The framework is made up of three parts with three assessment issues in each part.
- Assessment Issue 1: Has the Agency Reassessed Its Mission and Strategic Goals?
- Assessment Issue 2: Has the Agency Identified Performance Problems and Set Improvement Goals?
- Assessment Issue 3: Should the Agency Engage in Reengineering?
- Assessment Issue 4: Is the Reengineering Project Appropriately Managed?
- Assessment Issue 5: Has the Project Team Analyzed the Target Process and Developed Feasible Alternatives?
- Assessment Issue 6: Has the Project Team Completed a Sound Business Case for Implementing the New Process?
- Assessment Issue 7: Is the Agency Following a Comprehensive Implementation Plan?
- Assessment Issue 8: Are Agency Executives Addressing Change Management Issues?
- Assessment Issue 9: Is the New Process Achieving the Desired Results?
Federal agencies are under increased pressure to perform better with fewer resources. The impetus to improve comes from (1) recognition that agency budgets cannot continue to grow like they have in the past and (2) legislation--specifically, GPRA and the Clinger-Cohen Act. These laws focus on analyzing missions, assessing agencies' performance, revising processes, and achieving results. Measuring how well the agency's core business processes perform in terms of cost, quality, and timeliness in serving customers helps the agency prioritize areas for improvement, decide whether reengineering is in order, and make a compelling argument for investing time and resources in redesigning a process to achieve better results. The issues, activities, and questions discussed in this section are intended to help evaluators assess an agency's decision to pursue reengineering as a means of bringing about major improvements in performance.
The previous sections focused on the agency's decision to embark on a reengineering project. The following sections highlight the activities involved in designing a new process. These focus on establishing a well-managed team to analyze the existing process, design possible alternatives, and determine the benefits, costs, and risks of each. After completing these activities, agency executives and the reengineering team should have a solid basis for selecting an alternative process and preparing a well-documented business case for implementing it.
Implementation is the most difficult phase of the reengineering project. Ideas are turned into actions, and the agency's natural resistance to change must be overcome. The following sections highlight the kinds of activities that the agency should pursue to ensure a reasonable transition to the new process; manage the human and technical issues surrounding implementation of the new process; and assess the results of its reengineering effort. This section also stresses the importance of ongoing performance measurement and feedback to continually improve the new process once it is in place.