a cadre of staff with targeted knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies to immediately assume key managerial positions within the transformation initiatives.

16 The Census Bureau should continue to make full use of flexible hiring authorities and streamline its hiring and on-boarding procedures to ensure top talent is available to guide it through this period of change. The Bureau should continue and broaden use of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act to recruit highly talented workers from universities, other levels of government, and non-profit organizations; and seek its own independent authority to use Cooperative Agreements with outside organizations in applicable cases.

14

Chapter One: Project Background

This chapter provides information on the Panel study’s background and scope, and a summary of how the report is organized.

1.1 Background on the United States Bureau of the Census The principal mission of the Bureau of the Census (we use “the Bureau” or “the Census Bureau” interchangeably throughout this report) was articulated by the nation’s Founding Fathers in the United States Constitution. Article I, Section 2, requires that every resident in the United States be located and counted every 10 years. Known as the “decennial census,” the Bureau has been charged with performing this count since it was established as the “Census Office” in the Department of the Interior in 1902.1 The data provided in the decennial census are used to apportion seats in the United States House of Representatives and informs congressional redistricting. According to the Bureau’s website:2

The Census Bureau’s mission is to serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy. We honor privacy, protect confidentiality, share our expertise globally, and conduct our work openly. We are guided on this mission by scientific objectivity, our strong and capable workforce, our devotion to research-based innovation, and our abiding commitment to our customers. Our goal is to provide the best mix of timeliness, relevancy, quality, and cost for the data it collects and services it provides.

In addition to the decennial census, the Bureau continually conducts dozens of other censuses and surveys, including the American Community Survey, the U.S. Economic Census, and the Current Population Survey. Every month the Census Bureau releases economic indicators including the trade balance in a joint release with the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The various censuses and surveys conducted by the Census Bureau help allocate over $400 billion in federal funds every year and help states, local communities, and businesses make informed decisions. The Bureau is situated within the U.S. Department of Commerce and its Director is appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate. The Census Bureau has slightly more than 14,000 total employees3 at its headquarters located in Maryland, its six regional offices located around the United States, its national processing center in Indiana, and its three telephone centers in Jeffersonville, IN; Tucson, AZ; and Hagerstown, MD. This includes over 4,000 full-time employees at headquarters and over 6,000 “intermittent” employees mostly located in the

1 The “Census Office” moved to the Department of Commerce in 1913 as the “Census Bureau.” 2 http://www.census.gov/about/what.html. 3 Source: Bureau of the Census. http://www.osec.doc.gov/bmi/budget/FY15BiB/EntireBiB2_508.pdf. The number of Census Bureau temporary employees serving as data collectors balloons during a decennial census.

15

various field locations. More than 3,600 employees are approved for telework from home or remote locations. 1.2 Origin of the Study Faced with a rapidly changing marketplace for statistical data, the Bureau’s leadership is implementing an ambitious transformation initiative in order to maintain the Census Bureau’s position as a worldwide leader among statistical data providers. The transformation has an impact on its workforce and organizational culture; requires resource shifts; and the implementation of significant process changes. The Census Bureau leadership embraces the transformation of its organization as a means to keep pace with the demands of its customers in a marketplace marked by a proliferation of data sources and streams. The Census Bureau also cites other major factors that prompt the need to improve its operating efficiency and effectiveness, especially the limited resources resulting from an uncertain and constrained budget and funding environment. These issues are more fully described in Chapter 2. The Bureau has already invested at least two years into its operational and organizational change, a sustained effort that is expected to take more than five years in all. Briefly stated, the Bureau is attempting to transform itself from a programmatic-based organization to one that is organized by function (more information on how the Census Bureau describes its vision is provided in Chapter 2). In the course of this work, the Bureau has requested congressional approval for certain organizational changes to support these strategic efforts. House Appropriations Committee staff, after reviewing Census Bureau reorganization proposals, asked the Bureau if it had considered an independent assessment of whether the current and future organizational structure would support the Bureau’s transformational business goals. Bureau leadership embraced the idea and contracted with the National Academy of Public Administration (the Academy) to conduct such an independent evaluation. The Bureau is engaged in an ongoing process of reorganizing most of its operating Directorates,4 intended to facilitate its transformation over the next several years (the Directorate reorganizations are discussed in Chapter 2). In addition to this dynamic reorganization process, the Bureau has begun to pursue five transformation initiatives that are deemed essential to achieve the Bureau-wide operational transformation it seeks. These five initiatives, which will be more fully described in Chapter 3, include:

1. Using adaptive design through a newly formed organization called the Center for Adaptive Design (AD);

2. Transforming processes to control the costs of addressing data collection stemming from survey nonresponses, an initiative known as “Field Engineering,” as embodied

4 As described in more detail in chapter 2, the Bureau is organized around eight business units known as “Directorates.”

16

by a prototype being used in testing for the next decennial census and referred to as ROCkIT,5 (Reorganize Census with Integrated Technology);

3. Building an enterprise-wide solution for data collection and processing, an initiative known by the title given to this process: Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP);6

4. Building an enterprise-wide data dissemination capability for all surveys and censuses, an initiative known by the title given this process: Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation (CEDSCI); and

5. Building an IT shared services capability. Throughout this report, we will collectively refer to these five projects as “transformation initiatives.” 1.3 Study Scope The scope of this report is to provide an independent assessment and posit practical and near-term actionable recommendations on how the Census Bureau can make changes to enhance prospects for success in its continuing reorganization efforts, especially in implementing its five transformation initiatives. As such, this report principally focuses on evaluating the management and support of the transformation initiatives, concentrating on key elements connected with effective organizational transformation. Some of the comments, by necessity, also apply to the Directorate reorganizations. Important topics include leadership, communication, governance, matrix management, identification of priorities and critical linkages among various initiatives, and workforce-related issues. In addition to focusing on the five transformation initiatives, the Panel proffers best practices on how an organization like the Census Bureau can work toward institutionalizing and sustaining a culture that embraces innovation and agility in order to prepare for uncertain future challenges.7 1.4 Report Structure The Panel’s report is divided into five chapters. Following this background chapter, in Chapter 2 we use Census Bureau sources to provide background on the Bureau’s mission and operations; describe the operating vision that the Bureau articulates for itself as it prepares for the 2020 decennial census; and review the ongoing Directorate reorganizations. In Chapter 3, we summarize how the Bureau describes the five

5 The lower-case “k” in ROCkIT is not a typographical error. The Field Engineering initiative – applicable to all

of the Bureau’s censuses and surveys – encompasses much more than “ROCkIT,” which is tied to the decennial census. The terms are used interchangeably in this report. 6 The lower-case “a” in CEDCaP is not a typographical error. 7 The report’s commentary on how the Census Bureau can take actions to sustain its transformational efforts and build a culture that embraces change into the future has relevance to other federal agencies undergoing organizational transformation.

17

transformation initiatives that shape its organizational transformation toward the Census Bureau’s operating vision. Chapter 4 is intended to highlight areas where further action is needed to help ensure that the Bureau’s transformation initiatives can be successfully implemented and sustained. In Chapter 5, the Panel focuses on factors related to institutionalizing the capacity for innovation over time, discusses the Bureau’s progress in this area, and recommends additional steps that may be taken. Except where otherwise noted, information about the Bureau conveyed in this report is based on Bureau-sourced documents and Bureau interviews (see Appendix E for bibliography and Appendix C for a list of interviews for this report).

18

Chapter Two: Drivers of Census Bureau Transformation, a Vision for the Future, and the Role of Directorate Reorganizations

Census Bureau leadership believes that transformative change at the Bureau is necessary to respond to the demands of an information economy driven and fueled by open data. This chapter provides important background information on the principal factors that have led Bureau leadership to this conclusion. The chapter provides an overview of Census Bureau activities, highlighting some of its products. It also reviews how the Bureau is organized programmatically; and reviews the Census Bureau’s vision that a transformed Census Bureau should be a functional organization using enterprise-wide solutions that is “organized functionally but managed programmatically.” We provide information on organizational changes introduced thus far at the Directorate level, and broad insights into timing and sequencing. We conclude with a few high level observations on the Census Bureau’s transformation effort. 2.1 The Case for Transformation Census Bureau leadership recognizes two principal factors that are driving the need for a profound transformation of the Bureau:

Bureau leadership make the case that the world of statistical research, from the emergence of new technologies and methodologies, to the increased availability of “Big Data” to find new insights, is changing substantially and the Census Bureau has to change with it to retain its position as the world’s leading statistical data collection and reporting agency.

Bureau officials recognize that its current operational methods, with their steadily increasing costs,8 are unsustainable in a budgetary environment characterized by static or declining resources.

A brief examination of each factor follows to provide greater context for this study.

8 The costs of computing—on which the Bureau relies heavily—may be declining but many other costs are increasing. See, for example, the discussion of the increasing costs of fieldwork driving Adaptive Design and ROCkIT in Chapter 3. Such cost increases are behind the statement of the Bureau Director that “the difficulties of measuring the busy, diverse, and independent American society and economy are increasing every year (that is, it costs more money to do the same things the Census Bureau has done for years).” U.S. Census Bureau, The Future of Producing Social and Economic Statistical Information (statement of the Director, 2012), 1.

19

A Changing World and the Imperative to Respond to a Rapidly Changing Information Environment Census Bureau leadership highlights the following factors when making its case for change both in Congressional testimony9 and in the U.S. Census Bureau Business Plan for Change:10

The constantly changing nation and economy: The difficulties of measuring the diverse American society and economy have been increasing every year—and the costs to measure at the same level of quality are increasing exponentially. Effective measurement of the nation and the economy requires new approaches to acquiring data and constructing statistical information.

Increasing demands for high quality and timely statistical information by American business, state, local, tribal, and community leaders: The increasing demands for timely statistics for small geographic areas and small population groups, business segments, and state and local governments require new methods and possibly additional data sets and products.

Fast-changing technology and information options available to the public: New technology can make reporting more convenient and statistical information more accessible, but technology is changing so rapidly that the Bureau must expend significant effort and resources to keep pace. Further, the information explosion associated with digital commerce and communications is providing new digital resources on transactions, operations, and processes that the Bureau must learn to take advantage of in order to efficiently enrich its statistical programs and products.

9 See e.g., Thompson, John H. “Ensuring an Accurate and Affordable 2020 Census,” Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and the Census (September 11, 2013). 10 The following three “dot-point” paragraphs are statements found in this document: U.S. Census Bureau, Business Plan for Change, 5-6 (2013). This is one of three foundational transformation documents discussed later in this report.

20

Unsustainable Business Practices in an Era of Uncertain Resources

Historically, the Census Bureau has been managed as a series of silos of surveys and censuses, substantially decentralized and replete with duplicative and redundant systems.11 In the course of this study and in their own documentation of the need for transformation, Census Bureau leaders have consistently reported that the duplication of effort across programs has resulted in operating costs that are higher than necessary. It has been difficult to share resources between programs because of incompatible systems and data standards. Disseminated data products have been inconsistent in their presentation. These factors point to a larger problem:12

The Bureau faces the threat of becoming increasingly constrained by its own program structure that has evolved over time. In the current state, each business unit has its own unique operations supported by disparate information technology (IT) systems, which impacts the Bureau’s ability to be cost effective, agile, and efficient in delivering new capabilities and business improvements that benefit the enterprise.

Former Census Bureau Director Robert Groves put the implications of duplication of efforts succinctly in a presentation made to a conference of the American Statistical Association in 2012. His key points included: it now costs more just to produce a survey or census with the same level of quality that has been the standard in the past; there is a great increase in demand for timely statistics; there are new technologies available to the statistician and new data resources on which to draw, but no new budget to fund even current operations. Groves concluded, “Current practices are unsustainable.”13 In other words, as the Business Plan for Change explains:

Flat or declining resources: Efforts to reduce the federal deficit are putting tremendous downward pressure on agency budgets. Appropriators, oversight, and sponsoring agencies are demanding more transparency about cost and resource usage, greater integration of cost, project, and schedule information, and better insight into the mission outcomes of investments. Census needs to be able to account for its expenditures and demonstrate the value delivered.

11 The Bureau developed new and unique data collection and processing systems for each major program area conducting censuses and surveys. These systems have historically been built primarily by the Line of Business Directorates with limited involvement from an enterprise coordinating group, such as the IT Directorate. Consequently, the Bureau built multiple, duplicative systems, tailored to the different organizations within the enterprise, but which provide similar functional capabilities. U.S. Census Bureau, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Segment Architecture (October 31, 2014), 22. 12 The following italicized text is drawn from the same Census source. Id, 1. 13 Robert M. Groves, Director, U.S. Census, “Federal Statistics in an Age of a Self-Monitoring Social and Economic Eco-System,” presentation to the American Statistical Association (2012). http://www.amstat.org/meetings/publicpolicy/.

21

2.2 Overview of Current Census Bureau Operations We provide a short summary of Census Bureau operations to provide a better understanding as to the complexity of this organizational transformation, and to provide greater context to our evaluation of the Census Bureau transformation. Brief Introduction to the Work of the Census Bureau

The Census Bureau today is the premier statistical data collection and reporting agency in the federal government. In addition to the Constitutionally-mandated decennial census, the Bureau conducts a wide variety of surveys and censuses14 on its own behalf and for other government agencies and for some private sector entities. Appendix H of this report15 lists 95 separate items produced by the Bureau on a regular basis including 40 censuses and surveys produced by the Directorates on their own behalf, another 40 produced as “reimbursable surveys and censuses” on behalf of others who pay for the service, 11 “estimates and data products,” and 4 “confidential data series.” Statistical data generated and published by the Bureau (or one of its external customers) drive public policy discussions in every part of government, are used to distribute over $400 billion in federal funds every year, and inform both business decisions in every sector of the economy and action plans for every level of government including state and local, as well as federal agencies. Few other agencies have such a broad-ranging impact on economic, business, and public policy discourse and decision-making. Some key data collections include the following:

Advance Monthly Retail Sales American Community Survey

Monthly Wholesale Trade Consumer Expenditure Survey

New Residential Construction American Housing Survey

US International Trade in Goods and Services (trade deficit/surplus)

Survey of Income and Program Participation

Current Population Survey providing statistics for BLS’s monthly unemployment rate calculation

Statistics for the Gross Domestic Product calculations

Among users of Census Bureau data are the Federal Reserve, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the Council of Economic Advisors, the Department of Commerce, and Congress. In addition, a wide range of federal agencies, non- 14 As the Census Bureau describes it, a “census” is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. A “survey” is the data collection operation for a sample of a population or of business and commercial establishments, factories, farms, or governments within an area. Surveys are normally less expensive to conduct, and so are often conducted more frequently. U.S. Census Bureau, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Segment Architecture (October 31, 2014),1, fn. 1. 15 See Appendix H for a complete list of Census Bureau censuses, surveys, and other data products.

22

federal organizations and private sector non-profits call on the Bureau to design, conduct, process, and analyze surveys and censuses published under their own auspices.16 Prominent customers of the Census Bureau include:

National Center for Education Statistics Small Business Administration

Bureau of Justice Statistics Department of Energy

Bureau of Transportation Statistics Department of Education

Department of Housing and Urban Development

Leading Trade Associations (e.g., US Chamber of Commerce)

Current Organization of the Census Bureau The Bureau is headed by a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate,17 and one Deputy Director, who also has the title and responsibilities of Chief Operating Officer. While the Director is the senior political appointee at the Bureau, the Deputy Director, who reports to the Director, is the most senior career Census Bureau employee. The Bureau is organized around business units called “Directorates,” each of which is headed by an Associate Director who reports to the Deputy Director. The Directorates are organized either around the different programs administered by the Bureau or around the functions that support the programs.18 In addition, two offices outside the Directorates also report to the Deputy Director: the “Policy Coordination Office” and the “Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation,” known by its acronym ORMPE.19 Also, a newly-created Office of Innovation and Implementation20 reports to the Deputy Director. Four of the current eight Directorates are devoted to the design, data collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of the censuses and surveys. A brief description of each program Directorate follows.

16 The Census Bureau identifies these as “reimbursable” surveys and censuses. Latest Bureau estimates indicate that reimbursable activity accounted for about $330 million or almost 35 percent of the enacted FY2014 Census Bureau budget. The subject of reimbursable surveys and the part they play in Census Bureau budgeting and operations is discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 of this report. 17 The Director reports to the Under Secretary of Commerce for the Economics and Statistics Administration at the Department of Commerce. 18 Each Directorate is subdivided into smaller business units usually known as “divisions” or in the case of the Research and Methodology Directorate, “centers.” In the case of the Demographic Directorate, some Divisions are being replaced by “pools” of experts available to work on the Directorate’s many surveys and censuses as necessary. 19 The Policy Coordination Office is responsible for data stewardship issues, such as confidentiality and security. It also houses some specific functions such as the office for responding to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. ORMPE is the manager of a number of critical Census Bureau portfolio enterprise and information technology management programs and will be the focus of some of the Panel’s discussions in this report. Note that ORMPE is only one of many Census Bureau acronyms. For the reader’s convenience, acronyms used in this report are collected, in alphabetical order, in Appendix B. 20 This office is discussed later in this report, in Chapter 5.

23

The Decennial Programs Directorate designs and implements the decennial census

of population, as well as the American Community Survey (ACS).21 According to the Bureau, the decennial census is the “largest peacetime activity the U.S. federal government undertakes; its mission is to count everyone once and in the right place.” While the decennial census may only take place once every ten years, analyzing data from the last one and making preparations for the next one are full-time functions of the Census Bureau and among its most important. The ACS is the largest national household survey that uses continuous measurement methods to produce detailed population and housing estimates each year. The ACS replaces the “long form” of the decennial census and brings efficiencies and greater data accessibility while maintaining quality for even the nation’s smallest communities.

The Economic Programs Directorate designs and implements the 5-year Economic Census and Census of Governments and conducts statistical programs that measure and profile U.S. businesses and government organizations, collecting economic data that provide an ongoing portrait of the economy. The Directorate uses these data to produce twelve principal economic indicators, extensive compilations of administrative records, and numerous research and technical studies. The Economic Directorate produces both reimbursable surveys and mandated data collections for other agencies, as well as surveys and censuses on its own behalf.

The Demographic Programs Directorate conducts surveys that provide information on topics such as race and ethnicity, income and poverty, residential information, families, health insurance, fertility and mortality. This Directorate also annually prepares a “between-the-census” estimate and projection for total population and demographic characteristics and provides a range of reimbursable surveys for other agencies.

The Field Operations Directorate collects and coordinates data when such data are collected “in-person” by field survey examiners and census data enumerators who call on individuals, households, or business enterprises.22 The Field Directorate, responsible for collecting data for the decennial census, as well as a variety of other products, is the largest Directorate in the Census Bureau, in terms of number of employees. Field Directorate staff conducts personal interviews for more than 150 censuses and surveys with nearly 2.5 million households and businesses each year,23 and many more during decennial data collection years. The Field Directorate operates six regional Field Offices, the National Processing Center, and three telephone centers across the country.

Four mission-support Directorates provide important supporting roles in the Census

Bureau’s mission:

21 The American Community Survey is conducted monthly and releases its 1, 3, and 5 year products annually. 22 “In person” today includes by telephone and, in some cases, over the Internet. 23 U.S. Census Bureau, Field Directorate Strategic Plan (2014), 6.

24

The Research and Methodology Directorate was created in 2010 to initiate, coordinate, and support research Bureau-wide. The Directorate is composed of six Centers, Data Web Applications, Quality Programs, and Administrative units, including the Center for Adaptive Design (AD) added in 2012.24 Research continues to be conducted throughout the Census Bureau to evaluate, support, and improve data collection, production, and dissemination of the products of specific Programmatic Directorates. The Research and Methodology Directorate, on the other hand, focuses on three issues: (1) what the Bureau should measure; (2) how the Bureau should measure and analyze; and (3) how the Bureau should deliver information to data users, decision makers, and the general public.

The Communications Directorate is responsible for internal communications with Census Bureau staff as well as external communications with stakeholders and the general public. It focuses on public and internal communications, including customer liaison, marketing, congressional relations, and intergovernmental affairs.

The Administration Directorate and Office of the Chief Financial Officer includes the following divisions: Budget, Finance, Human Resources, Administrative and Customer Services, Acquisition, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Office.

The Information Technology Directorate and the Office of the Chief Information Officer, in the past, played a supporting role with respect to major IT investments scattered among the various programmatic Directorates, including the Field Directorate. As discussed later in this chapter, the IT Directorate is now serving as the principal developer of Bureau-wide standards and systems for an enterprise-wide architecture that fits the needs of a 21st century Census Bureau.

2.3 Key Elements of the Census Bureau’s Vision of Its Future

The Bureau defines its ongoing transformation this way in its Business Plan for Change:25

To address mission-related challenges, the Census Bureau is changing how it conducts censuses and surveys. The focus is on transforming and consolidating our major business functions, which include data collection and data dissemination Bureau-wide. We are implementing adaptive design survey methods to strike a balance between cost and quality. We are transforming field nonresponse operational processes to reduce cost and increase data collection efficiency. These two sets of new processes will be implemented in an enterprise data collection and processing system.

We are also consolidating and modernizing our data dissemination function to increase customer access and usability. Additionally, we are expanding our traditional

24 This is one of the five transformation initiatives the Panel has been asked to review and will be discussed in detail in the next chapter. 25 The following italicized text is drawn from: U.S. Census Bureau, Business Plan for Change Refresh Draft (December 15, 2014), 7 – 8.

25

database to include “big data”, requiring new analytic, product, and distribution processes. All these new processes and systems work together to transform traditional census and survey data collection, field operations, data dissemination, and data products.

Census Bureau documentation and interviews, taken together, indicate a vision of the transformed Bureau as one of an agency emerging from three systematic and dramatic changes: It is: (1) a functional organization supported by (2) enterprise-wide solutions, with (3) a unified enterprise IT architecture to address as many challenges as possible, eliminating the piecemeal approach that has heretofore been the norm. We provide further commentary on these points below.

From a programmatic-based to a functionally-based organization: Today, there are survey designers, statisticians, and other specialists scattered throughout the Programmatic Directorates—Economic, Demographic, Decennial, and Field. Study teams come together within those Directorates (or more specific programmatic specialty units in the Divisions) to conduct and produce products generated by the Bureau’s ongoing work. Bureau leadership’s idea26 is that in the future, the various specialty professionals will be organized into “functional” groups—for example, organized around data collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination—and the study teams will come together from the different functional Directorates to conduct and produce a particular census or survey, under the leadership of a survey director.27 This is what Bureau leadership means when the leaders express the Change Principle: “Organize by function, manage by program.”28 Those Census Bureau Directorates that have previously been organized on a programmatic basis are slowly being transformed into organizations structured by the functions they provide. The type of changes and their current status varies among the Directorates as described in the following section of this chapter.

Enterprise-wide solutions for all data collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination functions of the Bureau: A functional organization employs enterprise-wide solutions. At present, each survey or census product has its own IT solutions that incorporate tools which are often incompatible with those required to create or manage other products produced by other Directorates at the Bureau. This protocol is in the process of change. A central tenet of Census Bureau transformation for the future is adoption of enterprise-wide solutions to the fundamental data-related Bureau-wide tasks: data collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination. Bureau leadership realizes that these fundamental

26 According to interviews with Census Bureau leaders and a review of Census Bureau documentation. 27 As described later in this Chapter, the Demographic Directorate is already experimenting with a form of this organization, by organizing its professional staff into “pools” led by “survey directors” to produce particular products. 28 U.S. Census Bureau, The Future of Census Operations (2013), 8.

26

transformation initiatives must be introduced in a gradual manner in order to avoid too much disruption of ongoing Census Bureau work.

Enterprise-wide solutions for IT services and commodity IT: A functional organization is supported by enterprise-wide solutions at every level of the enterprise. This implies an “enterprise IT architecture”29 that promotes and, eventually, requires Bureau-wide IT solutions for everything from email to budget control systems to data storage and document management; not necessarily one system but a “system of systems” that can communicate with each other and interoperate as necessary.

In this vision of the future, survey and census designers will have a stable of design templates to choose from as they create new products or modify existing ones. They plan for an enterprise-wide IT “system of systems” that can be called on for data collection in whatever form is appropriate, from “in-person” survey to internet data collection, and more. Similarly, there will be a common set of data analysis tools that can be used to process the information that is collected (data processing and analysis) and a common set of dissemination tools to enable the Bureau to distribute the resulting study in any number of ways on paper, on a website, online, through Application Programming Interface (API) with the public, and more. It will be possible to match the data with data from other studies to create new and interesting findings that had not been thought of when the initial design was adopted. Data will be compatible with this form of analysis because those data will be based on common standards for metadata.30 The data will be available, along with legacy data stored on-site or in the cloud, for use by researchers at the Bureau, in the rest of the federal government, state and local governments, and the private sector. 2.4 Census Bureau Plans for Transformation

The transformation effort at the Census Bureau has already been underway for more than two years. First, we note that the transformation initiatives were conceived individually. They were not conceived at the same time nor did they appear as one plan from the outset.31 Second, it is worth noting that implementation plans call for carrying out the

29 “Enterprise IT Architecture” is the term normally used to refer to how any enterprise organizes its information technology systems. It is a term of art in federal information resources management. See generally, Office of Management and Budget, The Common Approach to Enterprise Architecture (2012). 30 “Metadata” is a term applied to structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource. Metadata is often called “data about data.” National Information Standards Organization, “Understanding Metadata” (2004). http://www.niso.org/standrds/resources/Metadata_Demysified.pdf. Developing common metadata standards among disparate Census Bureau systems is a primary topic for two of the transformation initiatives assessed in this report. 31 Census leadership recognizes the need to “catalogue and integrate” the initiatives into the overall Bureau Enterprise Architecture. See Business Plan for Change Refresh Draft (Objective 5.3), 12. The origin of each initiative is noted when discussed in Chapter 3.

27

initiatives as a series of incremental steps while the Bureau continues its day-to-day operations.

The following three documents prepared by current Bureau leadership and issued simultaneously in 2013 provide a high level strategic overview of the Census Bureau’s transformation vision and are frequently cited in other Bureau documents that address transformation initiatives:

a. The U.S. Census Bureau Strategic Plan FY 2013-2017;32

b. The U.S. Census Bureau Business Plan for Change33 (and its first “Refresh” Draft);34 and

c. The Future of Census Bureau Operations, with its “Ten Guiding Change Principles.”35

Interviewed Census Bureau personnel indicate that these documents have been critical to securing top leadership endorsement of the vision and proposed transformations.

Plans for each of the transformation initiatives feature an incremental and sequenced implementation process, as discussed in Chapter 3. While some transformation initiatives are still in the process of being defined in greater detail, others are more mature and are beginning to be implemented (and some testing of new systems and capabilities has begun, with many more tests planned in the coming months and years).

The overall roll-out of the work is complicated. While making this set of important organizational pivots, the Bureau must continue with its work of producing hundreds of surveys and censuses every year for a large and diverse customer base. In addition, preparations must be made for the 2020 decennial census. Census Bureau leadership takes the position that the changes must be made incrementally, and cannot redirect everything all at once. As one transition document authored by the Associate Director of the IT Directorate, along with others, puts it:36

Accordingly, it would be impractical, virtually impossible, to transition by anything approaching a “big bang”, one time “go-live” for all . . . solutions across all census and

32 U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau Strategic Plan FY 2013-2017 (April 25, 2013). http://www.census.gov/main/www/strategicplan/strategicplan.pdf. 33 U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau Business Plan for Change (April 25, 2013) https://www.census.gov/aboutus/pdf/BusinessPlanforChange_2013-04-25_v1.0.pdf. 34 U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau Business Plan for Change Refresh Draft (version 1.4, December 15, 2014). 35 U.S. Census Bureau, The Future of Census Bureau Operations (April 25, 2013) https://www.census.gov/aboutus/pdf/FutureofCensusBureauOperations_2013-04-25_v1.0_10ChangePrinciples.pdf. 36 U.S. Census Bureau, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Transition Plan (Draft Version 1.0, October 31, 2014), 4.

28

survey operations. [We] need to manage the considerable complexity of integrating all of these “moving parts” through 2022 and beyond through a series of phased baselines in a sequencing plan that considers all of these dimensions: projects, capabilities, systems and censuses/surveys.

2.5 Steps Toward Transformation at the Directorate Level

In this section, we summarize actions taken to reorganize five of the Directorates as preliminary steps toward realizing the Bureau’s vision of a functional organization. Directorates are reorganizing to consolidate functions at the Directorate level and eliminate duplication within the Directorates. This is an intermediate step before the Bureau is prepared to fully reorganize on functional lines.

Decennial Directorate: As the U.S. population continues to increase, while all the time becoming more mobile, and the number of housing units continues to grow, the challenge of conducting an accurate count of the total population in “the right place” keeps getting bigger. The Bureau must build an accurate address list of every housing unit, maximize self-response to the decennial census, and follow up with those who do not respond. As noted earlier in this report, the Bureau calls the decennial census the “largest peacetime activity the U.S. federal government undertakes.” It takes years of research, planning, testing, and development of methods and infrastructure to ensure an accurate and complete count.

As will be noted in Chapter 3, some of the transformational initiatives are directed at improving the decennial census and are currently in testing. Meanwhile, the Directorate has reorganized its divisions to streamline operations in anticipation of changes proposed to make the 2020 decennial census more cost effective. The proposed changes include:

Use of the Internet to increase self-response;

Use of information people have already given the government to answer Bureau questions and reduce follow-up workload (called “administrative records”);

Automation of operations to increase productivity and reduce staff/offices; and

Updating existing maps and addresses to reflect changes, preventing the need to walk every block in every neighborhood.

The reorganization, effective in the first quarter of FY 2015,37 includes consolidation to eliminate duplicative divisional activities across the Directorate with

37 October, 2014.

29

establishment or enhancement of a Directorate-wide (1) Communications and Budget Office; (2) Decennial Research Office; (3) Decennial Program Management Office; (4) Decennial Administrative and Strategic Planning Office; and a (5) Decennial Information Technology Division. In addition, the Directorate has added a Translation office that handles language translation for the Bureau in an expert and consistent way. The intent is to move the Directorate toward a functional organization.

Demographic Directorate: Over the last two years, the Demographic Directorate has restructured its divisions to consolidate its own IT resources mostly into one division, with a goal of having all of its IT resources in one place rather than scattered throughout the Directorate. In addition, the Directorate has substantially changed the way it staffs surveys, moving from divisions dedicated to particular surveys to “pools”—Directorate-wide staffing groups—of survey designers, managers and other professionals who are tasked to work on a particular survey, under the direction of a “Survey Director” from within the Directorate. The “pool” personnel will also be available in the future to work on other projects within the Directorate.38 According to Directorate documents, this is intended to improve flexibility to utilize resources (e.g., the “pool” approach to survey staffing) and to provide technical and managerial oversight (the use of Survey Directors assigned to production of particular products as single points of contact). It also is said to create job opportunities and improve employee retention within the Directorate by providing more interesting work and opportunities for advancement.

Economic Directorate: The Economic Directorate recently undertook a major reorganization, explained in a Census Bureau document as follows:39

Currently, Census Bureau and Directorate standards are implemented inconsistently, resulting in far too many different ways of doing business across our surveys. It is imperative that the Directorate establish a structure that maximizes the ability to standardize and simplify processes, methodologies, and systems.

The result is a reorganization of the Directorate around its various products and functional services. The intent is to establish a Directorate that is organized functionally with standards applied consistently across surveys, and one that is better positioned to utilize Bureau-wide shared services.40

38 Rather than being assigned to a division – and a particular group of surveys – personnel are assigned to the “pool” and may be called upon to work on any of the Directorate’s products as the need and the opportunity arises. Survey directors also come from within the Directorate. 39 U.S. Census Bureau, “Economic Directorate Organizational Alignment”, Directorate PowerPoint Presentation (July 18, 2014), slide 3. 40 The term “shared services,” used mostly but not exclusively to refer to Information Technology shared services, is a terms of art in federal management and is explained at length in the next chapter.

30

Field Directorate: During 2012, the Field Directorate reduced its regional field offices from 12 to 6 and reorganized its staff to respond to reduced budgets, in what the Directorate claimed was the biggest change to the Bureau’s regional structure in more than 50 years. In addition, the Field Directorate changed the roles of the first-tier field supervisors to focus their work solely on the field enumerators and survey takers, moving some administrative duties to the next level of supervision. The reorganization was deemed a great success for being on-time and under budget, with fewer employees subject to receiving “reduction in force” notices than anticipated. More recently, as part of the ongoing reorganization, a “Data Analytics Office” has been added to the Field Directorate to work on Field Engineering issues.

Information Technology (IT) Directorate: In the past, each Directorate was largely in control of its own IT functionality. Historically the IT Directorate was viewed by some as a service organization, with limited expertise. Even today there remain as many as 50 “current state systems in data collection”41 as well as over 100 total systems that support data dissemination functions scattered throughout the Bureau.42 The creation of a new, expanded role for the IT Directorate is a major Bureau-wide change. The Bureau has exerted considerable effort to more effectively integrate IT services and systems and upgrade its IT Directorate. In just the last two years, it has given its IT organization enterprise-wide authority over IT acquisition and management.43 Instead of building different IT systems that serve single programs, or even single operations, the Census Bureau is building systems to share across the entire Bureau whenever feasible. Leadership believes the benefits of this approach include streamlined organizational efficiencies through centralized operational infrastructure; more efficient resource allocation allowing the Bureau’s program areas to focus on the core mission; improved operational effectiveness; and improved cost efficiencies through reducing costs associated with redundant IT resources. The Bureau has established new governance of IT investments, which it believes ensures that policy, standards, and guidelines are in line with the Bureau’s strategic priorities.44 In addition to giving the IT Directorate enterprise-wide authority, the resulting reorganization moved at least 150 employees from the Administrative Directorate who had been performing decentralized IT functions into the IT Directorate.45

41 U.S. Census Bureau, CEDCaP Segment Architecture (Version 1.0, October 30, 2014) at Table 11, pages 32 – 38. This table is an inventory of current state systems and the directorates that use them. These are sometimes referred to as legacy systems. 42 U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation (CEDSCI), Charter at 6 (June 6, 2014). Both CEDCaP and CEDSCI are discussed in detail in the following chapter. 43 Chapter 4 describes this new IT governance structure in greater detail. 44 Thompson, John H. “Ensuring an Accurate and Affordable 2020 Census”. Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and the Census (September 11, 2013), 4-5. 45 Legislation enacted in December 2014, the “Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act” (FITARA) is likely to have a significant impact on IT portfolio management at the Bureau in the future, as

31

While these reorganizations are significant in themselves, they can be described as imposing fairly straightforward changes to existing Directorates. All of them represent the first steps toward consolidation along functional lines. Consolidation within the Directorate comes first, and facilitates a future consolidation of functions across Directorates. The reorganization of the IT Directorate was more comprehensive and intended to be more far-reaching in its consolidation of Bureau-wide IT functionality in the Directorate. That consolidation, of course, is not yet complete. As noted earlier, the Decennial, Economic Programs, and Demographic Directorates may have consolidated all of their respective IT personnel into one division within each Directorate, but all three Directorates still have IT personnel on staff, as does the Field Directorate. These Directorates will continue to have IT personnel on staff for some time. That is the nature of incremental transformation that has to accommodate the ongoing work of the Census Bureau.46

In summary, these reorganizations to-date are significant “first steps,” knowing that the goal is a profound transformation of the Census Bureau into a functionally-structured organization with enterprise-wide solutions.

Panel Observation: The process of transformational change is challenging and needs to be incremental if it is to be successful, particularly when there is a major ongoing workload that needs to be produced in the midst of implementing the changes.

To carry out the key transformational principle identified by Census Bureau leadership for the future—“Organize by function, manage by program”47—the Bureau is moving beyond these first steps by adopting five Bureau-wide functionally-based transformation initiatives. This is the subject of Chapter 3. The Bureau has embarked on a transformation that is broad and deep, cutting across an entire agency with a strong and different culture. It is not about “just” the five transformation initiatives. The Bureau is a large agency with a long list of operational deliverables every month in addition to the decennial census. The transition to a transformed agency has begun by layering new processes and a new operational culture on top of existing operational units and an existing culture. Those units have to keep producing all of the Bureau’s products until the units are transitioned to a new functional organization. The process is complicated, will have to be gradual, and demands close and careful attention, management and communication to all internal and external stakeholders to see it through to a successful conclusion.

Panel Observation: The Bureau’s phased approach to functional reorganization should allow the Bureau to take full advantage of its planned transformation.

discussed in Chapter 4. See Pub. Law 113-291, sections 831-837 of the National Defense Authorization Act (December 23, 2014). A summary of this legislation is included in Appendix G. 46 Compliance with FITARA is likely to have an impact on the timing of the transformation. 47 U.S. Census Bureau, The Future of Census Bureau Operations (April 25, 2013), 8 https://www.census.gov/aboutus/pdf/FutureofCensusBureauOperations_2013-04-25_v1.0_10ChangePrinciples.pdf. Continuing, this document points out that “Reorganizing around survey lifecycle and mission-enabling functional core capabilities and shared services will eliminate redundancies, facilitate standardization, reduce costs and increase efficiency.”

32

The Panel approves the broad approach taken by the Bureau to address transformation with the caveat that the Panel has not been asked to address specific Bureau decisions given the ongoing nature of the transformation process. The consulting firm, MITRE, has been serving as an external consultant to the Bureau to assess specific organizational changes.

33

Chapter Three: Transformation Initiatives

After summarizing the broad transformation vision that the Census Bureau has embraced in the previous chapter, we use this chapter to describe five key transformation initiatives being introduced at the Bureau. These five are essential elements of a strategic transformation that demonstrably contributes to the visionary goals described in Chapter 2. This chapter highlights how extensive and complex the various Census Bureau transformation initiatives are when considered collectively.

Census Bureau leadership recognizes that more ambitious operational initiatives are needed to complement traditional organizational changes described in Chapter 2. These five transformation initiatives span more than one Directorate as function-based projects. To the extent they are operational,48 they are planned and implemented by matrixed teams staffed by an initiative leader and several personnel recruited from across the Bureau. Each is housed in different Directorates including the IT Directorate, the Decennial Directorate, and the Research and Methodology Directorate, but also report directly to the Operating Committee (OPCOM) or Executive Steering Committee (ESC).49 They all are intended to encourage the growth of a functional organization, replacing the current programmatic structure.

Three of the initiatives focus on different elements of data collection efforts and methodologies. These are:

o Adaptive Design; o Field Engineering, sometimes referred to as ROCkIT;50 and o CEDCaP (Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing).

A fourth initiative—CEDSCI—focuses on innovation in data dissemination methods, as well as developing common metadata standards across the Bureau, for current and legacy data.

The final initiative is a comprehensive program of “IT shared services” within the context of broader initiatives described and advocated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

48 Some of these initiatives are quite new and not yet operational. Others have a longer history of development and testing. 49 OPCOM (Operating Committee) and the ESC (Executive Steering Committee) are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. 50 Note that this initiative is in transition. As noted earlier, it is a prototype of a new “Field Operational Control System” (FOCS) which is being integrated into CEDCaP. For the time being, in this report, ROCkIT is used to refer to the initiative.

34

3.1 Data Collection and Processing

Center for Adaptive Design (AD)

The Center for Adaptive Design was set up within the Bureau in 2013 primarily to implement adaptive design (we describe “adaptive design” below) for the enterprise.51 Although located within the Research and Methodology Directorate, it is a matrixed organization staffed by representatives from the Economic, Demographic, Decennial and Information Technology Directorates. Adaptive Design (AD) goals are identified in all of the key Bureau-wide and Directorate strategic planning documents. Three AD projects are covered under the umbrella of CEDCaP projects and indeed, those three (all sponsored by the IT Directorate) provide the bulk of AD funding at present, along with a contribution from the Research and Methodology Directorate funding. To a certain extent, AD provides a context and framework for both the ROCkIT and CEDCaP projects.

“Adaptive Design” is a statistical term of art for “how to improve the management of field work.”52 Basically, adaptive designs for surveys are ones where the observations gained in the course of the survey are used to adjust the survey as it is being run. In a typical non-adaptive survey, decisions regarding how to sample are made and fixed in advance. In contrast, with adaptive design, survey results—as they become available—can be used to adjust further survey data collection strategies and work. The idea is to make the field work more cost effective and efficient, rather than having a census or survey taker keep returning in-person (at substantial cost) until time runs out to conduct the survey/census or the budget runs out of money, whichever comes first. It should be understood that “field work” in this context is broadly defined. While the adaptation may take place while the survey is actually being conducted, it can also be done in advance of conducting the survey, through a decision to turn to administrative records for responsive information before attempting “non-response follow up” of survey respondents. It can also include decisions to send hard copy forms to those who have not responded via the Internet, as requested.

Adaptive design, in short, is a tailored and dynamic approach to case management in data collection. It uses auxiliary data to guide contact approaches and resource allocation and it employs a centralized system for controlling multiple data collection modes.53

51 Adaptive Design principles were first articulated as part of a vision for revising the 2020 Census by the current Bureau Director’s immediate predecessor, Robert Groves. 52 Peter V. Miller (Census), What does Adaptive Design Mean to You?, PowerPoint Presentation at the Census Bureau “FedCASTIC 2014” Conference, slide 3. (Personal views of Miller not the Census Bureau). https://www.google.com/webhp?tab=mw&ei=rRmkVMSPH4KtevqEgMAD&ved=0CAUQqS4oAg#q=%22What+does+Adaptive+Design+Mean+to+You%22. 53 Miller, Reist and Thieme, “Adaptive Survey Design in a Rapidly Changing World”, U.S. Census Bureau PowerPoint Presentation, available from the Association of Public Data Users (September 2013). http://apdu.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Miller-Reist-and-Thieme-Adaptive-Survey-Design-in-a-Repidly-Changing-World.pdf.

35

AD is thus an important transformation initiative that responds to the changing world of survey design and operation: Survey response rates are declining while the cost of carrying out surveys using traditional methods is increasing. Survey clients, internal and external to the Bureau, demand that results continue to have the same high levels of validity and reliability as in the past. One of the most important (perhaps the largest and most important) cost factors in the modern Census Bureau operation is field work (e.g., the cost of obtaining responses).

There were problems with the 2010 decennial census focusing on elements of field work.54 While ultimately resolved, there is understandably substantial attention being paid to issues surrounding improvements in field work for the 2020 decennial census. Some of that attention is reflected in AD. Different aspects of field work are also the focus of ROCkIT, which is the metadata and field operations improvement initiative described next.

Reorganize Census with Integrated Technology (ROCkIT)

ROCkIT55 focuses on data collection in the field, which is the biggest expense item during a decennial census. The project was stood up on April 1, 2014 and is housed in the Decennial Directorate.56 Its team leader reports directly to the Census Director and Deputy Director. This matrixed team, consisting of individuals from several different Directorates, works on a variety of projects related to ROCkIT.

According to the Census Bureau: 57

The purpose of the 2020 ROCkIT Team is to fundamentally redefine the business processes, core capabilities, and roles of field operations and staff as a catalyst to the transformation of decennial census operations for 2020. The effort will evaluate the feasibility of fully utilizing the advantages of planned automation and available real-time data to transform the efficiency and effectiveness of data collection operations. This initiative will leverage existing technologies or build prototype systems based on the core capabilities identified and defined by the team. The process and technologies will make use of experiments, lab simulations and analysis as well as 2015 field integration to understand the possibilities presented by systems, inform infrastructure decisions, and focus future design and business decisions.

54 See, e.g., Congressional Research Service, The 2010 Decennial Census: Background and Issues, (Washington, D.C. February 2011) 55 Also known as the Field Operational Control System (FOCS), which is engaged in field engineering of business processes. 56 ROCkIT concepts were first discussed after the 2010 decennial census; the topic attracted greater attention at the Bureau when current Director John Thompson focused on modernizing “nonresponse” follow up in the 2020 decennial census. 57 U.S. Census, “2020 Census July 2014 Monthly Status Report” PowerPoint Presentation, slide 16.

36

More specifically, the ROCkIT initiatives include:

Replacement of verbatim paper-in-classroom field training with multimedia training that can be managed on handheld devices owned by field personnel.

Replacement of paper payroll records for hourly field personnel (temporary employees) by automated payroll systems.

Field testing of an Internet-based field data collection system using hand-held devices.

Testing and improvement of the implementation of changes in first-tier field manager responsibilities (part of the Field Directorate reorganization in 2012), making sure they focus solely on supervision of enumerators while other responsibilities move up the chain to higher levels.

In addition to moving data collection training to a multimedia system accessible by laptop or handheld device, ROCkIT is testing a number of supporting systems. These systems include: COMET,58 which delivers Bureau-wide standardized metadata and collection processes; iCADE,59 which provides data capture; and MOJO,60 which modernizes operational control systems. Some components have already been tested. Some testing will be taking place in a “mock up” test of several Census 2020 proposed systems scheduled for July 1, 2015. Additional testing is planned for 2016 and 2017.

To some extent, the ROCkIT initiative overlaps with the CEDCaP initiative, since three of the identified ROCkIT systems are also recognized as CEDCaP systems. In addition, to the extent that ROCkIT is increasingly aligned with the Decennial Directorate, it makes sense to refer more generally to the “Field Engineering” initiative that is also embodied in the Field Directorate’s new Data Analytics Office. All of this, of course, makes it more difficult to describe each initiative separately, but may also be inevitable given the overlaps in the mandates of the three initiatives having to do with different aspects of data collection and processing.

58 COMET stands for “Content Metadata.” 59 iCADE stands for “Integrated Computer Assisted Data Entry.” 60 MOJO provides an enterprise framework to be used by all modes of field/telephony-assisted data collection. It modernizes and standardizes legacy mode operational control systems.

37

Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) CEDCaP is the program for transitioning Bureau staff away from the large number and wide variety of data collection and processing systems in use today to a series of enterprise-wide data collection and processing systems.61 The CEDCaP scope includes not only census and survey data collection operations, but also survey design, instrument development, sample design and implementation, and data editing imputation and estimation. The CEDCaP team is staffed from several different Directorates. It is managed out of the IT Directorate, with the team leader reporting to the Chief Information Officer (CIO). The CEDCaP initiative itself is governed by the ESC, as is CEDSCI.62 The recently created Office of Innovation and Implementation, which reports to the Director and Deputy Director, is responsible for ensuring that appropriate business requirements are incorporated into CEDCaP systems.

It is well recognized that implementation of all CEDCaP projects will involve a series of incremental steps over several years. At present, CEDCaP focuses on 14 different projects at various stages of development, and there could be more in the future. Eight of these focus on various aspects of data collection and processing capabilities. The remaining six, called “enabling capability” projects, relate to supporting infrastructure for the emerging organization of the Bureau. Some of these projects are being tested now, while others are still in the planning stages.

Over the next eight years or so, the Bureau has a goal that CEDCaP projects will be developed, thoroughly tested, and the data collection and processing/analysis capabilities they create will be made available to census and survey developers across the Bureau. These “tests” will take place in the context of the production of some of the Bureau’s most important products, including the American Community Survey (ACS), several economic censuses and other survey products of the Economic, Demographic, and the Decennial Directorates. Successful “tests” are intended to give Census Bureau personnel confidence to move to CEDCaP processes for their day-to-day work.

CEDCaP has a detailed timeline and plans for projects taking place within upcoming censuses and surveys.63 The Bureau acknowledges a planning horizon for CEDCaP out to 2022, which is the year when the current schedule for the CEDCaP initiative is planned for

61 CEDCaP also has its origins in the vision for the 2020 Census articulated by the current Bureau Director’s immediate predecessor. It was originally referred to as “Multimode Data Collection” for the Census Bureau. 62 The Executive Steering Committee is described in detail in Chapter 4. 63 ROCkIT has a timeline tied to implementation as part of the next decennial census. AD is an operational center that does not have a “timeline” as an initiative. CEDSCI is in the preliminary stages of development. The IT shared services initiative appears to be on an ASAP indeterminate timeline.

38

completion.64 The Bureau calls this “Target State 2022,” but recognizes that continuing enhancements and innovations will continue after that date.65

Sometime after 2022, the Bureau plans that CEDCaP will have produced up-to-date systems for all the capabilities needed by census and survey operations, without having had to disrupt ongoing operations of the Bureau with its work deliverables.66 When (or before) that point is reached, Bureau leadership expects that all Directorates will have recognized the value of shifting to the enterprise-wide Census Bureau systems, particularly from the standpoint of efficiencies from advanced technology as well as the standpoint of eliminating excessive costs that stem from keeping legacy systems operational. That said, to achieve anticipated cost reduction and program improvement goals, there will come a time when it is imperative to turn off the legacy systems and move any remaining users over to the new systems. However, the Bureau has not yet put a date on that final transformation. The governance rules are in place to provide authority to make this happen (an issue discussed in Chapter 4).67

Progress is being made in the implementation of CEDCaP. Among other things, CEDCaP has produced an inventory of the current IT systems around the Bureau, something that is sorely needed for improved IT portfolio management as well as for this transition project.68

CEDCaP alone is a major undertaking featuring a lot of complexity. Each CEDCaP project has its own IT design characteristics, timeline for testing, specific challenges and features, and particular patterns of development. Each project demands a great deal of regular, persistent, expert attention simultaneous with Bureau efforts to produce both the ongoing large number of censuses and surveys, as well as engage in advanced planning for the next decennial census in 2020.69

64 U.S. Census Bureau, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Segment Architecture (October 31, 2014), 5. 65 Id. 5. The authors of this document note, for example, that the “majority of current economic surveys may or may not be addressed in the Target State.” 66 This necessarily implies that the legacy systems of today will still be options available to the census and survey operations of tomorrow, at least until a future undetermined date. As discussed in Chapter 4, compliance with FITARA may have a substantial impact on this process. 67 See, e.g., U.S. Census Bureau, Information Technology Investment Management Policy (October 1, 2014). This is another policy that is likely to be affected by FITARA compliance. 68 For purposes of the Panel’s report, however, it is not necessary to go into detail about the technical elements of CEDCaP systems or their timelines for testing and the rest of the plans for implementation. 69 CEDCaP staff, listing the major risks that it faces in a presentation earlier this year, recognizes that:

IF the development and test teams of projects and systems are unfamiliar with new technologies (e.g., service-oriented architecture, EDITE, Cloud, etc.) THEN development and testing may take longer than expected and delay the schedule.

U.S. Census Bureau, “Program Management Review, CEDCaP/Adaptive Design” PowerPoint presentation, slide 26 (November 17, 2014).

39

3.2 Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation (CEDSCI)

“Data Dissemination” is shorthand for the way Census Bureau data are made available to the public and thus is a critical and complex aspect of the Bureau’s work. The Bureau’s Data Dissemination Task Force (established in 2013) “identified 47 end user dissemination systems and over 100 total systems that support data dissemination activities within the Bureau.”70 At the same time, as the CEDSCI Charter produced by the Census Bureau states:71

While our data are highly trusted and valued, our customers express frustration and aggravation with the difficulty of discovering and finding our Census Bureau content and making it useful for their needs.

CEDSCI was set up during 2014 to promote the creation and implementation of enterprise-wide solutions for data dissemination and innovative ways for both experienced researchers and the public at large to access all manner of Census Bureau data.72 CEDSCI is staffed by a matrixed team of Bureau experts with extensive knowledge of internal dissemination systems and external customer demand. The membership is diverse, led by staff from the IT Directorate, and composed of technologists, scientists, and analysts from Decennial, Economic, Demographic, Communications and other Directorates. It reports to the ESC that it shares with CEDCaP.73

While CEDSCI is the most recent initiative to be stood up, and is the least mature in its activities thus far, it is already engaging in some critical projects, including:

Development of common metadata standards for the entire enterprise of the Census Bureau;

Development and implementation of Application Programming Interfaces (API’s), the software gateways that will allow researchers and the public access to Census Bureau data bases;74 and

Collection of “legacy” Census Bureau data of all kinds into common databases within a relatively new enterprise data sharing system running on Microsoft SharePoint.75

Ultimately, CEDSCI is intended to focus on the development of a common technology platform that will support the future data dissemination vision and concept of operations, consolidating many existing systems along the way. CEDSCI will also implement

70 U.S. Census Bureau, Office of the Director, Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Consumer Innovation Charter (June 6, 2014), 6. 71 Id. 2. 72 Consolidating data dissemination became a high priority for Census Bureau leadership starting in 2012. 73 While comprised of a matrixed team, the CEDSCI initiative is now part of the Decennial Directorate. 74 This is consistent with a federal-government-wide initiative called “Open Government” intended to make government data more accessible to the public. 75 This is one of the new “IT shared services” at the Bureau, as discussed in the following section.

40

governance and program management processes and standards to support and manage the effort of moving to the new dissemination platform.

CEDSCI, to some extent, is a response to the findings of the Bureau’s Data Dissemination Task Force report in 2013. The Bureau’s leadership clearly recognizes the process that will have to be undertaken and the risks at hand, as the Director’s Office states in the CEDSCI charter: 76

The recommendations of the Data Dissemination Task Force call for Census to move from a model of distributed governance of dissemination efforts to a centralized model employing a shared technological platform that enables users to combine diverse data sets through tools that are customer-centric. A transition of this scale, affecting all Census programs, must be well guided and centrally managed . . .

A key finding of the Task Force is that Census lacks enterprise-focused data dissemination governance. Individual program areas within Census construct their own data rules, data sets, processes, and procedures to serve their specific needs. These areas work in silos, with little coordination across areas to maximize data congruency. Areas throughout Census go through a hierarchy of management that governs a particular project, which results in non-harmonized data files, disparate consumer interfaces, and cumbersome search and navigation of census.gov. Data dissemination governance happens at different points throughout the process of tool and product development, depending on the program.

Successful implementation of a corporate dissemination strategy requires a corporate-level data dissemination portfolio governance process with the responsibility and authority to look across the Census Bureau and make decisions regarding investments.

In summary, the Task Force found that current data dissemination practices face the same siloed operational challenges confronting data collection and analysis activities.

76 U.S. Census Bureau, Office of the Director, Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Consumer Innovation Charter (June 6, 2014), 13-14.

41

3.3 IT Shared Services - An Initiative Aligned with Federal CIO Council Objectives

In addition to the initiatives described earlier in this report, the Census Bureau is undertaking an initiative to institute a variety of “IT shared services” throughout the Bureau. The IT shared services initiative, a response to increasing requirements from OMB, is in an early stage of operation (the “Enterprise IT Shared Services Policy” is scheduled to be approved by the OPCOM77 by March 31, 2015). The IT Directorate leads this initiative with a small team.

“IT shared services” is a term of art in federal information resources management and will align the Census Bureau program with relevant OMB guidance and definitions. According to OMB, an IT shared service is defined as: 78

An Information Technology function that is provided for consumption by multiple organizations within or between Federal Agencies.

The CIO Council defines three categories of IT shared services within the federal government. These include:

Mission Services: These are core purpose and functional capabilities of the federal government; such as disaster response, food safety, national defense, and employment services. Some mission services may have a single federal organization focused on providing that service, while other mission services have multiple federal organizations providing parts of a service.

Support Services: Are defined by the capabilities that support common business functions performed by nearly all federal organizations. These include functional areas such as budgeting, financial, human resources, asset, and property and acquisition management.

Commodity IT: Examples of commodity IT shared services include:

IT infrastructure (e.g., data centers, networks, workstations, laptops, software applications and mobile devices)

Enterprise IT services (e.g., e-mail, web infrastructure, collaboration tools, security, identity and access management)79

77 The “Operating Committee” or “OPCOM” is the top leadership governing body at the Bureau and is described in more detail in Chapter 4 of this report. Bureau Governance is also described in some detail in chapter 4 of this report. 78 Office of Management and Budget, Federal Information Technology Shared Services Strategy, (May 2, 2012), http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/assets/egov_docs/shared_services_strategy.pdf. 79 CIO Council, Federal Shared Services Implementation Guide (April 16, 2013), 8 https://cio.gov/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/04/CIOC-Federal-Shared-Services-Implementation-Guide.pdf.

42

ROCkIT, CEDCaP, AD, and CEDSCI all involve “mission services” at the heart of Census Bureau operations. The IT shared services initiative concentrates on support services and commodity IT. It seems that the Bureau is attempting to follow the “crawl-walk-run” strategy proposed by the CIO Council in its Implementation Guide.80 Essentially, the CIO Council’s recommendation is for agencies to start with Commodity IT (thought to be the relatively easiest to implement, at the “crawl” stage), move on after some success to Support Service IT (the “walk” stage) and only attempt mission-level shared services when agency personnel have seen benefits from the implementation of shared services and understand how this is an improved way to run the Bureau.

Thus, the IT shared services initiative serves multiple goals. First, it provides enterprise-wide services at increased efficiency and reduced costs. Second, successful implementation at the “Commodity” and “Support Services” levels should make Census Bureau staff overall start to see the benefits of enterprise-wide solutions and give employees confidence that transformational change can successfully take place.

Of the forty different shared services opportunities identified by Bureau officials, the first ten on the list have been isolated as candidates for early implementation and are being implemented. These include:

Enterprise content management and collaboration service (through Microsoft

SharePoint);

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) service (from Citrix);

Enterprise Portfolio Management Service (through Microsoft Project Server);

Enterprise Data Backup Service

Microsoft SQL Support Service

Data Management Service

Enterprise Service Desk Service

Internet Data Collection Service

Infrastructure as a Service (Cloud-based email)

Enterprise Development and Testing Service

Census Bureau officials intend to work their way down the list of opportunities in future years to implement additional shared services across the Census Bureau enterprise.81

80 Id. 81 The “IT shared services” initiative is another topic expected to be affected by implementation of FITARA. The legislation puts considerable emphasis on developing this capability within and among agencies.

43

Chapter Four: Organization for Managing Transformation and Continuing Innovation

In this chapter, the Panel makes observations and recommendations in seven areas related to realizing the vision of a transformed Census Bureau, with a particular focus on the five transformation initiatives discussed in Chapter 3. These seven areas are:

1. Transformation Planning 2. Strategy for Communicating Transformation Plans 3. Governance 4. Matrix Management 5. Resource Allocation 6. Institutionalizing Transformation 7. Workforce Planning

Successful transformation depends on robust support functions, including information technology, human capital, acquisition, and cost accounting. All of these except for acquisition are addressed in this report. Census Bureau leadership recognizes the challenges to successful transformation and has taken steps to address many of them. The Panel acknowledges the actions the Bureau has taken and the progress it has made in a number of areas. The Panel’s observations and recommendations in the chapter are intended to also spotlight those areas where further action is needed to help ensure that the Bureau’s transformation initiatives can be successfully implemented and sustained. This chapter is complemented by Appendix F, in which the Panel presents several examples of successful federal agency transformation efforts identified in the academic literature and summarizes factors common to successful transformation. 4.1 Transformation Planning In addition to its daily mission responsibilities, the Bureau has embarked on a complex set of transformation initiatives that must be carefully sequenced and coordinated in order to be successfully implemented. This section speaks to the critical nature of the planning function in this organizational transformation. Panel Observation: While the Census Bureau has made a major investment in transformation planning, it has yet to develop an integrated transformation strategy that articulates how the five cross-cutting transformation initiatives fit together and how they are collectively intended to achieve the vision of a transformed Bureau. Bureau leadership has made a major investment in transformation planning, developing three core planning documents (discussed in Chapter 2) that articulate the vision, guiding principles, and strategy for transformation. The Business Plan for Change Refresh addresses the five transformation initiatives at a high-level view and the Bureau has developed

44

documentation for individual transformation initiatives such as program charters and presentations for program reviews. The Business Plan for Change Refresh identifies the need to develop an integrated transformation strategy. Currently, however, no one single document discusses in detail how these transformation initiatives and their component projects fit together and how they are intended to achieve the vision of a transformed Census Bureau. Such a document would provide the foundation for more detailed transformation planning and communicating those plans to both internal and external stakeholders. Panel Observation: Census Bureau leadership is still in the process of documenting the prioritization of the five transformation initiatives and their component projects, the critical dependencies among them, and contingency plans. The time and talent that can be devoted to transformation over and above what is required to meet the demands of ongoing business operations is very limited in any organization. A clear set of priorities is essential to make efficient and effective use of limited resources. A clear set of priorities and understanding of critical dependencies among projects and activities is especially important in the context of managing risk. They enable contingency planning to ensure that resources are available for activities essential to making the needed progress within deadlines. The budget uncertainty facing the Bureau makes effective contingency planning imperative. Interviews identified the lack of a clear sense of priorities as a key weakness of the transformation efforts at the Bureau. There is a tendency to try to do everything at once that reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of Bureau transformation activities. This is not to say that there are no priorities and no attention to critical dependencies at the Bureau. For instance, the high priority of the Field Engineering/ROCkIT initiative is clear from the close involvement of top leadership. However, these priorities are implicit and not fully documented. The Bureau has taken initial steps toward developing an integrated transformation strategy in its CEDCaP Transition Plan. This document encompasses the fourteen projects currently underway or planned in support of an integrated enterprise-level approach to data collection and processing. The Plan provides descriptions of each project, provides timelines for developing CEDCaP capabilities, but it does not clearly prioritize these projects or indicate the critical dependencies among them. RECOMMENDATION 1: Census Bureau leadership should continue its efforts to document the prioritization of the five transformation initiatives and their component projects, critical dependencies, and contingency plans.

45

4.2 Strategy for Communicating Transformation Plans Communication is critical to any organizational transformation. Once a coherent transformation plan is prepared, it must be effectively and frequently communicated to all stakeholder groups. This section focuses on observations and recommendations with respect to communication of the Bureau vision and need for the transformation initiatives. Panel Observation: The Census Bureau is still in the process of developing strategies for communicating its transformation plans to internal and external stakeholders. Any agency’s communication planning should address three broad groups of stakeholders: (1) agency employees and managers; (2) external users of agency data; and (3) Congress and other external oversight bodies. The Bureau is working to improve communications with these groups. More specifically, as discussed below, the Bureau is in the process of developing a communication plan for external users of its data, and it has engaged McKinsey and Company to develop and implement a strategy for improving and institutionalizing internal communications to support its transformation.

1. Bureau employees and managers: Census Bureau leadership has sought to communicate the transformation vision and strategy in a number of ways including Directorate-level “town halls” and providing a variety of transformation information on an intranet site. The approach to town halls has evolved. The initial town hall conducted by the Demographic Directorate took a formal, top-down approach with senior leadership providing a high-level presentation of the transformation vision, strategy, and planned restructuring followed by a Q&A period. This approach left many with little notion of the practical implications of transformation for them. A later town hall held by the Economic Directorate took a more informal, bottom-up approach. Instead of senior management planning and conducting the town halls, employees were engaged to plan and carry them out. This approach reportedly was more engaging in that some work-day implications of transformation were addressed. Still, town halls only provided a fairly high-level view of transformation. The Bureau’s “Future On” initiative uses the Bureau’s intranet to provide information about transformation vision and plans. For instance, many of the Bureau documents describing proposed Directorate functional reorganizations or planning for the five transformation initiatives we received during the study feature the “Future On” logo indicating their presence on the intranet site.82 Despite these efforts, interviews indicate that many middle and lower level managers and employees are uncertain about the transformation plan, or remain to

82 The Academy Study Team did not have access to the “Future On” intranet site.

46

be convinced of the direct benefits of the proposed changes for them (e.g., the impact on their work responsibilities and activities and their career opportunities), given the immediately apparent transitional costs of change and the uncertainty about future changes. There appear to be a number of reasons for this. One is that much of the strategic vision, and the documents describing elements of that vision, remain at a high, conceptual level. While a high level strategic overview is important, it is not sufficient to secure the support of agency staff that needs to understand not just the overview, but also the ultimate impact on daily work activity. A communication plan for this group needs to articulate how transformation initiatives will affect their day-to-day work and career opportunities. Also, it should give particular focus on addressing the questions and concerns of middle managers, whose understanding and support are especially critical to transformation success. This communication plan (together with changes in incentives, discussed later in this chapter) will help ensure buy-in and active support for transformation initiatives. In addition to top-down and peer-to-peer communication, an internal communications plan should provide for mechanisms to obtain feedback from middle managers and rank-and-file workers. These groups could make significant contributions to both the process and substance of transformation if effectively engaged.

2. External users of Bureau data: The Bureau recognizes the need to communicate transformation initiatives and how they will affect products and services available to external users of Bureau data. The Communications Directorate is developing a communication strategy for external Bureau stakeholders—Bureau advisory boards, federal agencies, university and other research data users, media outlets, its customers, and the general public—that should be completed shortly. This strategy will use currently planned releases of specific survey or census results to inform these stakeholders of additional or new Bureau data available to extend or enhance the specific findings presented in the release. It is important that this plan distinguish between federal agency customers of reimbursable surveys and the broader community of external Bureau data users. An especially important part of communicating with this broader group is the Bureau’s website (discussed in section 4.3 below).

3. Congress and other oversight entities: The Bureau recognizes the importance of presenting a larger plan for transformation to support their requests to congressional committees for approval of reprogramming and reorganization proposals. While effective communication with Congress is critical, communication with other external oversight entities such as the Department of Commerce and OMB is also important to secure the funding needed to achieve transformation

47

outcomes. The Bureau must communicate a clear pathway to transformation, with explicit priorities and contingency plans, to maintain the confidence and support of these external oversight entities.

While communication plans should be tailored to each group, they must be developed in an integrated way to ensure consistency and exploit possible synergies. RECOMMENDATION 2: The Census Bureau should continue its efforts to develop plans for communicating transformation initiatives and their implications for Bureau employees and managers, external data users, Congress, and other external oversight entities. Moreover, these plans should be developed in concert to ensure consistency.

A communication plan for Bureau employees and managers needs to articulate how transformation initiatives will affect day-to-day work and career opportunities of staff. It should give particular focus to communicating to middle managers, whose participation is especially critical to transformation success. Also, this plan should provide for mechanisms to obtain feedback from middle managers and rank-and-file workers.

In the case of external data users, the Bureau needs to communicate transformation initiatives and how they will affect products and services available to external users of Bureau data, and costs of securing these services.

In the case of external oversight entities, the Bureau needs to communicate a clear pathway to transformation, priorities and contingency plans to maintain the confidence and support of the Department of Commerce, OMB, and Congress and thereby help ensure adequate funding as needed to achieve transformation outcomes.

4.3 Governance A strong, enterprise-level governance process is essential to steering the transformation of a large, complex organization. It provides for establishing policies and continuously monitoring their implementation, and engaging leadership from across the organization in decision-making based on defined rules and criteria. The Bureau has made progress in establishing an enterprise-level governance process and has taken important steps to institutionalize it. The purpose of this section is to describe the Bureau’s current governance structure and processes, discuss the continuing efforts to refine and institutionalize them, and to highlight opportunities for further improvement.

48

Overall Governance The Operating Committee (OPCOM) is the ultimate governing body for making Bureau-level policy and budget decisions, including IT investment decisions.83 The OPCOM is comprised of the Director and Deputy Director, who serve as co-chairs, and the principal members, including the Associate Directors of all the Directorates and the Assistant Director, in the case of the Research and Methodology Directorate. Other members include the Assistant Directors of the decennial census and Economic Programs Directorates and the Chiefs of key staff offices, who provide counsel and assistance to the Committee.84 According to the OPCOM Charter, the principal members of the Operating Committee85 make consensus recommendations to the Director and Deputy Director. If the committee is unable to reach consensus through general agreement, the Director and Deputy Director reserve the right to make a final determination.86 IT Governance In 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified the need to establish governance processes needed to ensure consistent enterprise-level management of IT investments.87 The Bureau has since put in place an enterprise-level governance process based on written policies. The Enterprise Investment Management Policy88 sets out the processes for:

Selecting new IT investments integrated with the annual budget planning process; and

Monitoring and controlling approved and funded IT investments integrated with the budget appropriation and execution processes.

At the heart of the Bureau’s transformation is the development of new, enterprise-level business processes. To be an effective instrument of this transformation, IT investments must be designed to meet the requirements of these new business processes. The Census Bureau has recently created the Office of Innovation and Implementation to ensure that IT

83 FITARA states that Department CIOs have final authority for the approval of major IT investment decisions. It is clear that Census Bureau governance process will need to change to accommodate these new requirements. 84 These staff offices include the Budget Division, the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, the Policy Coordination Office, and the Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation. (See U.S. Census Operating Committee Charter, March 2013, 1) 85 Principal members of the OPCOM include all the Associate Directors and the Assistant Director for Research and Methodology. 86 See “decision-making rules” section of Operating Committee Charter (October 2013), 2. 87 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key Management Practices GAO-12-915, Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key Management Practices (Washington, D.C.: September 2012). http://www.gao.gov/assets/650/648504.pdf. 88 U.S. Census Bureau, Information Technology Investment Policy (October 1, 2014). Again, FITARA compliance will require changes to be made.

49

investments incorporate these business requirements. (The responsibilities of this office are described in greater detail in Section 4.6.) The Enterprise Architecture Program Policy (EA) provides “the authoritative source of information, practices, and guidelines steering Census Bureau information technology investment, acquisition, development and operation and maintenance activities.”89 The EA established two technical working groups: Standards Working Group (SWG) to assure consistent standards among IT products within Bureau portfolio, and Architecture Review Board (ARB) to develop guidelines for consistent structures among IT proposed investments. All IT investments must satisfy technical reviews by the ARB and SWG before receiving approval. Panel Observation: The Census Bureau has taken steps to systematically address cybersecurity in its IT governance process. Cybersecurity attacks pose a particular risk to a data centered agency like the Census Bureau. Moreover, this risk increases with the transition to enterprise-wide systems. The Census Bureau recognizes the particular challenge it faces in cybersecurity. The Bureau has addressed IT cybersecurity issues, or what Census calls “Security Integration and Engineering,”90 in Goal 1 of its Information Technology Strategic Plan.91 The stated objectives of this goal include fostering and implementing innovative enterprise IT solutions across the transformation initiatives, in addition to current survey and census practice:92

Census Bureau has embarked on several enterprise-wide initiatives to transform how it sources data and information, shares that data across programs, and subsequently disseminates statistical products to its partners and the public. These initiatives will require changes to the Census Bureau’s IT architectures (data, IT infrastructure, security, etc.) to reduce complexity and lower operating costs.

An example of the attention being paid by the Census Bureau to information security issues is in the CEDCaP Segment Architecture. This document devotes 17 pages to fully laying out the information security architecture to govern IT investments supporting the CEDCaP transformation initiative.

89 U.S. Census Bureau, Enterprise Architecture Program Policy (March 2014), 4. 90 U.S. Census Bureau, Strategic Workforce Plan for Information Technology Related to 2020 Census (October 1, 2014), 7. 91 U.S. Census Bureau, Information Technology Strategic Plan (February 28, 2014). 92 Id. 5 (emphasis added).

50

The Enterprise Architecture Policy93 stipulates the different federal information security standards applicable to Census Bureau systems and applications. These requirements must be satisfied by IT projects in technical reviews by ARB and SWG to receive approval. The Census Bureau has been systematic in its formulation of IT enterprise architecture policy pertaining to cybersecurity and its application to IT governance to date. However, like every other government agency and private sector entity, it must pay continuing and close attention to this subject given the rapid evolution of cyber threats. Figure 4.3.1 depicts the IT investment governance structure:94

The body responsible for the selection, monitoring, and control of IT investments depends, in general, on the size of the investment. The PLIRB (Program Lifecycle Investment Review Board) is responsible for IT investments with life-cycle costs expected to exceed $10 million and non-IT investments expected to exceed $25 million or investments where a requirement is highly sensitive or complex, or where exceptional circumstances require greater oversight. These investments are generally related to building Bureau-wide capabilities. The PLIRB is co-chaired by the Associate Director for IT/CIO and Associate Director for Administration and Finance/CFO. Decisions are made on a majority vote basis, with ties broken by the PLIRB Chair.95 New IT investments greater than $25 million

93 March 12, 2014. 94 U.S. Census Bureau, Program Life Cycle Investment Review Board (PLIRB) Charter (October 1, 2014), 2. 95 Voting members include representatives from the Communications Directorate, the Decennial Programs Directorate, the Demographic Programs Directorate, the Economic Programs Directorate, the Field Operations Directorate, the National Processing Center, the Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation, the Performance Improvement Directorate, the Research and Methodology Directorate, and the Acquisition Division.

51

approved by the PLIRB also must be reviewed and received final approval by the department-level Commerce Information Technology Review Board. An Executive Steering Committee (ESC) oversees two of the transformation initiatives, CEDCaP and CEDSCI. Its membership is the same as OPCOM, excluding the Director.96 Issues related to investments in CEDCaP and CEDSCI projects that cannot be resolved by the PLIRB are escalated to the ESC. IT investments expected to be less than $10 million are the responsibility of individual Directorate Investment Review Boards (IRBs). (The IT Directorate’s IRB is called the Census IT Project Review Board or CIPR). IRBs also review investments in the operation and maintenance of existing legacy IT systems and recommend terminating inefficient and/or redundant systems. The IT Purchases Review Board reviews and approves the acquisition of approved IT-related products. Panel Observation: There are opportunities to further streamline IT governance as transformation progresses. Transformation efforts can be hindered by an overly complicated governance structure. Such a structure slows progress and encourages workarounds that undermine enterprise solutions. Multiple interviewees have described the IT governance process as complex and burdensome. This view may partly reflect the fact that the Bureau has established a centralized enterprise-level governance process and procedure where little existed before. Moreover, this governance process has not fully replaced the earlier decentralized IT investment management processes at the Directorate level, which have been retained and adapted to serve during the transitional period of transformation. Opportunities to further simplify IT governance may arise as the centralization of IT decision-making within the IT Directorate progresses. Also, the management of transformation projects has until recently been complicated by separate processes for IT and non-IT investments. Census Bureau leadership already has acted to integrate IT and non-IT investment management processes with the establishment of the PLIRB, which subsumed the IT IRB.97

96 Information on the role and membership of the Executive Steering Committee is taken from interviews. The Executive Steering Committee Charter is still in development. 97 The PLIRB Charter provides this rationale for establishing the PLIRB: To further streamline and integrate management of both IT and non-IT investments, the IT IRB expanded its scope to include governing of life cycle phase reviews and new scope or functionality within a program.

52

Another cumbersome aspect of current governance is a matter of practice, not official policy. Interviewees involved with transformation initiatives commented on having to engage in multiple program reviews with officials from different Directorates affected by the projects. In some cases, Directorates with a vested interest in the project (e.g., a legacy system that may be replaced by the new CEDCaP or CEDSCI enterprise level system) sought a separate program review prior to the review by the IT IRB review (now subsumed by the PLIRB). Multiple program reviews for high cost or high priority IT projects subject to a PLIRB review appear unnecessary, since all Directorates are members of the PLIRB.98 There are less cumbersome ways to address program Directorate concerns about smaller, lower priority projects subject to an IRB review outside the concerned Directorate’s purview. An opportunity to participate in the IRB review is a simpler and more direct way to address such concerns. Panel Observation: The Bureau strategy for terminating legacy systems does not specify the conditions under which authority to terminate systems will be exercised. Current Bureau planning for the termination of legacy systems relies in part on voluntary migration to enterprise-level systems by managers persuaded by lower cost, as well as improved capability. The Bureau recognizes that demonstrating the potential savings from migration depends on improved cost data and has several initiatives underway to develop more accurate cost data.99 Certainly voluntary conversion based on superior price and capability is the ideal, but timely and efficient migration to enterprise-wide systems cannot depend solely on voluntary compliance. Uncertainty about the timing of actual termination of current legacy systems jeopardizes the realization of cost savings, including minimizing transition costs, from the planned elimination of redundant legacy IT systems. Migration must be backed by clear authority to terminate legacy systems once new systems become available and their capacity to meet business needs is demonstrated. The Bureau’s Information Technology Investment Management Policy appears to invest the PLIRB with the authority to terminate legacy systems, stating: “The PLIRB shall have

98 Some of this may have been ameliorated by internal publication of “Governance Process Scenarios” in September 2014. See Census Bureau PowerPoint dated September 2014, “Enterprise Program Lifecycle and IT Project Governance Framework”. 99 The Bureau reports that MITRE has been working with CEDCaP on cost estimation and savings; Deloitte has been working with the IT Directorate on cost estimation; the Decennial Directorate has a DbIT cost model supported by Booz Allen; excellent cost information on field data collection costs is available for comparison with ROCkIT; and excellent cost data on DADS (Data Access and Dissemination System) is available for comparison with CEDSCI.

53

decisional authority to approve, continue, or cancel IT investments.”100 This authority is consensual in nature as indicated by the decision rules stated in the PLIRB Charter: 101

The PLIRB will implement majority-rule voting, more than half of the votes cast by those present and voting. If the vote results in a tie, the PLIRB Chair (the CFO and Associate Director for IT/CIO are co-chairs), will break a tie.

Moreover, the policy does not spell out the conditions under which this decisional authority would be exercised, such as clear criteria and deadlines for adopting new systems and terminating legacy systems are needed.102 RECOMMENDATION 3: The Bureau should clearly articulate a plan that includes deadlines to terminate legacy systems, once the capacity of new systems to meet business needs is demonstrated. Panel Observation: While the implementation of CEDSCI will provide a consistent enterprise-wide approach to data dissemination, including website content, there are near-term opportunities to enhance dissemination through centralizing management and control of the website. The CEDSCI initiative is intended to provide a consistent enterprise approach to data dissemination, including how data are made available on the website. Once in place, CEDSCI systems should overcome some previous web user problems in combining data from multiple Bureau sources. In the meantime, more consistent and effective management of the Bureau’s website could provide significant immediate benefits for Census and users of Census Bureau data. The Bureau’s website is a critical vehicle for disseminating statistical data and services to a wide range of Bureau data users. Perhaps even more critically, the Bureau’s website conveys to the public an image of the effectiveness of the Bureau as a premier federal statistical agency. The Bureau has recognized the need to improve its website – Census.gov. In the past several years the Bureau has redesigned Census.gov and implemented a number of new applications to improve access to Census data on the website. User satisfaction with Census.gov has improved.103 However, website content is not currently centrally managed. Individual Directorates, and even divisions within some Directorates, control the uploading of data and the presentation

100 IT Investment Management Policy, 4. 101 U.S. Census Bureau, Program Life Cycle Investment Review Board (PLIRB) Charter (October 1, 2014), 8. 102 FITARA compliance is likely to play a role in this process. The legislation provides for an “annual review” of an agency’s IT portfolio with an eye toward improving effectiveness and efficiency, while eliminating redundancy, using metrics to be determined by OMB (see section 833). This may highlight the need to replace legacy systems at the Bureau on a more aggressive timetable. 103 The Bureau self-reports that user satisfaction with Census.gov has improved.

54

of those data on individual sections of the Bureau website. Interviewees estimate that there may be several hundred staff authorized to post data on the website. Some web users report encountering difficulty in easily accessing the Bureau’s website to obtain specific data and/or combine data across Directorates. There also appears to be little consistent effort to inform specific data users of the availability of data from other Bureau surveys that may be of interest or pertinent to that user’s needs. The Bureau has taken steps to begin to address some of these website management issues. Internet coordinators exist within individual program areas in specific program Directorates and maintain oversight of proposed data uploads of approved program area data disseminators. The Bureau has also begun to use software—the content management system (CMS)—to align individual data uploads with the Bureau’s security controls and to standardize the process for providing data on the web. However, the entire website will not be using CMS until FY 2016. The actions taken by the Bureau to develop a next-generation content management system, as described above,104 represent important progress toward developing a comprehensive and transparent enterprise-wide web management policy and are in alignment with federal initiatives related to digital services and improving federal website content.105 However, while these actions are useful steps toward a comprehensive and transparent enterprise-wide web management policy, they need to be integrated, extended, and incorporated into an explicit policy. RECOMMENDATION 4: The Census Bureau should further improve its website and access to its data and information by instituting an enterprise-level policy governing the management of website content. Improving the content and presentation of information on the current Bureau website requires a combination of IT technical and communication skills. Assigning some staff resources with the combined technical and communications skill set, or acquiring those resources if not currently available, to create a more uniform and consistent presentation of Bureau information and data could only enhance the Bureau’s image as a key provider of federal statistical data. The CEDSCI initiative has a team focusing on website improvement issues. This team could assume the role of implementing an enterprise-level web management policy once that policy is formally established.

104 This discussion is derived from the US Census Bureau’s Digital Transformation, 1. (January 2015) 105 See, e.g., Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/egov/digital-government/digital-government.html

55

4.4 Matrix Management Matrix management is a discipline that emerged to meet the challenge of managing temporary projects that fall outside the scope and competence of existing organizations. Such projects necessarily flow from an effort to transform an agency organized around programs to a functionally organized agency managed programmatically. Effective matrix management is critical to managing the five transformation initiatives that seek to develop and implement enterprise-wide systems to support the Bureau’s core mission operations. It will continue to be critical even after planned transformation initiatives have been completed in so far as continuing technical advances and evolving customer expectations will necessitate enterprise level innovation in the future, which will require teams drawn from across the organization to accomplish. Also, new enterprise-level shared services may need to employ matrix management until the organization and workforce are fully aligned. A key challenge of matrix organizations is how to manage the tension between the priorities of team members’ “home” organizations and the priorities of the project. Even though the matrix organization is charged with a project that will benefit the larger organization, the priorities of the home organizations may not be aligned and participants may not have the incentive to devote their best efforts to the matrix organization in so far as they see their career advancement as tied to their performance in the home organization. Panel Observation: The Bureau has taken important steps to implement matrix management, but it still needs to develop policy guidelines to institutionalize it. While all the leaders of transformation initiatives reported enthusiastic participation of matrixed team members, some indicated concern about possible conflicts that may arise in the future as projects progress. Also, some leaders noted uneven commitment of middle management within Directorates on which project progress will depend. Other interviews pointed out that the performance expectations and incentives of middle managers in the Directorates have not been changed to accommodate the demands of transformation initiatives. They remain focused entirely on meeting routine production goals. The Bureau currently lacks a written policy supporting the consistent and effective application of matrix management. Such a policy should include guidance on the conditions under which creating a matrix management organization would be appropriate, stipulating the responsibilities of matrixed staff and managers of component organizations necessarily involved in the successful execution of matrix program activities, and, finally, aligning the incentives of these participants. Before deciding on a Bureau-wide policy, Bureau leadership is reviewing the experience with matrix management as part of the Demographic and Economic Directorate reorganizations. Further, it has provided interim guidance to managers on how to obtain

56

performance input for employees supporting projects. This information and experience will provide an empirical basis for designing a policy adapted to the needs of the Bureau.

RECOMMENDATION 5: The Bureau should continue its efforts to develop a Bureau-wide policy for implementing matrix management consistently across all Directorates and balancing enterprise-wide and Directorate priorities and addressing potential conflicts experienced by managers and staff. The Bureau is taking a gradual approach to developing policy guidelines and practices for performance evaluation processes. It conducts quarterly reviews of key performance indicators. These have begun to be incorporated into the performance plans for the Senior Executive Service members responsible for the attainment of the performance targets for these measures.

Discussions between the CFO and Associate Directors regarding short- and long-term action plans are ongoing. This is a huge cultural change in doing business across boundaries and outside of the lines of direct supervision and needs to be expedited. Bureau leadership is trying to understand all the issues using data from the Demographic and Economic Directorate reorganizations and reviewing OPM policies regarding supervisors and performance to ensure that the policy adopted is compliant.106

RECOMMENDATION 6: The Bureau should continue its efforts to develop a Bureau-wide policy on and system to conduct performance appraisal processes for all employees and managers supporting matrix management of Bureau-wide initiatives. 4.5 Allocating Resources to Support Transformation An important factor contributing to successful organizational transformations is having adequate and certain human and funding resources. This section addresses the allocation of funding. Panel Observation: The Bureau’s processes for allocating resources across its transformation initiatives could be made more transparent. The approach to allocating resources varies across the five transformation initiatives and is not transparent given the overlap among the three initiatives related to data collection and processing—CEDCaP, AD, and ROCkIT—and the lack of documentation of funding across transformation projects. The CEDCaP initiative receives direct appropriation support. In the FY 2015 President’s Budget, the Census Bureau requested $67.2 million for the IT Directorate to fund this particular initiative. ROCkIT and CEDSCI are funded by the Decennial Directorate and the IT shared services initiative is supported through the internal allocation of funds within the IT Directorate budget. Since AD is organized as a

106 Responsibility for developing Bureau-wide policies supporting matrix management has recently been placed within the Human Resources Division (HRD).

57

center within the Research and Methodology Directorate, the dedicated AD staff is funded by a Bureau-wide assessment, similar to other activities within the Research and Methodology Directorate. Otherwise, staff resources are in effect donated by the Directorates responsible for the initiative and the Directorates from which staff are matrixed. These current ad hoc funding arrangements partly reflect the fact that the five transformation initiatives originated at different times under different circumstances. In any case, such arrangements are not unusual in the concept development phase of new systems and processes. The Bureau recognizes that more formalized funding processes will need to be put in place as projects move into the development phase and has done so in the case of CEDCaP. The Bureau’s request for a dedicated appropriation for CEDCaP reflects the relative state of development and urgency of its component projects, although this is not explicitly stated in the appropriations request. Still, it is difficult to assess the allocation of resources across the five transformation initiatives due to the lack of documentation clearly articulating estimated costs, funding plans, priorities and key dependencies across the transformation initiatives and their component projects.107 This poses significant risks going forward by hindering effective financial planning, including contingency plans in the face of uncertain appropriations. This risk grows with the cost for projects as they move into later stages of development and implementation. Also, the lack of transparency and clear priorities and tradeoffs among projects, poses a risk in terms of sustaining transformation efforts in the event of leadership transition. The five transformation initiatives span the boundaries of the current programmatic structure of appropriations. To be clearly communicated, a resource strategy for transformation cannot be bound by this structure. At the same time, the Bureau must accommodate existing lines of external accountability that are organized around this structure. These two goals may be balanced in a resource strategy document by providing a crosswalk to the existing programmatic structure of appropriations. RECOMMENDATION 7: The Bureau should better communicate its strategy for allocating resources across transformation initiatives and how they align with a clear set of priorities, including a cross-walk to the existing programmatic structure of appropriations. Panel Observation: The Bureau has taken important steps to build the cost accounting capacity needed to support the successful implementation of IT shared services.

107 CEDCaP is the only initiative that provided estimates of its annual and total life cycle costs. In the November 2014 Program Management Review for CEDCaP/Adaptive Design, Bureau staff estimated CEDCaP lifecycle costs between FY 2015 and FY 2020 to be $548.2 million, $66.2 million occurring in FY 2015.

58

The Bureau’s transformation initiatives aim to develop common technology platforms on which to deliver a range of IT shared services, including mission, support, and commodity IT shared services.108 Success depends not only on effectively funding the development of these platforms, but also on successfully funding the operations of IT shared services once launched. Shared services must be properly priced both to meet customer needs and to ensure that savings can be realized and transferred to other continuing transformation efforts. Working Capital Funds (WCF) in the government and the private sector have traditionally been used to fund internal shared services that can be provided most efficiently through a common or centralized facility. However, “effective use of working capital fund financing of shared internal services requires transparent pricing for each shared service.”109 The current Census Bureau Working Capital Fund pricing system for internally supplied IT services does not appear to be transparent or an accurate reflection of relative costs. Current working capital pricing uses algorithms to allocate IT services costs among Directorate users but the accuracy of these algorithms in reflecting the actual costs of supplied services is unclear given the Bureau’s current capacity to provide transparent and complete activity based cost data. As GAO has noted, “Census customers had a mixed understanding about how certain WCF costs are determined.”110 Using a Working Capital Fund approach to support the long-term operation of these transformed business processes will require a more effective and transparent pricing system. This, in turn, will require more accurate cost data for the new enterprise systems relative to the legacy systems being replaced. The Bureau has recognized the need to improve its cost data to support accurate pricing of IT shared services. The Bureau launched a pilot activity-based costing system in 2012 and the Office of Cost Estimation and Analysis has been analyzing cost data. The Bureau is implementing and improving the required systems, policies, procedures, and training necessary to produce defensible and comprehensive cost and schedule estimates.111

RECOMMENDATION 8: The Bureau should continue its efforts to develop more transparent and accurate mechanisms for cost-based pricing to support the successful implementation of shared IT services.

108 Mission, support, and commodity IT shared services are defined in Chapter 3. 109 Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, Shared Services: Management Fad or Real Value? (November 1998). http://www.boozallen.com/media/file/33890.pdf. 110 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Commerce Departmental and Census Working Capital Funds Should Better Reflect Key Operating Principles GAO-12-56 (Washington: D.C., November 2011). http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/586402.pdf. 111 Project Server is a key system supporting cost estimation capabilities by providing for the systematic collection of resource loading data.

59

4.6 Institutionalizing Transformation Transformation efforts often falter following changes in top leadership. The continued progress of Census Bureau transformation, despite leadership turnover and other disruptions, will depend to a large degree on how effectively the Bureau institutionalizes its governance process and matrix management.112 The Panel uses the term institutionalization to refer to the process by which an organization translates an organization's code of conduct, mission, policies, vision, and strategic plans into action guidelines applicable to the daily activities of its officers and other employees. It aims at integrating fundamental values and objectives into the organization's culture and structure.113 This is accomplished through a combination of means including the creation of formal policies and procedures, training, and incentives (rewards and accountability). Moreover, someone in the organization must have responsibility and authority for ensuring that these policies and procedures are followed. Governance In 2012, GAO identified the need to institutionalize governance processes necessary to ensure consistent enterprise-level management of IT investments.114 As noted in earlier sections, the Bureau has since issued written policies and procedures governing the management of IT investments, including the integrated management of IT and non-IT investments related to major mission systems development programs, such as CEDCaP. Policies and program charters lay out the membership, scope, and decision processes and procedures, including thresholds for escalating issues to higher level boards. Not only have governance processes been put in writing, but these decision processes and procedures are “owned” by a single organization, the Office of Risk Management and Program Management (ORMPE). Its director reports to top Census Bureau leadership. ORMPE issues and maintains policies and guidance related to governance processes and ORMPE representatives participate as non-voting members of the various governance boards to serve as a resource and help ensure consistency and communication across governance bodies. While ORMPE does not have direct authority to enforce governance processes and procedures, it exercises an indirect form of control over governance in that investment

112 Successful transformation also depends on the continued support of Congress, the Executive Branch, and other key external stakeholders. However, this discussion focuses on what can be done to survive changes in top leadership assuming external political support for change remains in place. After all, in the absence of external political support, even the most robust program of institutionalizing transformation is likely to falter 113 This definition drawn from the online Business Dictionary: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/institutionalization.html 114 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key Management Practices GAO-12-915, Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key Management Practices (Washington, D.C.: September 2012). http://www.gao.gov/assets/650/648504.pdf.

60

projects, to be authorized, must be included in the enterprise portfolio investment management system. ORMPE is responsible for the development and maintenance of that system.

Matrix management As discussed earlier in Section 4.4, the Bureau is still in the process of developing its policies and procedures supporting matrix management. It is currently adapting its existing performance plan processes to encompass the roles and responsibilities of management and employees engaged in matrixed organizations. However, it has not systematically adjusted performance plans across the organization to ensure that matrix responsibilities are clearly identified and supervisors have appropriate input, especially in the case of cross-Directorate transformation initiatives. For example, interviews indicate that performance plans for middle managers in the Directorates still are wholly focused on day-to-day production responsibilities. Institutionalizing matrix management depends on more than formulating adequate policies regarding performance plans and making sure they are synchronized with enterprise strategic priorities. It also includes instituting frameworks for career development that reward participation and good performance in matrix organizations over time. At present, an important challenge in institutionalizing matrix management is the limited authority and staff of the Human Resource Division (HRD). Even when policies and procedures for supporting matrix management are put in place, the HRD must have the capacity to ensure their consistent application across the organization. The current capacity of HRD to carry out plans supporting matrix management and opportunities for building this capacity under new HRD leadership are addressed more fully in the discussion of workforce issues in the following section. Panel Observation: The Bureau has yet to institutionalize a mechanism for safeguarding matrix organizations charged with critical transformation objectives. Matrix organizations are constantly vulnerable to challenges to their effectiveness and survival. Disputes over priorities, staff assignments, and performance assessments can quickly undermine efforts to sustain a matrixed organization. Best practices in the corporate world suggest the need for a matrix guardian115 to ensure goal alignment between cross-cutting transformation initiatives and current production goals or between different matrixed projects and to intervene where necessary to resolve disputes. The matrix guardian should be seen as objective (e.g., no conflicting management responsibilities for matrixed activities), respected, and supported by top management. For

115 Booz, Allen, and Hamilton, Challenges and Strategies of Matrix Organizations: Top-level and Mid-level Manager’s Perspectives (Human Resources Planning, 28.1), 42.

61

the Census Bureau this would imply direct access to at least the Chief Operating Officer/Deputy Director. The Bureau recognizes the need for an institutional champion for matrix organizations. It has recently created the Office of Innovation and Implementation. The Office is led by a proven leader of a top priority transformation initiative with the clear support of top leadership. This new office is expected to carry out the following responsibilities:116

Act as the champion for enterprise solutions implementation teams, providing the vision and direction to “get to done”;

Work with the Directorates to architect the business process that each survey sponsor will use as their roadmap through implementation of new solutions, including the CEDCaP and CEDSCI processes;

Work with each of the Directorates to ensure the necessary business analysts are on the development and implementation teams, including new CEDCaP teams, so that business requirements are included that will inform the system builds and understanding and support are available; and

Develop core business analyst capabilities within each program area.

This is an encouraging first step, but further action is needed to ensure the office fulfills its potential. To start, its roles and responsibilities should be formalized in a charter approved by the OPCOM. RECOMMENDATION 9: The Bureau should institutionalize the newly established Office of Innovation and Implementation to ensure its capacity to safeguard matrix organizations critical to achieving transformation objectives. This should include the creation of a charter. 4.7 General Workforce Issues An organization’s employees are its most important asset: people, and not things, do the work to achieve the mission. During periods of profound change, success or failure depends on the capacity of the organization’s leadership to continually recruit and retain suitable talent, assign able people to the right jobs, and ensure employees understand shifts in culture, operations, business practices, reporting requirements, and individual roles and responsibilities. From the study’s inception, the Bureau’s leadership highlighted the importance of strategic workforce planning as a critical component to its long-term success. Further, the Bureau’s leadership recognizes that, during a period of large-scale change, strategic workforce planning is critical to supporting the Bureau’s five transformation initiatives, and by

116 This list of responsibilities is quoted from a draft description of the Office of Innovation and Implementation, provided by the Bureau’s Chief Financial Officer (February 13, 2015).

62

extension, to sustaining the Bureau’s transformation. The Bureau’s executive staff stressed it must manage its workforce carefully in order to ensure that:

The Bureau is identifying competencies needed at present and in the future; Talented individuals are recruited, trained, and retained within the new structure; Managers understand impending changes and communicate effectively with the

staff; Staff has the opportunity to provide feedback to ensure they understand new

expectations; and The workforce is properly incentivized and evaluated to achieve the desired future

state. Even before the Bureau undertook the five transformation initiatives, leadership acknowledged many workforce-related challenges, specifically as a statistically-focused agency that demands a high-performing, technical staff and often must compete against the private sector and other government departments to recruit and retain individuals with this talent profile. The following sections provide a series of workforce-related findings and recommendations drawn from an evaluation of:

1. The Human Resources Division; 2. Strategic Workforce Planning Capacity; 3. Features of the Bureau’s Future Workforce; and 4. Workforce Roadblocks to Implementing the Transformation Initiatives.

The Panel reviewed the Bureau’s core documents cited in Chapter 2 as well as the Census Bureau’s various strategic workforce planning documents to evaluate its current strategic workforce planning structure and capacity. The Panel also evaluated the Census Bureau’s strategic workforce planning capacity against anticipated demands required by the fully-implemented transformation initiatives in the Bureau’s desired future state. The Panel also researched current roadblocks and reviewed authorities of the Human Resources Division (HRD) through the interview process. The Role and Capacity of the Human Resources Division Panel Observation: The Human Resources Division has made significant progress supporting the Bureau’s transformation, but needs to overcome current limits in its authority, staffing, and budget to sustain the Bureau in this time of change. During times of significant transformation, the HRD in any large organization is an important part of the enterprise infrastructure that facilitates change. While the key to managing any workforce rests first with senior leadership and first-line supervisors, it is important to stress that the Bureau’s HRD is the instrument that leadership uses to execute these decisions. A strong, well-resourced HRD is critical to leadership’s ability to partner

63

with managers and supervisors across the agency. As noted previously, in this period of transformation, the Bureau must communicate a change management plan to its workforce. The Census Bureau’s HRD has made initial progress to position the Bureau for success during this time of transformation. However, HRD faces challenges if it is to sustain this progress and continue to carry out its many important tasks in implementing the Bureau’s transformation. For one, HRD is under-staffed and under-resourced. Also, HRD lacks clear enterprise-wide authority to assess and hire talent, particularly within the transformation initiatives. HRD’s role is often unclear in preparing managers to be effective, staffing transformation initiatives, and recruiting and retaining talent. The Bureau took an important step forward when, in late in 2014, it hired the Division Chief for the HRD, a key position vacant for more than a year that had only been filled on an inconsistent basis since March 2011. The new Division Chief is in the process of putting in place a new management team and rebuilding the HR function. The Bureau informed the Panel that it is studying opportunities to use a shared services approach for HRD’s transactional activities with the intent of freeing full-time Census Bureau employees to focus on strategic issues, such as continuing workforce planning. RECOMMENDATION 10: The Census Bureau’s senior leadership should clarify the Human Resource Division’s role in the transformation, facilitating strategic and transactional services during this period of change, empowering it with the capability to fully support the proposed transformation initiatives, and communicating its role to Bureau leadership.

Examples of actions to empower the HRD could include the following:

Articulate Human Resources’ authority within the Bureau, Directorates and teams responsible for transformation initiatives so that it is empowered to oversee a workforce planning process;

Organize the HRD along the functional needs of the Bureau so its staff can provide constant feedback on evolving skill needs; and

Develop management experts from within the Bureau’s existing workforce to

guide transformation initiatives.

The Bureau’s Current State of Strategic Workforce Planning Capacity Panel Observation: The Census Bureau’s leadership has taken important steps to begin building a long-term, dynamic strategic workforce planning capability.

64

To begin its evaluation, the Panel reviewed the Bureau’s seven documents pertaining to the Census Bureau current state of strategic workforce planning:

The Future of Census Bureau Operations FY 2013-2017 Strategic Plan Business Plan for Change FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan Strategic Workforce Planning Process Strategic Workforce Plan for Information Technology Related to 2020 Census, 2020 Census Program Strategic Workforce Action Plan

These documents provide a framework to understand the current state of the Bureau’s workforce planning efforts, beginning with high-level goals through specific short-term tactics that the Bureau deploys to fulfill its immediate staffing needs. The FY 2013-2017 Strategic Plan articulated an overarching goal of achieving “workforce excellence,”117 and notes that the Census Bureau’s desired future state is that “employee understanding of Census Bureau programs and transformation initiatives is increased over the baseline.” The Future of Census Bureau Operations notes in its workforce planning section:

Employees will be asked to assess their current skills and competencies…Supervisors will also assess all of their employees…[which] will facilitate career development. New skills that will be needed in the future will be identified as part of this strategic workforce planning effort.

It articulates the following objectives:

Ensure that expertise in repeatable processes for assessing the current and required capabilities to continue to meet the Bureau’s mission over time will continue to grow;

Achieve target workforce distributions for both core and emerging competencies; and

Eliminate single points of failure in high priority program areas.

117 The Census Bureau defines “workforce excellence” as an environment where: highly qualified and diverse people want to work at the Census Bureau; the Bureau fosters diversity and inclusion, having the right mix of skill, in-house and borrowed, to meet mission needs on an ongoing basis; employees and contractors understand the Bureau’s mission and vision and see how their work contributes to mission success and achieving the vision; the Bureau and its union have a constructive, productive working relationship that enables continuing innovations and evolution of the Bureau and its workforce.

65

The Census Bureau’s Business Plan for Change addresses workforce issues within the context of resource management (Objective 5.2). The document discusses the strategic workforce planning process the Bureau aims to establish through “a cyclical strategic data driven approach to enterprise and Directorate resource management.” The Census Bureau states that during periods of significant change, it must build a strategic workforce planning capacity to ensure it has acquired appropriate skills to accomplish them.118 Other documents provide additional details articulating the results of various competencies studies and identified skill gaps. Panel Observation: The Census Bureau’s initial Strategic Workforce Planning documents have been an effective tool to articulate the Bureau’s immediate competency skill-gaps. In 2014, the Bureau released the FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan, the result of a process initiated in late 2010 designed to address concerns about available employee skill sets in advance of the 2020 decennial census. The plan’s existence is a very positive development. The process engaged the Directorates in an effort to begin the strategic workforce planning process and identified skill gaps in three areas: enterprise-wide, the 2020 decennial census, and the IT Directorate. The document built a competency dictionary, conducted a skill assessment, competency demand and a skill-gap analysis, and articulated strategies to fill existing deficiencies. The Bureau’s FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan identified current key competency gaps in the following job function areas: Enterprise 2020 Census Program IT Directorate

Cost Estimation Cost Estimation SharePoint

Budget Formulation Schedule Management Common Services Development/ Cloud Computing Schedule Management Specifications Development

Project Management Internet Data Collection Security Integration and Engineering Corporate Research

Systems Development Life Cycle Development

The document provides a mix of short-, medium-, and long-term strategies designed to fill these competency gaps (see chart below), and establishes an eighteen month timeframe (through December 2015) to do close skill gaps identified in Strategic Workforce Plan.119

118 Crane, Joanne and Sally Obenski et al. Building a Strategic Workforce Planning Capability at the U.S. Census Bureau (May 4, 2014). http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/stats/documents/ece/ces/ge.54/2014/Building_a_Strategic_Workforce_Planning_Capability_at_the_US_Census_Bureau.pdf. 119 U.S. Census Bureau, FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan (July 30, 2014), 11.

66

RECOMMENDATION 11: The Census Bureau should consolidate its existing strategic workforce planning efforts, as described in multiple documents, into a single ongoing plan that serves as an institutional guide to managing the process over the long-term. Institutionalizing a Sustainable Strategic Workforce Capacity to Support Change Panel Observation: While the Census Bureau deserves significant credit for beginning a Strategic Workforce Planning process in concert with the five transformation initiatives, the capacity for ongoing Strategic Workforce Planning has yet to be institutionalized within the Bureau. The Bureau included the five transformation initiatives in its competency assessment analysis. The initiatives served as proxies for the future work. Therefore, the gap closing approach directly flowed from the impacts of the initiatives on the work and workforce. The Strategic Workforce Planning Management Report discusses in detail how the strategic initiatives directly affect the Census Bureau headquarters professional workforce. If not anticipated, these changes in the work reinforce the competency gaps discussed in this report. The report further discusses the impacts of change on the Census Bureau’s current occupational series, using the statistician as the most obvious example. Finally, it discusses the challenges facing the IT consolidations and IT shared services initiative currently

67

underway as well as matrix management. The Bureau also generated a short report to employees with similar information.

As the five transformation initiatives evolve over time in an iterative process, the workforce must adapt to support both the transformation initiatives and the evolving structures of the Bureau’s program Directorates. Skills that are required to achieve the Census Bureau’s desired future state—one in which the transformation initiatives are fully integrated such that the Bureau is organized functionally but managed programmatically—will evolve over time. Questions remain as to the capacity’s viability over the long-term. The Strategic Workforce Planning Process document of June 2014 states:

[A] methodology for developing and implementing a new Strategic Workforce Planning capability to support Census Bureau program requirements. This capability includes being able to manage the current baseline workforce and also to initiate strategies to achieve workforce planning objectives. This process serves as the initial approach, which will be adjusted as evaluations and other assessments are completed. (emphasis added)

Further, the document states:

Given that the Strategic Workforce Planning Process is a new process, we anticipate that it will continue to change as the capability matures bureau-wide. Formally, we will reassess the Census Bureau workforce on a yet-to-be-determined regular basis. (emphasis added)

“Task 9” in the Strategic Workforce Planning Process document indicates the necessity of developing a “monitoring and reporting” approach to workforce planning, with a goal of tracking outcomes on a quarterly basis. Since the document was published in June 2014, it is unclear if this goal can or will be achieved in the long term, especially as this initiative’s resource-base is unclear. The documentation of a “monitoring and reporting” mechanism does not mean the mechanism is sustainable. The Bureau’s leadership further acknowledges in interviews that the Bureau has much work to do. Indeed, elements of existing plans may be integrated into a dynamic process, but they do not constitute a fully-institutionalized strategic workforce planning capacity. Further, Bureau leaders acknowledge that plans produced to-date are only the first step in building a long-term, dynamic strategic workforce planning capacity.

RECOMMENDATION 12: To develop a sustainable process, the Bureau should continue its current progress and institutionalize a long-term, dynamic workforce planning process into its five year Strategic Plan, with appropriate resources dedicated to this initiative. The Census Bureau should enact a formal mechanism to measure the strategic workforce planning’s progress against goals.

68

The 2014 Strategic Workforce Planning document must mature from a static, isolated snapshot in time into a dynamic, iterative, integrated, and sustainable planning process that allows the Bureau to constantly evaluate and support its mission over time.

Articulating a Visionary Future Workforce in a Transformed Bureau Panel Observation: The Census Bureau does not yet have a vision for the size, shape, and organization of a workforce that would support the enterprise’s desired future state. While the Bureau wants to achieve a future state in which it is organized functionally and managed programmatically, it has not articulated a long-term vision of a workforce to support that operational model. The precise future state of the Census Bureau’s Directorates and transformation initiatives is not precisely known at this time, as it evolves over the coming years. But, without an articulated vision of a future-state workforce—even if it differs significantly from the actual future state—the Bureau’s stakeholders such as its senior management, professional staff, workforce unions, and Congressional overseers are deprived of a long-term goal against which it can measure progress and adjust strategies, or fundamentally alter, as unforeseen externalities arise. RECOMMENDATION 13: The Census Bureau should articulate a vision for its workforce that supports its transformation initiatives, and work with senior management, professional staff, unions, and Congress to reach a consensus on a pathway to attain the future state of its workforce. This pathway should outline the future workforce’s size, budget, and timeline for implementation. The pathway should provide for mapping progress against a consistently updated set of competencies and should be evaluated on successful implementation of milestones.

Cybersecurity and Strategic Workforce Planning Panel Observation: Cybersecurity is a critical aspect of a leading data-collection government or private sector entity like the Census Bureau. Consolidating functions into enterprise IT solutions increases the visibility and the intensity of the Bureau’s response to cybersecurity threats. In light of the Obama administration’s significant emphasis on information security management and the Bureau’s important role in collecting extensive public data, the Panel believed it necessary to address cybersecurity in strategic workforce planning. GAO noted in February 2013 that

69

the Bureau “has not effectively implemented appropriate information security controls to protect [its] systems.”120 The Bureau’s FIPS 199121 rating is “moderate.” The FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan (which includes the enterprise, the 2020 Census Program, and the IT action plans) identifies “security integration and engineering” as a critical skill gap. The CIO identified Security Integration and Engineering as his top gap priority. The IT Action Plan recognizes the cybersecurity skills gap risk:122

Cybersecurity is an increasingly complex and changing challenge given the advent of cloud computing, mobile devices, and web-based communications. We have too few proficient federal employees for managing the growing requirements. No senior executives were assessed as having this competency even though they are the systems approvers. Highly skilled contractors are in high demand government-and industry-wide.

The FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan, which includes the IT Action Plan sets out an action plan for resolving these critical gaps and recognizes a number of risks involved, including the highly competitive market demand for skilled cybersecurity specialists, the high level of retirement eligibility for several Census Bureau employees at the “expert” level, and a variety of other factors. The workforce included all assessed employees and contractors in the IT Directorate as well as IT Specialists in ADACFO (Associate Director for Administration and Chief Financial Officer) and TMO (Technologies Management Office). The Bureau’s plan is to revisit the state of the cybersecurity gap on a quarterly basis to determine from the Chief IT Security Officer what has changed and how to address these changes. However, there is no plan that specifically addresses cybersecurity skill gaps in the context of the five transformation initiatives. RECOMMENDATION 14: The Bureau should institutionalize its capacity to evaluate and monitor for skill gaps in information security management roles as it incorporates the transformation initiatives and as the pace of technological change increases.

Current Workforce Roadblocks to Implementing Transformation Initiatives In the initial stages of transformative change, the Bureau faces immediate workforce challenges that must be addressed.

120 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Information Security: Actions Needed by Census Bureau to Address Weaknesses GAO-13-63 (Washington, D.C.: February 2013). http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/652254.txt. 121 Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) Publication 199 defines requirements to be used by Federal agencies to categorize information and information systems, and to provide appropriate levels of information security according to a range of risk levels for each of the security objectives of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. 122 U.S. Census Bureau, FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan (Version 1.0, July 30, 2014).

70

Panel Observation: The Census Bureau’s workforce does not sufficiently understand the transformation initiatives and their impacts on employees’ daily duties. As discussed earlier in Chapter 4, in spite of the Bureau leadership’s efforts to date, the plan for change throughout the workforce is unevenly understood. The interview process illuminated the fact that lower level management and staff feel uncertain about coming changes, and certain Directorates’ employees seem better informed than others. Broadly speaking, the workforce understands that changes are underway at a high-level, but not how coming changes affect either their long-term career development goals or daily work functions.

As noted earlier in Chapter 4, the Bureau’s plan should engage staff through interactive feedback mechanisms such as surveys and town hall meetings regularly throughout the change management process to identify and address specific problems—including, but not limited to changing incentives and performance metrics, worker job classification, and reporting duties as a result of transformation initiatives—as they arise. Panel Observation: First- and second-line supervisors often do not understand the transformation initiatives, and their performance metrics do not incentivize supervisors to implement or support the transformation initiatives. As in any organization, first- and second-line supervisors have an important role to play implementing and sustaining change. They are responsible for producing the Bureau’s surveys, communicating direction from senior management, making staffing decisions, and evaluating employees’ performance, among many other duties. Transformation initiatives demand the full buy-in of first- and second-line managers, which is a challenge. Many supervisors have held their positions for years. Their performance standards are focused on individual production requirements, rather than implementation of the transformation initiatives. The Panel’s recommendation earlier in Chapter 4 to reform the performance appraisal system (Recommendation 6) should address this concern. Panel Observation: Single-points-of-failure jeopardize the Bureau’s implementation of transformation initiatives. The Census Bureau has a small pool of individuals with the training and experience who can assume leadership roles within the five transformation initiatives in their nascent state. This creates a risk: while these employees possess the drive, creativity, access to the Bureau’s leadership, and intelligence to advance the transformation initiatives to their subsequent respective stages, their departure could also stall or derail them. The Bureau has begun to track macro-level “succession planning data” for several important competencies in its various strategic workforce planning documents, a strong and necessary measure. In addition, the Bureau must specifically address succession planning for key individuals, upon whom transformation initiatives depend. In the meantime, the Bureau has sought to fill gaps with direct hires.

71

RECOMMENDATION 15: The Bureau should build a leadership development capacity to develop a cadre of staff with targeted knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies to immediately assume key managerial positions within the transformation initiatives. Panel Observation: The Bureau’s recruiting and retention challenges are likely to increase as its skill needs evolve. Recruiting and retaining talented employees is a challenge at any government agency and there is no “silver bullet” that will solve continued recruiting and retention challenges. This is particularly true at the Census Bureau, which demands highly technical staff and must compete against the private sector for their services. The Bureau has sought to address this challenge through the use of IPAs123 and special hiring authorities. While these tools have significantly aided the Bureau in accessing technical talent, other tools may be needed, especially in terms of accessing individuals with skills in the area of data analytics. To access skills in this area, the Bureau has partnered with the National Science Foundation to provide grants. However, grants lack flexibility—after the grant is provided the agency has little control over the direction of work. The Bureau’s leadership believes it could more effectively access talent if it had Cooperative Agreement124 authority, which, as the name implies, offers a cooperative working relationship with funded research teams. The Bureau has previously requested such authority and is working to further build the case for obtaining this authority in the future.

RECOMMENDATION 16: The Census Bureau should continue to make full use of flexible hiring authorities and streamline its hiring and on-boarding procedures to ensure top talent is available to guide it through this period of change. The Bureau should continue and broaden use of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act to recruit highly talented workers from universities, other levels of government, and non-profit organizations; and seek its own independent authority to use Cooperative Agreements with outside organizations in applicable cases.

123 The Intergovernmental Personnel Act Mobility Program provides for the temporary assignment of personnel between the federal government and state and local governments, colleges and universities, Indian tribal governments, federally funded research and development centers, and other eligible organizations. 124 An award of financial assistance that is used to enter into the same kind of relationship as a grant; and is distinguished from a grant in that it provides for substantial involvement between the federal agency and the recipient in carrying out the activity contemplated by the award.

72

Chapter Five: Institutionalizing Innovation Top Census Bureau leadership sees transformation not as a one-off effort to achieve an improved steady-state organization, but as an effort to build an organization willing and able to innovate over time as needed to accommodate rapid technical advances and evolving customer expectations. The Panel was asked to provide insights on how to build such an organization. In this chapter, we present guidance for institutionalizing innovation and note the Bureau’s progress in this area. Based on a review of the innovation literature, we have distilled eight guiding principles.125 These principles overlap with Panel recommendations in Chapter 4. They are consistent with the Panel’s view that the successful implementation of changes in organization, policies, and processes recommended to support Bureau transformation efforts will serve to build the capacity for continuing innovation. Guiding principles include general principles and principles specific to two broad types of innovation—incremental and disruptive126—that make different, sometimes conflicting demands of an organization.

Incremental innovation may be understood as making changes to existing products and services, such as adding or improving features or improving the efficiency of production/service delivery. Incremental innovation is the focus of “continuous improvement” efforts, which aim to routinize innovation. Incremental innovation generally relies on existing organizational capabilities. An example relevant to the Census Bureau would be continuous improvement in existing IT shared services.

Disruptive innovation involves the development of new products and processes rather than improvement of existing ones. It involves a different way of conceiving a want or need to be met or how an activity is to be accomplished. Disruptive innovations generally require the development of new organizational capabilities and often render existing capabilities obsolete. An example of such an innovative effort at the Bureau is the CEDCaP program to develop an enterprise-wide data collection and processing platform incorporating adaptive design principles. An even more disruptive innovation is suggested by the prospect of using “big data” mining techniques to supplement surveys in data collection.

125 A major reference for this section is Scott D. Anthony, Mark W. Johnson, and Joseph V. Sinfeld, “Institutionalizing Innovation,” MIT Sloan Management Review (Winter 2008). This article also provides an introduction to the broader literature. This article addresses both incremental and disruptive innovation, but is focused on disruptive innovation. An important source informing the section on incremental innovation as it relates to IT shared services is Timothy J. Burns and Katherine G. Yeaton, “Success Factors for Implementing Shared Services in Government,” Competition, Choice, and Incentives Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government (2008). 126 The literature most frequently distinguishes between incremental and radical innovation. Disruptive innovation is another term for radical innovation that more directly implies a key dimension of such innovation, namely the rendering existing capabilities and business models obsolete.

73

Some of the principles discussed with respect to disruptive innovation below also apply to incremental innovation, but they apply more strongly to disruptive innovation. Examples include principles 4 and 8. All of the guidance with respect to institutionalizing innovation—both incremental and disruptive—address three related factors: (1) the ability to recognize opportunities for improvement; (2) the capability to translate new ways of doing things into practice; and (3) the incentive to do so. The first guiding principle for effectively institutionalizing innovation applies to both incremental and disruptive innovation. 1. Establish clear goals and boundaries to guide innovative efforts.127 A common approach is to “let a thousand flowers bloom,” the assumption being that innovation is most likely to be achieved by freeing management and staff to pursue new ideas and ways of doing things. However, unless organizations establish clear strategic goals (what they want to achieve) and boundaries (what they will not do) innovative energies will be dissipated for lack of focus and follow through. Boundaries can be liberating. The challenge is to find the right balance—enough leeway to encourage innovation, but not so much that innovation efforts lose focus. Incremental Innovation 2. Institutionalize regular customer interaction and systematically capture and analyze customer information to guide improvement. Efforts to institutionalize incremental innovation should focus on building strong shared services organizations. One important aspect of a well-designed shared service organization is an integrated, standardized approach to interacting with customers and capturing information about that interaction. It produces more consistent, higher quality information about customers enabling a better understanding of customer needs that can inform continuous improvement efforts by the service provider. As part of the CEDSCI program, the Bureau is seeking to develop a systematic approach to managing the customer experience and capturing information about customer behavior that can inform the design of an enterprise-wide dissemination system. The Bureau describes an enterprise-wide Customer Experience Management solution as follows: 128

127 This principle is drawn directly from “Institutionalizing Innovation.” 128 U.S. Bureau of Census, Unleashing the Power of Census Bureau Content, The Transition to implement the working papers of the Data Dissemination Task Force (July 4, 2014), 12.

74

. . . integrated tools and systems that capture, code, compare, and mine customer interactions to build an enterprise view of all customer behavior and customer sentiment. The data from these systems, and more importantly, analytical insights developed from measuring and tracking the findings, will be broadly shared across the agency as widely as practical.

While the enterprise-level dissemination platform (the CEDSCI program) aims to develop itself may be considered a disruptive innovation, once operational it will provide the foundation for continuous improvement through the systematic capture and analysis of customer information. In a more limited way, the Bureau is already applying this principle in its efforts to utilize current data on web user behavior and responses to questionnaires to help improve access to Census Bureau data on the Census.gov website. 3. Establish clear service level agreements with customers.

A second important aspect of a shared service organization is a well-designed service level agreement between service providers and customer organizations. A service level agreement (SLA) is a mechanism for holding the provider accountable for a defined quality of service for a specific cost. It should specify the services to be delivered, specific requirements and parameters, unit and total costs, how costs will be charged, and the timeframe of delivery. These provide the focus of metrics to guide and motivate performance improvements. To help ensure continuous improvement, performance metrics should be informed by benchmarking of internal services against other providers. While the Bureau is in the early stages of establishing enterprise-wide IT shared service delivery organizations, it can draw on significant experience with SLAs with external customers, such as the Demographic Directorate’s use of SLAs to manage its reimbursable survey work for other federal agencies.

The development of the cost-accounting capabilities needed to support accurate pricing of IT shared services poses a particularly difficult challenge. As noted earlier in Chapter 4, the Bureau has recognized the need to improve its cost data and is implementing and improving the required systems, policies, procedures, and training necessary to produce defensible and comprehensive cost and schedule estimates.

Bureau plans for identifying, developing, and implementing IT shared services are consistent with the principles of leading practice. To the extent that the Bureau can carry out its plans effectively, it will lay the basis for institutionalizing an enterprise-level capacity for continuous improvement.

75

Disruptive Innovation The capacity for disruptive innovation requires different arrangements. Disruptive innovation, such as that suggested by the prospect of using “big data” mining to supplement survey data collection, does not arise naturally from customer feedback in continuous improvement processes. As discussed earlier, disruptive innovation generally involves reconceiving how to satisfy wants and needs and fundamentally rethinking approaches to doing things, such as data collection. The customer doesn’t necessarily know he wants it per se or cares how it is done. 4. Create units within the organization dedicated to identifying and incubating new

ideas.

The immediate demands of managing existing businesses tend to distract attention from the efforts needed to realize the longer-term potential of disruptive innovation. Efforts to incubate innovation need a “home” in the organization. Management and staff pursuing innovative efforts need to have some separation from the day-to-day demands of existing businesses to enable sustained focus. A common pitfall of establishing a dedicated “research and development” group is the tendency to lose touch with the needs of the organization. This tendency can be mitigated by clear goals and boundaries tied to strategy and the rotation of personnel between the research and development group and the business units. (See Principle #8: Career Development Paths Supporting Innovation.) The Bureau took an important first step in establishing a separate Research and Methodology (R&M) Directorate removed to some degree from the routine demands of production and continuous improvement. As a result, it can focus on identifying and incubating new ways of performing the Bureau’s mission activities—data collection, processing, dissemination—more efficiently and effectively in light of rapid advancements in technology and evolving stakeholder demands. 5. Institutionalize regular external input.

Management and staff whose careers are closely associated with existing businesses and technologies are less likely to recognize opportunities for disruptive innovation. The experience and professional networks that underpin their performance within the existing business limit their exposure to new ideas and their capacity to recognize opportunities that fall outside of existing ways of doing things. One way to combat this tendency toward insularity in established organizations is to institutionalize external input, that is, introduce mechanisms for exposing the organization to outside perspectives on a routine basis. There are a number of ways to do this, such as establishing external advisory groups of non-affiliated experts, the use of consultants, and participation in external forums focused on new technologies and business practices

76

relevant to achieving strategic objectives. More specifically, in the federal government, the use of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act to bring in personnel on a temporary basis from outside the government is recognized good practice. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and civilian basic science agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health are well-regarded examples of this practice. The design of the Bureau’s R&M Directorate recognizes that the identification and development of new ideas are just as likely to occur outside of the Bureau or the government as within them. To address this reality, the position of Associate Director for R&M is not filled with career employees, but with individuals from outside the federal government on a three-year rotating basis under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. Also, in recent years, the Bureau has used its external technical advisory group to actively engage unaffiliated experts from the private sector to offer advice on transformation. Such a group could be useful also in helping the Bureau identify new innovative opportunities and ensuring continued focus on innovation beyond currently planned transformation efforts. 6. Establish a clear governance process for translating new technologies and service

models into operation.

A key factor hindering the translation of new technologies and service models into practice is the lack of a systematic process for ensuring that business and other requirements (e.g., information security) are incorporated into the design of the technology and that the technology is tested and validated every step of the way. Most notably, technologies are often developed with little involvement of the customer organizations to ensure that the technology meets business requirements leading to costly delays and frequently outright failure. An organization must have clear processes for engaging customers to understand requirements. Significant effort is often required to translate technological opportunities into systems that will address customer needs, especially in the case of more disruptive innovation, which usually entail new ways of doing things such as new business processes. The translation process requires a special kind of expertise that combines knowledge of business requirements, technical capabilities, and opportunities for rethinking processes. This expertise must be involved in the governance process. Lack of attention to other requirements, such as information security early in the process can be an obstacle for any organization. Addressing information security after a technology has gone into development also is very costly and can greatly delay implementation. The Bureau has put in place important institutional pieces of an effective translational capacity in two ways. First, the Bureau has applied Software Development Life Cycle principles to the governance of its major IT investments. The Program Lifecycle Investment Review Board reviews projects at each phase of its lifecycle to ensure that requirements are appropriately incorporated and performance validated before further funding is

77

approved. This “phase-gate” approach is intended to provide the discipline needed to sustain progress and ensure against costly surprises late in the process. Second, to help ensure the effective incorporation of business customer input and technical expertise, the Bureau has recently created an Office of Innovation and Implementation. Pertinent responsibilities include: 129

Working with the Directorates to architect the business process that each survey sponsor will use as their roadmap through implementation of new solutions, including the CEDCaP and CEDSCI processes;

Working with each of the Directorates to ensure that necessary business analysts are on the development and implementation teams, including new CEDCaP teams, so that business requirements are included that will inform the system builds and understanding and support are available; and

Developing core business analyst capabilities within each program area. 7. Establish policies supporting matrix management.

Disruptive innovation tends to fall outside the scope and competence of existing organizational units. As discussed in the prior chapter, this is the province of matrix management. Given the imperative to innovate on a regular basis, organizations must be equipped to quickly assemble and effectively manage matrix organizations. This depends on a well-established policy framework and tools for matrix management. Such a policy should include guidance on the conditions under creating a matrix management organization would be appropriate, stipulating the responsibilities of matrixed staff and managers of component organizations necessarily involved in the successful execution of matrix program activities, and, finally, aligning the incentives of these participants. As discussed in the prior chapter, the Bureau recognizes the need to institutionalize matrix management. It is in the process of developing a Bureau-wide policy supporting matrix management that is informed by its experience applying matrix management as part of the Demographic and Economic Directorate reorganizations. 8. Develop career development paths supporting innovation. An important human capital practice supporting innovation is to design career development paths that involve rotation assignment across organizational components and consciously seek to identify and assign promising managers to work on innovative initiatives. Building rotations into career development exposes employees to a broad range

129 These three responsibilities are drawn from a complete list of responsibilities taken from a draft description of the Office of Innovation and Implementation, provided by the Bureau’s Chief Financial Officer (February 13, 2015), cited previously in Chapter 4.

78

of experience so that they are more likely to develop the perspective and network to identify new innovation opportunities. Systematic assignment to innovative efforts, together with targeted training, is critical to developing a cadre of managers and staff with the training and experience to lead innovative efforts. In summary, the Panel believes that the successful implementation of changes in organization, policies, and processes recommended to support Bureau transformation efforts will lay the foundation for continuing innovation in the future. The principles of good practice reviewed above are offered as further guidance for the Bureau to draw on in its continuing transformation efforts to adapt as needed to meet changing circumstances.

79

Appendix A: Panel and Staff

PANEL Janice Lachance.* Chair. Chief Executive Officer Emeritus, Special Libraries Association. Director, Deputy Director, Chief of Staff, Director of Communications and Policy at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; Director of Communications, Congressional and Political Affairs, American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO. Early career experience includes Communications Director, U.S. Representative Tom Daschle; Administrative Assistant, U.S. Representative Katie Hall; Staff Director and Counsel, Subcommittee on Antitrust and Restraint of Trade, House Committee on Small Business, U.S. House of Representatives; Legislative Assistant, U.S. Representative Jim Mattox. She is a graduate of Tulane University Law School and Manhattanville College, a recipient of an honorary doctorate degree and is admitted to practice law in the State of Maine, the District of Columbia, and before the Supreme Court. Scott Cameron.* Executive Advisor, R3 Government Solutions. Former Director, Global Public Sector, Grant Thornton LLP. Former positions at U.S. Department of the Interior: Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance, Accountability and Human Resources; Deputy Assistant Secretary, Performance and Management. Former Washington D.C. Representative, Office of the Governor of California. Former positions at U.S. Office of Management and Budget: Deputy Chief, Interior Branch; Budget Examiner, Environment Branch. Former Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior; Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Chic Hecht, Nevada, U.S. Senate. Former positions at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior: Management Analyst, Fisheries Program; Policy Analyst, Habitat Preservation Program. Karen Evans.* National Director, U.S. Cyber Challenge and Partner, KE&T Partners, LLC. Former Administrator, Office Electronic Government & IT, Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President; Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Energy. Former positions at U.S. Department of Justice: Division Director, Information Systems Management, Office of Justice Programs; Staff Director, Computer Services Staff, Justice Management Division. Former Deputy Director, Farmers Home Administration, Applications Management Division, U.S. Department of Agriculture Kenneth Kizer.* Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing; Director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement, UC Davis Health System; Director of the California Cancer Reporting and Epidemiologic Surveillance Program; and Chief Quality Consultant for the California Department of Health Care Services. Dr. Kizer’s professional experience includes senior executive positions in the public and private sectors, academe, and philanthropy. His previous positions have included: Chairman, CEO and President, Medsphere Systems

80

Corporation; founding President and CEO, National Quality Forum; Under Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Director, California Department of Health Services; and Director, California Emergency Medical Services Authority. He has served on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and as Chairman, The California Wellness Foundation, as well as on the governing boards of a number of health IT and managed care companies, several foundations, and various professional associations and non-profit organizations. Dr. Kizer is an honors graduate of Stanford University and UCLA and the recipient of two honorary doctorates. He is board certified in six medical specialties and/or subspecialties and has authored over 400 original articles, book chapters and other reports. He is a fellow or distinguished fellow of 9 professional societies, a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. Alan Shark.* Executive Director, Public Technology Institute; Associate Professor of Practice, School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University, Newark. Former President and Chief Executive Officer, American Mobile Telecommunications Association; Associate Executive Director, Marketing & Communications, Water Environment Federation; Director of Marketing, North American Telecommunications Association; Vice President for Marketing and Communications, American Resort Development Association; Vice President for Marketing, Voice Computer Technologies Corporation; Director of Research and Information Services, National School Boards Association; Director of Programs, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges; Coordinator, State and Organizational Relations, American Association of State Colleges and Universities; Seabees, U.S. Navy, Vietnam Service.

Academy Study Team Joseph P. Mitchell, III. Director of Project Development, leads and manages the Academy’s studies program and serves as a senior advisor to the Academy’s President and CEO. He has served as Project Director for past Academy studies for the Government Printing Office, the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms, USAID/Management Systems International, the National Park Service’s Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate, and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. During his more than ten years at the Academy, Dr. Mitchell has worked with a wide range of federal cabinet departments and agencies to identify changes to improve public policy and program management, as well as to develop practical tools that strengthen organizational performance and assessment capabilities. He holds a PhD from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a Master of International Public Policy from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, a Master of Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a BA in History from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

81

Roger Kodat. Project Director, works as a financial professional and Principal of The Kodat Group LLC, with offices in Herndon, VA. He brings 20 years of commercial and investment banking experience with JPMorganChase and six years of senior level government experience at the Department of the Treasury. He holds a BS in Education from Northwestern University and both an MBA in Finance and MA in Political Science from Indiana University. Jonathan Tucker. Senior Research Analyst, joined the Academy staff in 2004. Dr. Tucker is a Senior Analyst with expertise in policy analysis, program evaluation, organizational design and management assessment, strategic planning, and information technology management. He holds a PhD in Public Policy from George Mason University, an MS in Science and Technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BA in Public Policy from New College of the University of South Florida. Jim Arkedis. Senior Advisor and Project Director, has worked on four projects at the Academy. Previously, he has been a Senior Fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, and an analyst for the Department of Defense. He is the co-author of Political Mercenaries: The Inside Story of How Fundraisers Allowed Billionaires to Take Over Politics. Joe Tasker. Senior Advisor, Joe graduated with a BA in Sociology from the University of Oklahoma and earned a law degree from George Washington University. He spent the first 16 years of his career as a practicing lawyer in both the public and private sectors, litigating antitrust cases for the Federal Trade Commission (6 years) and practicing international trade, intellectual property, and government procurement law for 10 years as an associate and partner in a major DC law firm. In 1990, he opened a Washington government affairs office for a major producer of personal computers. After the company merged with Hewlett Packard in 2000, he became the General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA). After ITAA merged itself out of existence, he has consulted on a number of projects, most recently providing technical trade advice on the expansion of the WTO Information Technology Agreement. Ken Ryder.* Senior Advisor, Consultant, Ryder Analytics Consulting. Project Director and Consultant, Ryder Analytics, Inc.; Executive Director, Research and Analysis, Office of Thrift Supervision, U. S. Department of the Treasury. Former positions with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget: Deputy Associate Director, Housing, Treasury and Finance Division; Deputy Associate Director, Special Studies Division, Economics and Government; Branch Chief, Housing Branch, Treasury, Commerce and Housing Division; and Senior Management Associate, Management Division, National Security and International Affairs. Former Staff Economist, The Rand Corporation; Economist, Manpower Requirements, Directorate, OASD. Eric Christensen. Research Associate, Eric graduated from State University of New York at Albany with a BA in Political Science. During this time period he served as a Campaign Manager in a Mayoral Election; interned for US Senator Charles Schumer and volunteered on voter outreach for City Councilman Vincent Gentile in Brooklyn. Eric received his MPA

82

from Cornell University, Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. He is a member of Pi Alpha Alpha national honor society for public affairs and administration. Eric served as a consultant on Rural Regeneration in Haiti while at Cornell University. Eric also interned for Public Policy Solutions, Inc., in San Luis Obispo, CA and was a consultant for Tompkins County Government while at Cornell University. He co-authored and co-edited a report on budgetary priority setting, performance measurement, shared services and charter revision for Tompkins County. *Academy Fellow

83

Appendix B: Acronyms

ACS American Community Survey AD Adaptive Design API Application Programming Interface ARB Architecture Review Board BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics CEDCaP Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing CEDSCI Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation CIO Chief Information Officer CIPR Census Information Technology Project Review Board CMS Content Management System COMET Content Metadata DADS Data Access and Dissemination System EA Enterprise Architecture EDITE Enterprise Development, Integration, and Test Environment ESC Executive Steering Committee FDCA Field Data Collection Automation FITARA Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act FIPS Federal Information Processing Standard FOCS Field Operational Control System (formerly known as ROCkIT) GAO Government Accountability Office HRD Human Resources Division iCADE Integrated Computer Assisted Data Entry IPA Intergovernmental Personnel Act IRB Investment Review Board IT Information Technology NRFU Nonresponse Follow-up OMB Office of Management and Budget OPM Office of Personnel Management OPCOM Operating Committee ORMPE Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation PLIRB Program Lifecycle Investment Review Board R&M Research and Methodology ROCkIT Reorganize Census with Integrated Technology SDLC Survey Development Life Cycle SLA Service Level Agreement SME Subject Matter Expert SWG Standards Working Group TMO Technologies Management Office USTR United States Trade Representative VDI Virtual Desktop Infrastructure WCF Working Capital Fund

84

Appendix C: Participating Individuals and Organizations (Titles and positions listed are accurate as of the time of the Academy’s initial contact) The Study Team met with over 60 stakeholders through formal interviews and meetings. The Academy would like to thank these individuals for their contributions.

Census Bureau Ahmad, Ammar—Security Engineer, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Ahmed, Faisal—Assistant Chief, Business Integration, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Ahmed, Shirin—Assistant Director, Economic Directorate Banks, Shana—Special Assistant to Deputy Director Basirico, Jonathan—Supervisory Human Resources Specialist Bell, Vonda—Chief, Human Resources Department Blash, Rebecca—Chief, Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation (CEDSCI) Blumerman, Lisa—Assistant Director, Decennial Programs Bostic, William—Associate Director, Economic Directorate Burse, Tiwanda—Information Technology Directorate: Program Manager, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Charles, Eric—Chief Program Engineer, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Clift, Doug—Chief, Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation (ORMPE) Crane, Joanne—Chief Financial Officer Follansbee, Douglas—Chief of Staff to the Chief Financial Officer and Director of Administration Galloway, Terry—Chief Architect, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Enterprise

85

Hatcher, Wayne—Associate Director, Field Directorate Haylock, Camille—Deputy Program Manager, Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Jarmin, Ron—Assistant Director, Research and Methodology Directorate Killion, Ruth Ann—Chief, Demographic Statistical Methods Lamas, Enrique—Associate Director, Demographic Directorate Lee, Harry—Deputy Chief Information Officer and Assistant Director, Information Technology Directorate Louis, Tom—Associate Director, Research and Methodology Directorate McGrath, Brian—Chief Information Officer and Associate Director, Information Technology Directorate Miller, Charles (Jeff)—Chief, Organization Evaluation and Accountability Branch, Human Resources Division Obenski, Sally—Special Assistant to the Deputy Director Olson, Tim—Chief, Field Division Parker, Eloise—Assistant Director, Demographic Directorate Potok, Nancy—Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer Rabe, Kim—Chief Engineer Sessaman, Barry—Chief, Demographic Surveys Division Shiffer, Jeannie—Associate Director, Communications Studds, Stephanie—Decennial Directorate, ROCkIT: Field Reengineering Team Leader Thieme, Michael—Chief, Center for Adaptive Design (CAD) Thompson, John—Director Woodard, Colleen—Consultant, Strategic Workforce Planning Team (CEO, Federal Technology Services, Inc.)

86

Department of Commerce Arnold, Ken—Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Affairs, Economics and Statistics Administration Burke, Brad—Chief Financial Officer, Economics and Statistics Administration Doms, Mark—Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Durrer, Austin—Chief of Staff, Economics and Statistics Administration Reist, Burton—Chief, 2020 Research and Planning Office

Former Census Bureau Officials Messenbourg, Tom—Former Director and Deputy Director

Government Accountability Office Goldenkoff, Robert—Director Mitchell, Ty—Assistant Director Wexler, Timothy—Senior Analyst

Harvard Business School Kotter, John—Professor Emeritus

House of Representatives Albright, Leslie—Majority Staff Assistant, House Appropriations Committee/Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee Bonner, Robert—Minority Staff Assistant, House Appropriations Committee/Commerce Justice and Science Subcommittee

87

MITRE Corporation Bloomberg, Sally—Principal Gaul, Jeb—Principal Information Systems Engineer Goss, Margaret—Project Manager Jockel, Joe—Senior Change Management Consultant Miller, Jim—Information Technology Consultant Moriarty, Marian (Mary)—Principal Organization Change Consultant Roudebush, Sam—Senior Principal and Portfolio Manager

National Academy of Sciences Citro, Connie—Director, Committee on National Statistics (CNSTAT) Cook, Tom—Chair, National Academy of Sciences Panel on the Census Bureau Cork, Daniel—Study Director

Office of Management and Budget Harris-Kojetin, Brian—Senior Statistician Taylor, Ben—Program Examiner, Fiscal Economist Wallman, Kathy—Chief Statistician

Senate Cutler, Allen—Professional Staff Member, Senate Appropriations Committee/Commerce Justice and Science Subcommittee O’Rourke, Molly—Professional Staff Member, Senate Appropriations Committee/Commerce Justice and Science Subcommittee

88

Union Representative (Census Bureau) Zuagar, Johnny—Union President, Census Bureau Headquarters

89

Appendix D: Census Bureau Organizational Chart

90

Appendix E: Select Bibliography

Background Documents Abramson, Mark A., and Paul Lawrence. Transforming Organizations. Maryland: Rowman &

Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2001. Anthony, Scott D., Mark W. Johnson, and Joseph V Sinfeld, “Institutionalizing Innovation”,

MIT Sloan Management Review (Winter 2008). Anup, Mathur, and Michael Thieme. “An Approach to Systems and Infrastructure for

Adaptive Survey Design at Census” (February 10, 2014). Booz, Allen, and Hamilton. Challenges and Strategies of Matrix Organizations: Top-Level and

Mid-Level Managers’ Perspectives (Human Resource Planning 28.1). Booz, Allen, and Hamilton. Shared Services: Management Fad or Real Value? (November

1998). Burns, Timothy J. and Katherine G. Yeaton, “Success Factors for Implementing Shared

Services in Government”. Competition, Choice, and Incentives Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government (2008).

Deloitte. Helping Government Deliver: Transforming Mission and Support Services (February

2014). Galloway, Terry. “Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP)” PowerPoint

presentation to Census Scientific Advisory Committee (CSAC) (September 18, 2014). Groves, Robert M. “Federal Statistics in an Age of a Self-Monitoring Social and Economic

Eco-System” PowerPoint (Not Dated). Groves, Robert. The Future of Producing Social and Economic Statistical Information. White

Paper issued by Dr. Robert Groves (former Director, Census Bureau) (January 23, 2012).

Lamas, Enrique J. “Demographic Programs Directorate Reorganization Proposal”

Memorandum from Enrique Lamas (Associate Director, Demographic Programs) to Cynthia Vaughn (Chief, Human Resources Division) (February 12, 2013).

Miller, Peter, Ben Reist, and Michael Thieme. “Adaptive Survey Design in a Rapidly

Changing World” PowerPoint (September 16, 2013). Miller, Peter V. “What Does Adaptive Design Mean to You?” PowerPoint. U.S. Census

Bureau: FedCASIC 2014 (March 17, 2014).

91

National Academy of Sciences, Committee on National Statistics. Change and the 2020

Census: Not Whether But How. Thomas M. Cook, Janet L. Norwood, and Daniel L. Cork, eds. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press (2011).

Potok, Nancy A. “Enterprise Information Technology Investment Management Policies”

Memorandum from Nancy Potok (Deputy Director) to all Census divisions and offices (November 13, 2013).

Sessamen, Barry F. “Approval for the Reorganization of the Demographic Surveys Division”

Memorandum from Barry Sessamen (Chief, Demographic Surveys Division) to John Cunningham (Chief, Human Resources Division) (December 30, 2013).

Stephanie, Studds. “Census Scientific Advisory Committee 2014 Fall Meeting Synopses:

2020 Field Reengineering – ROCkIT” presentation to Census Scientific Advisory Committee (September 18, 2014).

Thieme, Michael T. Finding the Sweet Spot: A Structured Review of How to Position the

Management of Systems and Contracts for the 2020 Census (December 21, 2010). Thieme, Michael T., and Anup Mathur. Designing and Architecting a Shared Platform for

Adaptive Data Collection in Surveys and Censuses (September 26, 2014). Thieme, Michael T. and Peter Miller. “Launching Adaptive Design at the US Census Bureau”

PowerPoint by Michael Thieme and Peter Miller to the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (December 7, 2012).

Thompson, John H. “Census Bureau Response to Societal, Technological, and Scientific

Changes” presentation to COSSA (November 4, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. Architecture Review Board Charter (March 2012). U.S. Census Bureau. “Building a Strategic Workforce Planning Capability” PowerPoint

presentation to Mark Doms (January 10, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Business Plan for Change (Version 1.0, April 25, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. Business Plan for Change Refresh Draft (Version 1.2, July 24, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Business Plan for Change: Strategic Initiatives-Related Performance

Logic Models (Draft) (Version 0.5, May 7, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “CEDCaP” PowerPoint (November 6, 2014).

92

U.S. Census Bureau. Census Bureau Enterprise Competency Dictionary Organized by Survey Life Cycle and Mission Enabling and Support Components (SLC/MES) (Version 3.3, February 10, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. “Census Bureau IT Shared Services Program Management Review”

PowerPoint by Harry A. Lee (Enterprise IT Shared Services Program Manager) (July 31, 2013).

U.S. Census Bureau. “Census Bureau IT Shared Services Program Management Review”

PowerPoint by Harry A. Lee (Enterprise IT Shared Services Program Manager) (July 2, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. “Census Bureau’s Economic Directorate: Overview of the New

Organization Design (Draft)” PowerPoint (October 30, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Census Bureau’s Field Division: Briefing Materials for Under Secretary

of Economic Affairs Mark Doms U.S. Department of Commerce” PowerPoint (March 2013).

U.S. Census Bureau. Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Segment

Architecture (Version 1.0, October 30, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) Transition

Plan (Version 1.0, October 31, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Census Programs 101” PowerPoint presentation by Christa Jones. U.S. Census Bureau. Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation

(CEDSCI) Executive Steering Committee Charter (July 7, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation:

The Transition Team to Implement the Findings of the Data Dissemination Task Force: Charter (June 6, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. “Competencies Associated with Strategic Initiatives” (April 2, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Competency Assessment Results for Employee Development (May 14,

2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Data Dissemination Transformation: SDC/CIC Annual Meeting”

PowerPoint by Steven J. Jost (March 5, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Decennial Directorate Organization Profile: American Community

Survey Office” PowerPoint (September 11, 2014).

93

U.S. Census Bureau. “Decennial Directorate Organization Profile: Associate Director Profile” PowerPoint (September 11, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. “Decennial Directorate Organization Profile: Decennial Administrative

and Strategic Planning Office” PowerPoint (September 11, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Decennial Directorate Organization Profile: Decennial Census

Management Division” PowerPoint (September 18, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Decennial Directorate Organization Profile: Decennial

Communications and Budget Office” PowerPoint (September 11, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Decennial Directorate Organization Profile: Decennial Program

Management Office” PowerPoint (September 11, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Decennial Organizational Realignment Town Hall” PowerPoint by Lisa

Blumerman and Organization Change Management Council (October 14, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Demographic Directorate Realignment Update Town Hall” PowerPoint

(July 16, 2012). U.S. Census Bureau. Demographic Surveys Division: Organizational Manual (December 30,

2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Economic Applications

Division” PowerPoint (November 7, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Economic Directorate

Support Services” PowerPoint (July 31, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Economic Indicators

Division” PowerPoint (August 2, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Economic Management

Division” PowerPoint (May 21, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Economic Reimbursable

Surveys Division” PowerPoint (October 27, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Economy Wide Statistics

Division” PowerPoint (January 24, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Innovation and

Technology Office” PowerPoint (July 31, 2013).

94

U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organization Profile: Strategic and Portfolio Management Office” PowerPoint (July 31, 2013).

U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organizational Alignment” PowerPoint by John

Seabold (November 22, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “Economic Directorate Organizational Alignment” PowerPoint by

Lavelle Lee (July 18, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Economic Directorate Performance Logic Models for 2012 to 2017

(Version 1.0, February 8, 2012). U.S. Census Bureau. Enterprise Architecture Program Policy (March 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Enterprise Information Technology Shared Services Advisory Group

Charter (DRAFT) (August 19, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Enterprise IT Shared Services Policy (Version 1.0, December 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “Enterprise Program Lifecycle and IT Project Governance Framework”

PowerPoint (September 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Factfinder for the Nation: History and Organization CFF-4 (May 2000). U.S. Census Bureau. Field Directorate Strategic Plan FY 2013-2017 (Version 1.0, August 12,

2013). U.S. Census Bureau. FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Management Report (May 14, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. FY 2014 Strategic Workforce Plan (Version 1.0, July 30, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Information Technology Investment Management Policy (Version 2.0,

October 1, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Information Technology Purchase Policy (Version 2.0, August 26, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Information Technology Purchase Review Board Charter (Version 1.0,

June 19, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Information Technology Strategic Plan FY 2014-2018 (Version 1.0,

February 28, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. IT Workforce Action Plan (Version 1.0, August 14, 2014).

95

U.S. Census Bureau. “Managing Reimbursable Projects at Headquarters: Town Hall Meeting” PowerPoint (August 24, 2011).

U.S. Census Bureau. “Managing Reimbursable Projects at Headquarters: Town Hall

Meeting” PowerPoint (December 8, 2011). U.S. Census Bureau. “Managing Reimbursable Projects at Headquarters: Town Hall

Meeting” PowerPoint (January 18, 2012). U.S. Census Bureau. “Managing Reimbursable Projects at Headquarters: Town Hall

Meeting” PowerPoint (October 4, 2011). U.S. Census Bureau, "Office of Innovation and Implementation". Draft description by the

Chief Financial Officer (February 13, 2015). U.S. Census Bureau, Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation. Enterprise

Investment Management Plan (September 28, 2012). U.S. Census Bureau. Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation Organizational

Chart. U.S. Census Bureau, Office of Risk Management and Program Evaluation. Project

Stakeholder Management Guide (Volume III of IV, Guide 10, September 9, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau, Operating Committee. Operating Committee Charter (March 2013). U.S. Census Bureau, Operating Committee. Operating Committee Charter: Appendix A

(March 2013). U.S. Census Bureau, Operating Committee. “Economic Census Re-engineering Project

Management Review” PowerPoint (March 7, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau, Operating Committee. “Strategic Workforce Planning (SWP) Project

Management Closeout Review Draft” PowerPoint by Sally Obenski (Strategic Workforce Planning Team Lead, Census Bureau) (March 27, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. Organizational Chart (U.S. Census Bureau). U.S. Census Bureau. Program Life Cycle Investment Review Board (PLIRB) Charter (October

1, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Program Management Review: Census Enterprise Data Collection and

Processing (CEDCaP)/Adaptive Design” PowerPoint by Tiwanda Burse, John Studds, and Ben Reist (November 17, 2014).

96

U.S. Census Bureau. Reorganizing the Census Bureau: Enabling the transformation of the Census Bureau to meet the needs of the 21st century (August 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. Research and Methodology Directorate Organizational Chart (October 6,

2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Research and Methodology Directorate Strategic Plan (November 5,

2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Research and Methodology Directorate: Summary of Major Activities”

(October 15, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Senior Staff Roster (October 27, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Strategic Plan FY 2013-2017 (Version 1.0, April 25, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau, Strategic Workforce Plan for Information Technology Related to 2020

Census (October 1, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “Strategic Workforce Planning” PowerPoint by Joanne Crane (Chief

Financial Officer, Census Bureau) (September 3, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Strategic Workforce Planning Process (Version 2.4, June 23, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Strategic Workforce Planning Process Implementation Plan (Version 1.0,

September 16, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Strategy to Transform the Census Bureau (September 9, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. The Future of Census Bureau Operations (Version 1.0, April 25, 2013). U.S. Census Bureau. “2015-2020 Census Enterprise IT Infrastructure Roadmap” (November

21, 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “2020 Census: Monthly Status Report” PowerPoint (July 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. “2020 Census Program Management Review: 2020 Field Reengineering

Concept of Operations (Con Ops): ROCkIT Team (Reorganize Census with Integrated Technology)” (June 6, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. “2020 Census Program Management Review: 2020 Field Reengineering

Journey: ROCkIT Team (Reorganize Census with Integrated Technology)” (October 3, 2014).

97

U.S. Census Bureau. 2020 Census Program Strategic Workforce Action Plan (Version 1.0, August 21, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. “2020 Field Reengineering Journey: ROCkIT (Reorganize Census with

Integrated Technology)” (September 2014). U.S. Census Bureau. Unleashing the Power of Census Bureau Content: Center for Enterprise

Dissemination Services and Customer Innovation (CEDSCI): The Transition to Implement the Working Papers of the Data Dissemination Task Force (July 9, 2014).

U.S. Census Bureau. U.S. Census Bureau FY 2010 Performance and Accountability Report

CENSR-24 (November 2010). U.S. Department of Commerce. Census IT Directorate Project Review (CIPR) Governance

Board Charter (charter version 1.8) (August 21, 2013). U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General. U.S. Census Bureau: 2020 Census

Planning: Research Delays and Program Management Challenges Threaten Design Innovation OIG-14-003-A (Washington, D.C.: December 2013).

U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General. Semiannual Report to Congress

(March 2014). U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General. U.S. Census Bureau: The Census

Bureau Lacks Accurate and Informative Cost Data to Guide 2020 Census Research Through a Constrained Budget Environment OIG-14-021-A (Washington, D.C.: May 2014).

U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Inspector General. Top Management Challenges

Facing the Department of Commerce OIG-14-002 (Washington, D.C.: November 2013).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, Actions Needed by Census Bureau to Address

Weaknesses GAO-13-63 (Washington, D.C.: January 2013). U.S. Government Accountability Office, Additional Actions Could Improve the Census

Bureau’s Ability to Control Costs for the 2020 Census GAO-12-80 (Washington, D.C.: January 2012).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2010 Census: Preliminary Lessons Learned Highlight

the Need for Fundamental Reforms GAO-11-496T (Washington, D.C.: April 2011). U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2020 Census: Additional Actions Could Strengthen

Future Census Test Designs GAO-14-26 (Washington, D.C.: October 2013).

98

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2020 Census: Additional Steps are Needed to Build on Early Planning GAO-12-626 (Washington, D.C.: May 2012).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2020 Census: Bureau Needs to Improve Scheduling

Practices to Enhance Ability to Meet Address List Development Deadlines GAO-14-59 (Washington, D.C.: November 2013).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2020 Census: Census Bureau Can Improve Use of

Leading Practices When Choosing Address and Mapping Sources GAO-15-21 (Washington, D.C.: October 2014).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2020 Census: Prioritized Information Technology

Research and Testing Is Needed for Census Design Decisions GAO-14-389 (Washington, D.C.: April 2014).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2020 Census: Progress Report on the Census Bureau’s

Efforts to Contain Enumeration Costs GAO-13-857T (Washington, D.C.: September 2013).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, Census Bureau and Postal Service Should Pursue

Opportunities to Further Enhance Collaboration GAO-11-874 (Washington, D.C.: September 2011).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, Census Bureau Needs to Implement Key Management

Practices GAO-12-915 (Washington, D.C.: September 2012). U.S. Government Accountability Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to

Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: July 2003).

Congressional Documents Coburn, Tom. “Post-Hearing Questions for the Record Submitted to the Commerce

Inspector General Todd Zinser from Dr. Tom Coburn, ‘Census: Planning Ahead for 2020’.”(July 20, 2012).

Groves, Robert. “Census Field Realignment: On Schedule, Within Budget, Effective”

Congressional Appropriations Update (PowerPoint) (February 2012). Thompson, John H. “Ensuring an Accurate and Affordable 2020 Census” prepared

statement of John Thompson (Director, Census Bureau) before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and the Census (September 11, 2013).

99

U.S. Census Bureau. “U.S. Census Bureau’s Budget Estimates for FY 2012: As Presented to Congress February 2011” (February 2011).

U.S. Department of Commerce, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for

Administration. “Notification of Proposed Changes”. Commerce Department notification sent to Hon. Frank R. Wolf, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations regarding proposed Census reorganization (February 27, 2014).

Zinser, Todd J. Census: Planning Ahead for 2020. Testimony of the Honorable Todd J. Zinser,

Inspector General, U.S. Department of Commerce before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security (July 18, 2012).

Zinser, Todd J. Top Management Challenges for the 2020 Census: 2010 Lessons Learned,

Looking Ahead to 2020. Testimony of the Honorable Todd J. Zinser, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Commerce before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security (April 6, 2011).

100

Appendix F: Common Traits of Organizational Transformations

Transformation Efforts: Common Traits This report evaluates Census Bureau’s efforts to successfully implement five transformational initiatives, providing recommendations to bolster prospects for success. In so doing, a question arises: what can be learned from other federal agencies that have successfully navigated through significant organizational transformations? In this appendix, we provide a summary of best practices gleaned from publicly available studies of important transformation initiatives that were successfully executed in federal agencies. Rather than citing anecdotes sourced from individual observations or brief journalistic references, we focused this review of best practices on respected written sources and studies. We recognize that more work in this area can contribute to public sector transformation efforts. In this appendix, we summarize research done on four federal agency transformations and discuss characteristics of successful organizational change. The information is intended to inform Census Bureau leadership as it pursues its successful transformation and seeks to foster an organizational culture that continually looks for ways to operate more efficiently and effectively. Characteristics of Successful Organizational Transformations Transforming an organization is a challenging endeavor. Nearly 40 years of research in the field of organizational transformation by Dr. John Kotter has shown that over 70 percent of all major transformation efforts, in the private or public sectors, fail.130 An even smaller percentage of successful transformations are sustained over time. The challenges associated with change may be mitigated, however, if leadership is aware of the characteristics commonly associated with successful transformations. The following common characteristics posited by two different sources emerged from our review of the literature on organizational transformation (we understand that other such lists exist; we discuss these two as a way to focus this discussion and because we believe the elements have merit for the Census Bureau). Dr. John Kotter131 Abramson and Lawrence132 1. Creating a sense of urgency 1. Selecting the right people 2. Building a coalition 2. Clarifying the mission 3. Forming a strategic vision and initiatives 3. Getting the structure right

130

Kotter International. 15 December 2014. http://www.kotterinternational.com/the-8-step-process-for-leading-change/. 131 Id. 132 Abramson, Mark A. and Paul Lawrence. Transforming Organizations. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2001.

101

4. Enlisting a volunteer army 4. Seizing the moment 5. Enabling action by removing barriers 5. Communicating 6. Generating short-term wins 6. Involving key players 7. Sustaining acceleration 7. Engaging employees 8. Instituting change 8. Persevering It is not our purpose to evaluate these two lists, or to comment upon how the elements compare between the two. Rather, we use these lists in order to highlight best practices that can contribute to the Bureau’s transformation efforts. Considering these two sets of success factors, the Panel distilled them down to three essential elements: clarity, communication, and commitment. In order for transformations to be successful, a clear vision must be developed and articulated that describes the organization’s present state and desired future state. After forming a clear vision, the organization needs to communicate its vision and goals effectively throughout all levels of the organization. Third, the organization needs to remain committed to implementing the changes. While identifying the factors associated with successful transformational efforts is certainly important, additional steps are needed. Once an organization is cognizant of these elements of success, the integral step is to implement these changes in order to enable a successful transformation. When discussing organizational transformation efforts it is also important to distinguish between challenges related to initiating transformation and challenges related to sustaining transformation. While initiating transformation is essential, a critical objective is to sustain transformation efforts over time. The Panel recognizes that an analysis of successful and unsuccessful organizational transformation efforts could be the subject of several months of research and may merit an entire report. Such a comprehensive and detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this report. Several examples, taken from Abramson and Lawrence’s Transforming Organizations and a 2012 IBM Center for the Business of Government report, serve as instructive synopses of successful organizational transformation at the federal level, and are described below. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) In the wake of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Andrew, several organizations conducted formal evaluations of FEMA, evaluating the agency’s performance.133 As a result, four key problems were identified: 1. the inconsistency of presidential support; 2. the “stovepiping” of FEMA; 3. the circumvention of FEMA; and 4. FEMA’s reactive versus proactive

133 Reports were issued by FEMA’s Inspector General’s Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the National Academy of Public Administration (1993).

102

response.134 These criticisms prompted FEMA to transform its organization. FEMA’s transformation involved: the reestablishment of FEMA’s authority in disaster management; the appointment of senior executives with extensive emergency management experience; the redefinition of FEMA’s mission and goals; and the restructuring of the agency along functional lines.135 FEMA faced several problems that precipitated the need to transform its organization. During much of its existence, FEMA’s support from the executive branch suffered from the “high impact and low probability of most disaster events” resulting in fluctuations in presidential support.136 FEMA’s organizational structure was stove-piped and its functions were not fully integrated. FEMA’s organizational instability and limited resources led several presidents to circumvent the agency during disasters. Presidents bypassed FEMA through the use of cabinet-level agencies (e.g., the Department of the Interior) or through the creation of task forces.137 FEMA’s response was often reactive rather than proactive. FEMA’s deployment of resources was often delayed and a rapid response was hindered by its bureaucratic structure.138 FEMA transformed its organization in order to address the problems facing the agency. President Clinton demonstrated a greater commitment to FEMA by raising the agency to cabinet-level status in February 1996. As a result, the agency reestablished its authority with respect to disaster management. In addition to receiving cabinet-level status, President Clinton appointed senior executives with extensive emergency management experience (three senior appointees with a combined 52 years of emergency management experience). FEMA’s transformation also involved redefining the agency’s mission and goals. The agency updated its mission statement and defined six goals related to the updated mission.139 FEMA also reorganized the structure of the agency, making it more functionally organized. FEMA directorates were organized around the “basic functions of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.”140 According to the authors of this study, FEMA’s transformation included the following key elements commonly associated with successful transformations: the involvement of key players; clarifying the mission; improving the organizational structure; and perseverance.

134 Abramson, Mark A. and Paul Lawrence. Transforming Organizations. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2001, 64-67. 135 Id. 68. 136 Id. 65. 137 Id. 66. The circumvention of FEMA led to a duplication of efforts and the use of excessive government resources. 138 Id. 68. “The Stafford Act required FEMA to coordinate the activities of 26 federal agencies (including FEMA) and the American Red Cross. Most of these organizations resisted outside direction.” 139 Id. 70. 140 Id. 71.

103

Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA)141 The VHA is the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system and serves as a “primary operating unit” of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In 1995, VHA began a large-scale transformation of its organization. The reasons for VHA’s transformation included: the prospect of becoming “out of sync with prevailing trends in the delivery of [services]”; budget constraints; and competition from the private sector.142 In response to these challenges, VHA transformed from a hospital-centric organization to an agency concentrating on ambulatory care via “integrated service networks” in order to provide veterans with optimal services and care.143 The old VHA system was “convoluted, fragmented, and self-defeating”, whereas the new system emphasized “efficiency, collaboration, and cooperation…by eliminating layers of bureaucracy and streamlining communications.”144 VHA was able to successfully transform its organization by creating a clear vision for its future145, adopting a new organizational structure, establishing an accountability system to measure performance, and modifying agency rules and regulations to allow for greater flexibility with respect to the provision of services to patients. A VHA senior leadership team developed and disseminated a series of documents that clearly articulated a “comprehensive statement of the purpose and goals of the transformation.”146 VHA then adopted a new organizational structure that “decentralized decision-making authority within the agency and created new operating units for carrying out planning and budgeting.”147 VHA also established an accountability system through the use of performance contracts with upper-level managers. These performance contracts stipulated a set of goals that adhered to the vision documents. VHA also modified agency rules and regulations in order to increase flexibility with respect to the delivery of services to patients. According to this study, VHA’s transformation included several key elements associated with successful transformations: a clearly articulated vision; a logical reorganization of its organizational structure; and a commitment to the changes it planned to implement.

141

We note that Dr. Kenneth Kizer, Panel member of this study, played an important role in this VHA transformation when serving as Under Secretary for Health, U.S. Department Veteran Affairs. 142 Id. 140. 143 Id. 153, 161. 144 Id. 163-164. 145 VHA senior leadership held several planning meetings to articulate the vision and prepared a document describing this vision entitled Vision for Change. 146 Id. 142, 153. 147 Id. 142.

104

Department of Defense (DoD) Historically, DoD’s methods and processes surrounding weapons acquisition and procurement have been characterized by inefficiency. In order to improve the level of efficiency related to procurement, DoD underwent an organizational transformation. Under the old procurement system it was not uncommon for acquisitions to take 10 to 15 years to reach the final stage of development with associated costs increasing anywhere from 20 to 40 percent.148 DoD’s transformation involved: the replacement of overly prescriptive military specifications and standards with commercial specifications; widespread application and updating of information technology processes; loosening restrictions on communication between government personnel and industry; and the use of “functionally integrated government acquisition teams.”149 These transformations sought to introduce “market-centered approaches” to public procurement while replacing onerous military acquisition processes with commercial managerial techniques.150 According to the DoD study included in Transforming Organizations, several factors contributed to DoD’s successful transformation. DoD formed a “cohesive” leadership team whose members had first-hand experience with the acquisition system and were committed to reforming that system.151 DoD involved key internal and external stakeholders in the transformation process, soliciting their recommendations through the use of “Process Action Teams.”152 DoD communicated its transformation efforts consistently and constantly through speeches, testimony, memos and policy letters, and the internet. According to its vision, DoD wanted to become “the smartest, most efficient, most effective buyer of goods and services to meet warfighter needs.”153 DoD was also able to “seize the moment” and receive critical buy-in from political and agency leaders during a period characterized by bi-partisan political support on national security issues. The DoD transformation described in Abramson and Lawrence’s book began in 1993. Continued efforts to improve DoD’s weapons acquisition processes were also highlighted in a 2012 report by IBM’s Center for the Business of Government. IBM’s report, Forging Governmental Change, is evidence of the need for sustaining transformational change and the challenges associated with efforts to sustain change. The report addressed DoD’s continued efforts to improve its weapons acquisition processes during Secretary Robert Gates’ tenure (2006-2011). Secretary Gates argued that DoD needed to avoid repetitive cycles related to spending and acquisition.154 In order to create a “stronger, leaner, more technically appropriate DoD”, Secretary Gates sought to shift existing resources and

148 Id. 12. 149 Id. 14. 150 Ibid. 151 Id. 45. 152 Id. 46. 153 Id. 47. 154 IBM’s Center for the Business of Government, Lambright, W. Henry. Forging Governmental Change: Lessons from Transformations Led by Robert Gates of DOD and Francis Collins of NIH (2012).

105

priorities within DoD.155 Continued transformation under Secretary Gates involved the reduction of 33 programs and a reprioritization of specific weapons systems.156 In his characterization of DoD’s continued transformation Gates explained, “DoD must shift from baroque Cold War style weapons to less expensive weapons for wars the U.S. would most likely be fighting.”157 In summary, DoD’s transformation included the following elements commonly associated with successful transformations: the involvement of key players, the building of a coalition, clarity and communication concerning the need for and purpose of the transformation, and the ability of key players to “seize the moment” when presented with the opportunity to pursue organizational changes. National Institutes of Health (NIH) In a 2012 report on Forging Governmental Change, IBM’s Center for the Business of Government described recent organizational changes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). IBM’s report details changes initiated by NIH Director Francis Collins (NIH Director, 2009 to present). Director Collins believed that NIH could improve its efforts to translate its research and knowledge into practical public use. Director Collins explained, “[NIH] was outstanding in producing knowledge, but not fully optimized in translating it into what the public needed in drugs and treatment.”158 To accomplish this objective, Director Collins sought the establishment of a new institute within NIH, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). NCATS’ stated mission is “To catalyze the generation of innovative methods and technologies that will enhance the development, testing, and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of human diseases and conditions.”159 Achieving this change at NIH required the navigation of internal and external challenges. Congress had capped the number of NIH institutes at 27. Thus, setting up a new institute (NCATS) required the abolition of an existing NIH institute. Traditionally, NIH institutes and institute directors were influential within NIH. The IBM report explained, “NIH, in general, was a very bottom-heavy organization—i.e., the strength was in the individual institutes…most institutes had influential constituencies of external interest groups and congressional allies.”160 Aware of this context, Director Collins “intended the creation of NCATS to be a catalyst for cultural reform at NIH.”161 To assuage internal concerns,

155 Id. 12-13, 15. Secretary Gates noted that his efforts to improve weapons acquisition did not involve a reduction in DoD funds, but rather, involved an efficient redirecting of existing money. 156 Id. 13-14. For example, funds for C-17 transport aircraft were redirected to drone development and the production of F-22 fighter jets was capped. 157 Id. 12. 158 Id. 24. 159 Id. 38. 160 Id. 26, 24. 161 Id. 24, 25. A note on organizational structure: NIH is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with a budget of approximately $30 billion and 18,000 employees.

106

Director Collins held a town hall meeting of NIH employees where he reiterated, “The mainstay of NIH would remain the individual investigator” while emphasizing the need for organizational change.162 In May 2010, NIH’s Scientific Management Review Board (SMRB) approved the creation of the new institute by a vote of 12 to 1.163 After receiving internal approval to establish the new institute, the proposal was then approved by Congress in December 2011. In summary, NIH’s organizational transformation was the result of several key factors. Director Collins identified a need for improvement and clearly articulated the proposed change that would allow such improvements to be made. He “came to office with a sense of urgency”164 and set priorities from the beginning of his tenure. He created a sense of urgency and clearly articulated the goals and objectives related to NIH’s organizational transformation. Characteristics of Unsuccessful Organizational Transformations While it is important to recognize the characteristics of successful transformations, it is equally important to recognize the factors that contribute to the failure of transformation efforts. Recognition of these threats to a successful transformation will enable organizations to avoid detrimental factors as they move forward with their transformation. Organizational change expert, Dr. John Kotter has noted common errors and associated consequences that contribute to the failure of transformation efforts:165 Errors:

1. Allowing too much complacency 2. Failing to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition 3. Underestimating the power of vision 4. Under-communicating the vision by a factor of 10 (or 100 or even 1,000) 5. Permitting obstacles to block the new vision 6. Failing to create short-term wins 7. Declaring victory too soon 8. Neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture

162 Id. 28. 163 Id. 27. “Composed of prominent inside and external appointees, [SMRB’s] job was to continuously monitor and advise the director on how to improve NIH’s organization and performance”. 164 Id. 27. 165 Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996, 16.

107

Consequences:

1. New strategies are not implemented well 2. Acquisitions don’t achieve expected synergies 3. Reengineering takes too long and costs too much 4. Quality programs don’t deliver hoped-for results

108

Appendix G: Summary of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA)

SUMMARY OF THE PROVISIONS OF THE FEDERAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACQUISITION REFORM ACT ENACTED AS SECTIONS 831 – 837 OF THE CARL LEVIN AND HOWARD P. “BUCK” McKEON NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2015, P.L. 113-291166 Section 831 – Enhancements of Chief Information Officer (CIO) Authority The role of the Agency CIO167 is augmented in a number of ways. First, every covered Agency CIO, including the CIO of the Department of Commerce (Commerce), is assigned a significant role in all of the decision processes and reporting requirements related to acquisition of agency IT,168 as well as management, governance and oversight processes related to agency IT. Thus, the Agency CIO must approve the IT budget request and must certify that IT investments are adequately implementing the incremental development requirements as defined by OMB. Second, the legislation gives the Agency CIO new review authority. Generally, an agency (or a Bureau, like Census) may not enter into a contract for IT unless the contract has been reviewed and approved by the Agency CIO. Nor may an agency request reprogramming of any funds for IT programs unless the request has been reviewed and approved by the Agency CIO. It should be noted, however, that the Agency may use an established IT governance processes to approve such contracts or other agreements if the Agency CIO is included as a full participant. Except in the case of “non-major” IT investment, the duties of the Agency CIO described above are not delegable.169 In addition, the Agency CIO is required to approve the appointment of any other employee with the title CIO or who functions as one in any “component organization”, e.g., the Census Bureau. There are national security waivers and special rules for national security systems.170

166 Please note that this summary has been prepared prior to publication of OMB guidance on its implementation. It is consistent with the statutory language and tries to avoid analysis of provisions of the law wherever possible. 167 As a general matter, this legislation is focused explicitly on the role of the CIO of Commerce and other high level “covered” agencies, not the CIO of Census as a Bureau of the Department of Commerce. Unless otherwise noted, the term “Agency CIO” is intended to include reference to the CIO of the Department of Commerce. 168 “IT” refers to Information Technology 169 For “non-major” IT investment (as defined in the annual capital planning guidance of OMB), the Agency CIO can delegate to an individual who reports directly to the CIO. 170 There are also special rules for the Department of Defense. None of these are covered by this summary.

109

Section 832 – Enhanced Transparency and Improved Risk Management in IT Investments This section requires the OMB Director to publish, at least every six months, a list of each “major” IT investment across the entire government, whether for new investments or for operations or maintenance of existing ones. Every Agency CIO is required to “characterize” his or her agency’s investments according to standard OMB “risk” definitions. If a listed IT investment gets a “high risk” rating for 4 consecutive quarters, it must be reviewed by the Agency CIO to identify (1) root causes of the high level of risk; (2) the extent these can be addressed; and (3) the probability of future success. The results of the review are reported to relevant congressional committees. If, one year after the review, the investment is still “high risk”, OMB is required to deny any request for additional development, modernization or enhancement funding for the investment until the Agency CIO determines that the root causes of the high level of risk have been addressed and there is sufficient capability to deliver the remaining planned increments of the investment. Section 833 – Portfolio Review OMB and the Agency CIO are required to implement a process to enable the Agency CIO to review the Agency’s entire IT portfolio on an annual basis. The review is required to focus on the following issues:

Ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the IT investments of the agency;

Ways to identify or develop opportunities to consolidate acquisition and management of IT services and increase use of shared services delivery models;

Ways to identify potential duplication and waste; Ways to identify potential cost savings; Ways to develop plans to optimize IT portfolio; and Ways to better align the portfolio to any multiyear funding requirements.

Standardized cost savings and cost avoidance metrics and performance indicators are required to be developed by OMB and the Agency CIO to assist in these reviews. These annual reviews are intended to reduce IT redundancies and improve costs and outputs. Sections 834 – 837 The new law also provides for data center consolidation in section 834, expansion of training and use of information technology cadres for an improved IT workforce in section 835, maximization of the benefits of the federal strategic sourcing initiative – a new focus for “shared services” – in section 836, and for the development of a new government-wide software purchasing program in section 837.

110

Appendix H: U.S. Census Bureau Statistical and Data Products

111

COVER IMAGE CREDITS

Top/Center Image: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/united-states-text-map-michael-tompsett.html

Bottom-Left Image: http://www.cardiomyopathy.org/assets/images/page_images/jigsaw-puzzle-in_hands.jpg

Bottom-Right Image: http://www.charlesstone.com/images/uploads/hiresimages/change.jpg

112

1600 K Street, N.W. Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20006 Phone: (202) 347-3190 Fax: (202) 223-0823 Website: www.napawash.org

National Academy of Public Administration ®