You are using one of your free views. If you are a TPM Magazine subscriber please sign in. If would like to become one to continue access to this content, please click here.

Coordinating Cross-Boundary Performance at the FAA

Saturday, April 18, 2009 - by TPM Staff

Send to Kindle

Problems cross boundaries and so must solutions. The most important challenge for performance networks that aim to deliver better results is designing the structure that coordinates across traditional agency boundaries. Not only must this structure be clearly defined, but it also must account for the integration of a broad range of cross-government activities. Specifically, the multi-agency structure must do the following:

Align shared vision, purpose, concepts, principles, goals, and resources across partner agencies and with external stakeholders.
Integrate planning on multiple levels.
Sort hugely complex problems into problem-solving chunks and develop solution sets to solve these problems.
Build cross boundary teams accountable for results.
Coordinate and communicate from cradle to grave, that is, from concept development to implementation and renewal.
Leverage lessons learned and best practices.
Build a visible system for tracking results.
Schedule cross-boundary teams to report progress to multiagency leadership.
Encourage the network to adapt to changing circumstances.
Allow for expanding the network to include new partners.

Like the overarching performance network, the cross-boundary structure has the characteristics of a dynamic system, including flexibility, adaptability, growth, and the continual emergence of new forms and functions.

Structure describes how different agencies and organizations can work together and coordinate activities to achieve shared goals. The cross-boundary structure needs to coordinate solutions for a complex set of problems, so the structure itself must be clearly defined. The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is an example of a clearly defined structure that enables multiple departments, agencies, organizations, industries, and public-private partnerships to coordinate activities at many levels of detail so our national airspace system can accommodate new technologies, increase airspace capacity, improve the passenger experience, and decrease aviations environmental impact while safely and securely delivering air navigation services. If a structure that delivers such a complex set of products and services can be defined, then it seems reasonable that any social problem, no matter how daunting, can be addressed.

NextGen Structure

Summer 2000 featured perfect conditions for gridlock in the sky. Flying had become an increasingly popular way to travel, and the airlines had marketed aggressively to vacationing families and business travelers. Airports were already crowded when unusual and frequent patterns of bad weather hit aviation especially hard. Delays and canceled flights became almost daily events. The public complained loudly, congressional hearings were scheduled, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was about to experience unfriendly fire from an aroused media.

As summer flying season drew to a close, Monte Belger, FAA acting deputy administrator, convened meetings of executives from across the agency, including air traffic, system operations, certification, and systems engineering. They focused on how to increase airspace capacity so more planes could fly on time. The agency executives divided the complex set of capacity and congestion problems into four areas: arrivals and departures, en route congestion, en route severe weather, and airport weather. By late February 2001, the group had named its project the Operational Evolution Plan (OEP). The OEP executive team had already started talking to stakeholders about flight delays, cancellations, airspace capacity, and congestion.

Its not that capacity had been ignored. Like eliminating hunger or defining a comprehensive energy policy, this issue engendered frequent discussion for many years on what should be done. This time was differentthe OEP executives drafted a comprehensive plan that would serve as a stake in the ground for the entire aviation community. The plan would include input from the airlines, airports, manufacturers, general cargo carriers, general aviation, and associations representing pilots, business aircraft, and the flying public. The Department of Defense, NASA, and union representatives were added to the executive team.

Eight Structural Elements

The OEP was the FAAs ten-year plan for building capacity to keep pace with the increasing public demand for air transportation. The eight structural elements that helped the OEP succeed have carried forward as examples of what works:

The intent was not a perfect, inflexible plan, but a ten-year, rolling plan, with each year moving the plan and commitments forward one year.
An updated version was released annually.
The commitments made in the OEP genuinely represented the decisions and timelines of the FAA and the consensus of the aviation community. With visible executive-level support, the OEP became a trusted document. The aviation community participated in twice-yearly industry days to receive briefings and provide input to current initiatives.
The four problem areas were divided into specific solution sets (such as build more runways, reconfigure airspace, and improve weather forecasting tools). Solution sets were added, modified, or completed and removed over time.
For each solution set, the OEP executive team assigned a senior FAA manager as the single, accountable point of delivery to build a cross-agency team that would deliver the solution set. These cross-boundary team leaders are now called solution set leaders.
Solution sets included clear goals, specific products, a summary of key activities, decision trees, risk assessments, cost benefit analyses, and clear timelines. This comprehensive information was posted on a public Web site so aviation stakeholders could read and understand FAA commitments over a ten-year horizon and then manage their industries and interests accordingly.
Solution set leaders reported back progress to the OEP executive team regularly (the ultimate in face-to-face accountability, where project leaders present and defend their teams progress to the very top agency leadership).
Clear metrics tracked the success of the solution sets.

Clearing U.S. Airspace

On September 11, 2001, Monte Belger approved the command center order to clear the entire U.S. airspace of arriving, departing, and en route airplanes. In his congressional testimony, he stated the following:

"The order from the Command Center to immediately land all aircraft was transmitted at 9:45 a.m. By 12:16 p.m., less than four hours after the first attack, and less than three hours after the order was given, U.S. airspace was empty of all aircraft except military and essential emergency traffic. A total of 4,546 aircraft were safely landed under unprecendented stressful conditions and all international inbound flights were diverted from U.S. airspace."

On that day and during the days that followed, the channels of communication and coordination across the aviation community were more open and focused than ever before. Most FAA executives were reassigned to urgent security tasks, so the OEP support staff published the technically detailed December 2001 update. More than a year passed before the OEP executive team met again. When restarted, the OEP took up where it had left off. The factors that contributed to early accomplishments laid the foundation for the next phase.

The legacy of the original OEP was in large part the eight structural elements of the overarching effort: rolling plan, annual updates, genuine commitments, problem chunks addressed by solution sets, accountable team leaders, comprehensive and transparent information, regular report-backs, and relevant performance measures.

Adaptability

Perhaps the most important characteristic of the OEP structure was its adaptability. As needed, it changed to meet new demands and technologiesfor example, adapting to new security procedures and unexpected economic constraints and gradually including promising research and emerging technologies. By 2006, the four OEP chunks had been reorganized and an outer ring added for safety and policy issues.

In summer 2008, the OEP was greatly expanded to focus on monitoring all FAA commitments to the legislatively mandated, multi-agency NextGen, which was intended to coordinate and deliver new technologies, policies, procedures, training, and outcomes for future air transportation and air traffic control.

NextGen is about as complex a transformation as can be imagined. In December 2003, Congress passed legislation that required the Departments of Transportation, Defense, Commerce, and Homeland Security, along with the FAA, NASA, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, to develop the NextGen vision and an overarching enterprise architecture for reaching that vision. This cross-government effort includes new technologies, procedures, policies, budgets, and cross-government structures, where multiple agencies have specific roles and responsibilities.

Enduring Foundation

Today, the characteristics of the original OEP structure remain as the foundation of the NextGen structure:

NextGen divides issues into problem domains and specific solution sets.
Short-, mid-, and long-term plans serve as a rolling road map.
Results are published and posted annually.
Commitments genuinely represent decisions and timelines.
Commitments also reflect the consensus of the aviation community.
The executive team assigns senior managers to act as solution set leaders.
Solution sets have clear goals, specific products, and well-defined milestones. Transparency is importantall this information is posted on a public Web site.
Solution set leaders regularly report back to Next-Gen executives; feedback is continuous.

Lessons Learned

Lessons on cross-government coordination and the realities of complex transformation have been brought forward into a more differentiated structure. The structural characteristics of this performance network must now clearly accommodate both the external, multi-agency and internal, agency-wide management structures.

Figure 1 shows the external NextGen structure. The senior policy committee, representing the seven partner agencies and offices, provides overall guidance and can solve cross-government conflicts. The multiagency working groups, with government and industry cochairs, focus on technical integration and represent the aviation community.

Figure 2 shows the NextGen structure internal to the FAA. The FAAs senior vice president for NextGen and operations planning is responsible for delivering the FAAs commitments to the multi-agency plan. The FAA can be considered the lead agency for NextGen. The NextGen management board, which replaced the OEP executive team and is still chaired by the FAA deputy administrator, looks across the agency with the authority to force timely resolution of emerging NextGen implementation issues.

The structure of the NextGen performance network combines the multi-agency, cross-boundary external organization and the FAAs internal, multi-office organization to deliver programs, products, and services. The NextGen Web site, www.faa.gov/nextgen, details the programs, timetable, and road maps.

Observations on Structure

Structure describes a framework that different agencies may adopt to coordinate activities and timelines in the service of cross-boundary goals and initiatives. The structure reflects a rolling plan, annual updates, genuine commitments, problem chunks divided into solution sets, accountable team leaders, comprehensive and transparent information, regular report-backs, and relevant performance measures. The network maintains an evolutionary quality to meet new demands. In this way, the structure becomes a system of governance that crosses agency boundaries, delivers results, and exhibits the qualities of flexibility, creativity, learning, and growth.

Within this context, personal leadership matters. As the acting FAA deputy administrator, Monte Belger ran the OEP executive meetings from early 2000 until September 11, 2001. Young team leaders and even seasoned agency managers were at the top of their game when they reported back to Belger and the OEP executive team. A network environment does not preclude personal leadership. The most effective performance networks have singular, able leadership that generates trust and support.

Whatever the content, the self-correcting mechanisms of network structures are the communication channels that connect agencies, levels of management, stakeholders, community groups, and customers inside and outside agency boundaries. Continuous dialogue and team feedback strengthen network learning. With dialogue and feedback, the embedded levels of partnerships communicate and coordinate better; when they share proven practices, results soar. Learning jumps the boundaries of space and time. And effective crossboundary structures provide the context, so our most pressing problems can be solved by leaders, teams, and partnerships who know their jobs.