Customer
Profile
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration
Washington, DC
Maintaining Strategic Focus at the FAA
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) provides a safe, secure, and
efficient global aerospace system that contributes to national security and the
promotion of U.S. aerospace safety. As the leading authority in the international
aerospace community, the FAA is responsive to the dynamic nature of customer
needs, economic conditions, and environmental concerns.
The implementation Story
The FAA has in place a Strategic Plan (named the FAA’s Flight Plan) with
understandable, measurable, and achievable goals. The agency maintains
strategic focus by managing to that Strategic Plan, with each FAA organization
and employee showing how they contribute to goal accomplishment; and
with the management team tracking implementation corporately. The agency
shows accountability and transparency by communicating the status of its goals
regularly with employees and stakeholders.
PROFILE
Industry: Federal Government
Funding: $14 Billion
# of Employees: 48,000
“Actuate Performancesoft Views
is a most wonderful management
tool! It brought clarity to the
FAA’s mission, transparency
to the strategic planning and
performance measurement
processes, and accountability to
the management ranks.”
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration
H. Giovanni Carnaroli
Chief Economist, Office of the CIO
Customer Profile: US FAA
Primary Users
Administrator, FAA Management
Team, CIO
The FAA implemented Actuate Performancesoft Views, from Actuate’s Performance
Management Center of Excellence, to track and report progress on the Flight Plan and
offices’ business plan activities and goals. Actuate Performancesoft Views is used realtime in management meetings to drill down to problems and bring focus to management
discussions. Actuate Performancesoft Views also ensures specific points of accountability,
while allowing strategic looks across organizations. Quarterly public reporting provides
the transparent look into the agency’s ability to deliver on results. After having Actuate
Performancesoft Views in place for almost a year, during which time the FAA Administrator
was briefed monthly on the progress made by the agency towards its strategic goals and
performance targets, a need became evident that performance and budget should be tied
together in reporting the status of agency initiatives. With these requirements, the FAA
embarked on an effort to link the Office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) budget into the
office’s performance information within the system, as a pilot for the agency.
Highlights
• Administrator briefed monthly on the progress made toward strategic goals and performance targets using Actuate Performancesoft Views
• Pioneering effort to link the office’s budget into its performance information
• Benefits include easy identification of budget problems and expeditious pricing of the various initiatives
The Performance View was already well established, but the next step was the development
of a Budget View that included dollar amounts for each initiative. The roll-up at each stage
first calculated the total budget for each initiative (by summing the budget by account, such
as operations and capital expenditures), then it rolled up to sum each objective (which ties
to the agency’s Flight Plan), and finally consolidated into the overall office budget. The next
step was to create a consolidated Performance and Budget View. This created an easy and
intuitive way to compare the performance of an initiative or objective with regard to the
associated budget. It was possible that the agency might be behind on the schedule of a
particular initiative, but would be able to easily recover if it had a large portion of its budget
still unallocated; however, that same initiative might be in much more serious danger of failure
if the budget was being allocated at a faster rate than expected. Therefore, there was an intrinsic
need to be able to place performance measurement in the context of the budget. At this point,
the FAA’s Office of the CIO can report instantly on progress towards completion of its identified
targets supporting the Flight Plan, as well as identifying any budget trends or issues.
Implementation summary
Customer Since
August 2003
Primary Areas of Focus
Performance Goals, Performance
Targets, and Budget & Performance
Integration
As a next step, the FAA Flight Plan view will incorporate a financial component in an effort to
achieve benefits such as easy identification of budget problems and expeditious pricing of
the various initiatives that compose the Flight Plan. However, many challenges to deploying
performance-based budgeting lie ahead. As Actuate Performancesoft Views has provided
much more transparency and accountability, a cultural change within the organization needs
to occur to accept the wider distribution of financial information. In addition, although it
is relatively easy to plan a budget and align it with initiatives, it is more difficult to execute
a budget along the same lines because cost accounting systems and labor distribution
reporting have their own set of challenges in providing data for input into Actuate
Performancesoft Views. Lastly, in an attempt to have a more complete picture, an effort is
underway to ensure that all of the agency’s core business initiatives are linked to the Flight
Plan.
Actuate Corporation
2207 Bridgepointe Parkway
Suite 500
San Mateo, CA 94404
Tel: (888) 422-8828
www.actuate.com
Actuate Performance Management Center of Excellence
150 John St. Suite 600,
Toronto, Ontario, M5V3E3, Canada
Tel: (800) 449-3804
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