EMERS Process Improvement

1. EMERS Process Improvement Office of Environmental Management December 2011

2. Purpose This material is intended to provide scope and focus to the Process Improvement Teams during the Secondary Working Sessions

3. Definitions • A process is: A sequence of related activities or events that have a start point (input or trigger) and an end point (an output). • Processes are: Transformational, in that they take inputs, apply resources to them in order to change something, and produce an output. • The process should create an output of greater value than the input.

4. Process Improvement Achieving performance excellence here: Financial Business/management Acquisition Project Management Assessements ISM Safeguards and Security Human capital Information Technology Means improving alignment with Mission Priorities and workforce needs

5. Guiding Tenets and Principles • Make Team Diverse – Field, HQ, Manager, Staff • Reduce redundancy and duplication of effort • Increase consistency across the EM sites and reduce variation where possible • “Low as you can go”: strive to define commonality across sites; challenge status quo and processes that seem untouchable (e.g., site-specific)

6. Guiding Tenets and Principles(cont’d) • Aggressively challenge the status quo • Improve processes within DOE’s existing business practices/systems • Aggressively challenge existing requirements • Give highest priority to areas that reduce cost of doing business • Establish not only steps and sequences, but also performance standards (e.g., turn-around times) • Design systems exclusive of existing staffing plans – focus on functions not positions

7. Guiding Tenets and Principles(cont’d) • Streamline : • Eliminate overlap of functions between multiple HQ offices • Ensure clarity for the Field Offices on which HQ offices is responsible for specific EM mission areas • Empower where possible: push decision making to the appropriate level • Identify and communicate practices or requirements that retard process efficiency and effectiveness that are beyond the purview of the subject area team or management system owner to resolve

8. Steps to Process Improvement • Understand scope of effort: review Subject Area Description • Understand Guiding Tenets and Principles • Identify core processes • Select initial process for mapping/improvement • Review team: bring more employees into team if warranted • Develop the process map for current process • Review/revise map of current process • Identify areas for improvement/redesign; consider feedback from management, staff, bottlenecks, etc. • Revise process map consistent with improvement ideas • Work with Editor to capture content and to draft documents to EMERS standards

9. Steps to Process Improvement(cont’d) • Review/revise map of current process • Identify areas for improvement/redesign; consider feedback from management, staff, bottlenecks, etc. • Revise process map consistent with improvement ideas • Work with Editor to capture content and to draft documents to EMERS standards

10. Continuous Improvement • Identify opportunities for future improvement, especially those beyond authority of subject area team and management system owner to resolve • Question/Comment feature on EMERS document will provide feedback quickly on robustness of process