Introduction In this paper, Tactical Edge will bridge the gap between standard Information Technology (IT) Portfolio Management (IT PfM) processes, insights, and capabilities and apply these to the area of Research and Development. Often the task of managing Research and Development (R&D) efforts is seen as wholly separate from broader IT PfM efforts, which are generally more aligned with production IT system management and support. We believe that many of these same tools and techniques may be used within R&D organizations to improve results, reduce costs, and improve collaboration between efforts. In many organizations, R&D projects operate autonomously and only when an effort is close to transition is it viewed as a part of a larger portfolio. Within this paper, Tactical Edge will demonstrate that R&D project oversight and management, when using the proper tools, will improve efforts across the board and provide direct returns for the entire R&D portfolio.

The Challenge with R&D IT alone has never been responsible for a successful government agency, but it can be an enabler which allows an agency to thrive. When aligned properly, IT supports the underlying business mission, and allows employees to perform their jobs faster and with greater accuracy and efficiency. Managing an organization’s IT at an Enterprise level is known as IT PfM.

In the book IT Portfolio Management Step by Step: Unlocking the Business Value of Technology, authors Bryan Maizlish and Robert Handler note that“[t]he goal of an IT portfolio is to deliver measurable business value—tangible and intangible—while aligning and improving the business and IT strategy” (Maizlish & Handler, 2010). But as an organization’s direction changes, newer technologies come to market, and older technologies lose support, the organization needs to reevaluate its IT portfolio to prevent stagnation and unnecessary costs. An active R&D portfolio can be used as a tool to defend against both.

While the DoD has historically invested in R&D, the challenge has been in aligning internal research initiatives across the organization with the direction

Author Steve Palmer, Director, East Coast Operations Megan Gerstenfeld, Senior Systems Engineer

Optimizing your Research and Development Platform The Benefits a Formalizing your Organization’s Research Pipeline

Contents Introduction ........................................................................... 1

The Challenge with R&D .................................................... 1

Solution: .................................................................................... 2

Lifecycle Management ................................................... 2

Oversight and Execution .............................................. 3

Expanded Capabilities ................................................... 4

Conclusion: .............................................................................. 4

References: .............................................................................. 4

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set by senior leadership. As a result, funding is often wasted because of a variety of reasons, including:

1. The DoD continues to fund the wrong projects; investing in projects that are underperforming or proven to be economically unfeasible, while preventing efforts that are providing positive Return on Investment (ROI) from obtaining the funding they require

2. The DoD reinvests in R&D that had previously been attempted, and failed, without accounting for the lessons learned, or

3. Multiple stakeholders with different priorities and agendas pulling a program in multiple directions, instead of identifying a single, well defined objective.

4. Multiple stakeholders attacking similar problems using unique funding streams, causing the government to spend more money to obtain similar capabilities.

5. Failure to identify a transition home up front, keeping successful efforts out of the hands of the government personnel and soldiers who initially spawned the R&D project.

Adopting an enterprise-level portfolio management approach helps to mitigate and manage those risks. This white paper details Tactical Edge’s proposal for how Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Expeditionary Warfare Center (EXWC) can leverage an enterprise-focused plan, and tailor it to fit the organization’s needs. In doing so, this will ensure that projects are managed objectively and comprehensively, and that solutions providing a viable and justifiable path to value are prioritized in spending and other organizational efforts.

Solution: Lifecycle Management

To address the underlying issues identified above requires an IT PfM plan that standardizes the information required to start an R&D project, and provides a set of common metrics that would allow leadership to compare and prioritize various types of IT efforts. The formalized IT PfM process would enable senior leaders to focus their investment in high priority projects that align with leadership’s

direction, which is identified as business value in Figure 1 below.

Pulled from the book IT Portfolio Management Step-by-Step, Figure 1 shows how if programs could be compiled down to a set of standardized metrics, they could then be plotted and compared to each other on a graph. Any programs that would rate low enough on the Risk scale (y-axis), but high enough on the Business Value scale (x-axis), would then be a candidate for funding. The Risk/Reward Relationship line denotes the breakeven line below, with emphasis being given to projects that fall into the “Perform” quadrant. Given the transformational goals of R&D, the Risk/Reward relationship may be may be more steeply sloped, representing investments that deliver higher business value in exchange for the acceptance of more risk.

Projects that are selected then begin the formalized PfM process. This process is made up of milestones and gateways requiring each milestone to be met before proceeding through the next gateway. The milestones ensure that metrics can be captured for comparison purposes, as well as to ensure that progress is adequately tracked and communicated to the appropriate stakeholders. Forcing projects to meet similar milestones provides senior leaders with the ability to track the progress of disparate projects, and compare that progress against each other.

This could be beneficial for SBIR Phase I and Phase II reviews, as officers within the Department of Defense often must compare projects across various subject areas for funding considerations, where the comparisons are not always obvious.

Figure 1: IT Investment Analysis

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As milestones are completed, projects can move between gateways. The gateways are designed to prevent progress until all preconditions are met, and forces senior leadership to acknowledge and communicate the progression across efforts within the portfolio. The progressions through milestones allows the organization to track high level performance metrics about their various projects and performers, and gateways provide built in pivot points for leadership to rewards contracts that are going well, and cut off contracts that are not.

Figure 2 depicts the end-to-end IT PfM process. The process is broken down into three sub-portfolios, each having their own identified set of milestones and gateways. The IT Discovery Portfolio is comprised of all the R&D efforts within the portfolio.

During these initial gateways, a preliminary set of use cases are defined to highlight the capability gaps the technology will address, senior leadership commits to funding streams and identifies the final transition home for the capability, and vendors/technologies attempt build out a solution that can immediately benefit the organization. These development efforts are ranked against each other based on overall business value to the organization, with the top performers moving into the IT Project phase.

Once projects have made it to the IT Project portfolio, the initial business case and value to the organization have been identified. During this stage, a full set of requirements is fully flushed out, and the technology is developed and hardened for

deployment. This process follows the current best practices for Software Development, and at its conclusion, the solution is ready to transition into a production environment. Capabilities in the IT Asset portfolio are all fielded systems, and are managed in a Production environment.

Oversight and Execution

A business does not benefit from data collection, it benefits from the insight that the data may provide. The value of having data comes from how it can be absorbed as information. Visual representation of several aspects of the data enables a broader, more effective understanding of what the data means to the portfolio manager. While no one visualization can provide all the information required to make sound business decisions, a collection of them can provide robust information that is comprehensible at a glance. Tactical Edge has experience taking complex data sets relating to the state of government IT, extracting the useful information, and presenting it to the user in a way that is meaningful.

While supporting the Logistics Vision and Strategy Branch (LPV), Tactical Edge built a dashboard of visualizations so that the Portfolio Managers could understand the full breadth of capabilities the Logistic IT Portfolio encompassed. During a demonstration of the dashboard to the Deputy Section Head, Mr. Grimm stated that he “learned more in 20 minutes from looking at [our] visualizations than [he had] in six months of staring at spreadsheets.”

Figure 3 above uses sample data to recreate some of the visualizations the Tactical Edge team created for LPV that could be repurposed for NAVFAC EXWC.

Figure 3: End to End IT PfM Process Figure 2: Example Dashboard Images

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Expanded Capabilities

Building on the integrated tools, the management and execution of the R&D portfolio gains new capabilities that are currently difficult or impossible to obtain. Although projects may run on varied timelines and have different focuses, the aggregation of project efforts in a single unified system allows for collaboration points to be identified. Increasing awareness of activities, technologies, and experiments between participants and managers creates a new opportunity for collaboration, which in turn increases the value of the R&D portfolio.

Maintaining the various information artifacts and documents created as part of the IT Project Management process is a challenge, and in many cases people turn to email, document repositories, and other non-standard information management techniques. The consolidation of project artifacts, schedules, and other information in a single environment assists in overall portfolio oversight, and ensures that project information is maintained through any leadership or ownership transitions. Consolidation allows analysis of decisions made during the R&D process, driving future investment decisions. In many cases, simply understanding the intent of an effort, finding relevant project documentation, and tracking key milestones is executed in an ad-hoc manner. Through the use of this methodology, the overall effort is consistent, knowledge is managed, and the effort is secure in the event of planned or unplanned transitions.

Conclusion: In an environment where senior leadership demands increased capabilities while shrinking budgets are becoming the norm, government officials must be more careful now than ever before where they choose to invest their funding. Add to it the fact that the IT infrastructure employed by the DoD is aging and the increased scrutiny brought on by an always-connected community, and it becomes obvious that a mature IT Portfolio Management strategy is the only way to gracefully replace outdated technology with new capabilities in a timely and cost effective manner.

As Tactical Edge has done extensive work with Headquarters Marine Corps helping them understand

their Logistics IT Portfolio, the team recommends reaching out to the Logistics IT Portfolio lead is Mr. Andrew Schaffer to get a government official’s perspective on the value of a formal IT PfM process. Mr. Schaffer can be reached by email at andrew.schaffer@usmc.mil.

As it was discussed above, many of the visualizations that were built for LPV could be repurposed for NAVFAC EXWC. If it would be helpful, Tactical Edge can provide a demonstration of these visualizations using test data. A demonstration would provide an opportunity to showcase some of the functionality not pictured, and help the team brainstorm an initial set of requirements that could be developed and turned over within a 6-month timeframe.

As this initial effort would be small and specific in scope, funding could be allocated using Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) Part 13 – Simplified Acquisition Procedures and FAR 19.14 – Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business Procurement Program. This would allow NAVFAC EXWC to bring on Tactical Edge to quickly build the prototype, and ensure the program fits well.

To schedule a demonstration, please reach out to Steve Palmer, Director of East Coast Operations at steve.palmer@tacticaledge.us.

References: Maizlish, B., & Handler, R. (2010). IT (Information

Technology) Portfolio Management Step-by-Step: Unlocking the Business Value of Technology. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.