This text file was formatted by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. Every attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as alternative text descriptions for graphic images, are provided but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this document to Webmaster@gao.gov. Strategic Objective: Continuously Improve GAO's Business and Management Processes. Issue: GAO, as the federal government's accountability organization, evaluates the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of a wide range of federal policies and programs to assist the Congress for the benefit of the American people. By continuously assessing and improving its products, as well as its business and managerial processes, GAO can determine whether the organization's operations are aligned with its strategic direction and comply with applicable professional standards in the conduct of its work. Performance Goals: To support the objective to continuously improve its business and management processes, GAO will: * improve internal business and administrative processes, * improve GAO's product and service lines to better meet client needs, and * improve GAO's job management processes. Process Improvement: Improve Internal Business and Administrative Processes. Key Efforts: * Identify best practices and processes used by other client-focused organizations in carrying out key business functions and develop plans to replicate them in GAO, where appropriate, * Develop a framework for identifying priorities for incremental process improvement and business process reengineering efforts on the basis of staff concerns, client needs, and best practices of other organizations, * Undertake high-priority incremental improvement and business reengineering efforts using matrixed teams, * Assess business and administrative processes to determine if alternative means of delivering services or products would be more efficient or effective, * Develop guidelines and provide tools for obtaining products and services and make them available to staff, * Develop appropriate mechanisms to measure and assess customer satisfaction with products and services. Significance: Over the past year, GAO embarked on a major organizational restructuring to better align mission support services with the realigned priorities of its mission work. Essentially, the new structure provides for most administrative mission support functions to be furnished by centrally aligned units. Now that the structure and the people are in place, GAO needs to focus management attention to reengineering and streamlining these internal business and administrative processes. Services already identified for reengineering include travel, performance management, time and attendance reporting, personnel processing, and compensation systems. These efforts should enable GAO's mission support systems to respond to the mission requirements of the agency's internal customers to deliver high-quality products and services to GAO's clients. Potential Outcomes: Improved internal business and administrative processes, More efficient and cost-saving delivery of internal services, Improved satisfaction with products and services, Support services that enable staff to perform work that meets the needs of the Congress and facilitates improvements in government. Process Improvement: Improve GAO's Product and Service Lines to Better Meet Client Needs. Key Efforts: * Benchmark GAO products, services, and processes against high- performing organizations to identify areas for improvement, * Work with the client to identify appropriate media for communicating GAO's work results, * Establish a systematic process to act on client feedback to improve products, services, and processes, * Continue to assess and improve the report production process. Significance: To better meet the needs of its clients, GAO needs to update its product and service lines to incorporate changing client requirements and evolving technologies. GAO also needs to establish a systematic process to routinely act on client feedback so that future products will continue to be responsive to client needs. Potential Outcomes: An improved report production process, Products that better communicate GAO's work results to the client, Improved quality and timeliness of GAO's work products to better serve the needs of the Congress and the American people. Process Improvement: Improve GAO's Job Management Processes. Key Efforts: * Evaluate the effectiveness of GAO's risk management approach to designing engagements and developing quality products, * Identify and prioritize incremental process improvements or reengineering efforts related to the job management process on the basis of staff concerns, client needs, and best practices of other organizations. Significance: GAO needs to continue to reengineer its job management processes to respond to changing needs of its clients and to enhance the timeliness and cost of its services. To further improve on the delivery and quality of GAO's products, the agency instituted risk management approaches and enhanced report production techniques to ensure senior management involvement in key efforts. However, the effectiveness of these techniques must be evaluated to guarantee that GAO is responsive to client needs, to identify opportunities to reduce administrative burdens on the agency, and to communicate the results of GAO's work in an efficient and timely manner. Potential Outcomes: Job management processes that reduce administrative burden, Job management processes that reduce time and cost for meeting client needs, Enhanced quality and timeliness of GAO's work products.