Petze.lara

NPR 7120.7 Enhancements and Agency IT Governance Impacts

Lara Petze

February 10, 2010

Agenda

• Background• NPR 7120.7* Modifications Under Consideration–Project baselining and rebaselining–Standard Level 2 Work Breakdown Structure

(WBS)–Criteria for projects to be subject to NPR 7120.7

• I-Tools• Summary

* NPR 7120.7, NASA Information Technology and Institutional Infrastructure Program and ProjectManagement Requirements 2

Project Baselining And RebaseliningProject Baselining And Rebaselining

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Background

NPR 7120.7 identifies four types of IT and institutional infrastructure investments:

– Information Technology (IT)– Construction of Facilities (CoF)– Environmental Compliance and Restoration (ECR)– Other Mission Support Investments (OMSI)

This briefing addresses IT investments only

The updates that we are discussing today are in draft only, and must be reviewed via the Agency’s policy approval process

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Background

NPR 7120.7, Information Technology and Institutional Infrastructure Program and Project Management Requirements, was issued in November 2008

New requirements and Agency experience with using NPR 7120.7 has resulted in the need for modifications in several significant areas

OCIO continually identifies candidate changes to NPR 7120.7 to advance the success of the Agency’s IT programs and projects

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Project Baselining and Rebaselining Background

Currently NPR 7120.7 addresses baselining (at Key Decision Point (KDP)-C) but does not discuss changes to elements of the baseline that may occur during the project’s implementation

As an Agency, we recognize the need to issue policy on rebaselining of IT projects to manage cost, schedule, and scope changes

NASA has accepted Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendation that we develop a rebaselining policy for IT projects

OMB has issued policy direction (M-10-27) regarding development of agency IT investment baseline management policies

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• Baseline - an agreed-to set of requirements, cost, schedule, designs, documents, etc. that will have changes controlled through a formal approval and monitoring process as defined by NPR 7120.7

• Re-baseline - the process by which a project formally updates or modifies the project baseline as a result of any approved change to the project’s schedule, cost, or deliverable content

• Re-baseline may result from

1. the baseline documented at KDP-C as defined in NPR 7120.7, or

2. the current baseline that was subsequently approved via the rebaselining process.

Project Baselining and Rebaselining Definitions

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NPR 7120.7 IT Project Lifecycle

NASA decides at each KDP whether the project should move to the next life-cycle phase 8

Project Rebaselining Steps

• Determining when a rebaseline is warranted for consideration

• Developing the proposed new baseline

• Validating the proposed new baseline

• Review and Approval by management of the proposed new baseline

• Documenting rebaselining decisions

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Determining When a Rebaseline is Warranted for Consideration: OMB

Direction

Acceptable reasons for rebaselining include: » Significant change in investment goals (scope, requirements, objectives)

resulting from internal or external management decisions, or changes in funding level or availability of funds (e.g. extended continuing resolution), or contracting (including contractual protests)

» In the case where an incremental or iterative system development and planning lifecycle has been chosen for the investment, progressive elaboration may be necessary when transitioning from one iteration or increment to the next, as scope and objectives evolve. Such rapid evolution inherent to iterative development shall be approved by the Agency CIO.

» Current baseline is no longer useful as a management tool for realistic performance measurement as variances are so high that they lose meaning

Issue: how/whether to specify in policy magnitude of variances that will trigger rebaselining

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Cost»If the project’s cost estimate at completion exceeds the

current baseline by 10% or more (is this too low??)  Schedule»If the project’s schedule estimate at completion exceeds

the current baseline by 10% or more (is this too restrictive??)»If a KDP is forecast to slip by more than 45 days (is this too

restrictive)

Project Rebaselining Thresholds We Are Considering

Many of our IT projects are of relatively low cost and of relatively short duration!

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Project Rebaselining Thresholds We Are Considering

Scope» If the project or the customer proposes to add or modify

functional requirements that would result in changes that exceed the cost and schedule thresholds noted above, or

» If the project or the customer proposes to defer or eliminate functional requirements determined by the customer to be significant, even if the current cost or schedule baselines are not affected

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Project Rebaselining Thresholds We Are Considering

Program Managers» If a Program Manager imposes more stringent or additional

rebaselining thresholds on a project» If a Program Manager deems it appropriate to reduce or remove the

thresholds (waiver required) Agency IT Program Management Board (PMB)» If the IT PMB recommends to the NASA CIO thresholds that differ from

those detailed in this document (and the CIO accepts the recommendation)

The Agency IT PMB is the Governing Body that makes recommendations to the NASA CIO at each KDP whether a project should move forward to the next life cycle phase

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Standard Level 2 Work Breakdown Structure

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Standard Level 2 WBS Background

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) defined:(NASA WBS Handbook, January 2010)

– A product-oriented hierarchical division of the hardware, software, services, and other work tasks that organizes, displays, and defines the products to be developed and/or produced and relates the elements of the work to be accomplished to each other and the end product(s) . The WBS should be accompanied by a text document referred to as a WBS Dictionary that describes the work content each element of the WBS in detail.

The Standard Level 2 WBS policy will address:

– NASA’s need, as an Agency, for a standard level 2 WBS for IT– Recommendations from GAO, “GAO Report 10-2; Information Technology; Agencies Need to

Improve the Implementation and use of Earned Value Techniques to Help Manage Major System Acquisitions; October 2009”

Good characteristics of a WBS (per GAO, and we agree):– Applies to the entire life cycle of the project.– Ensures that changes to the WBS be governed– Establishes a product-oriented WBS to allow a project to track cost and schedule by defined

deliverables

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Standard Level 2 WBS For IT Projects: Business Rules

• Project name is WBS Level 1• Title of each WBS Level 2 element can be modified to facilitate

project-unique titles, but the content of each must remain the same• Additional WBS elements may be added horizontally as long as the

content does not fit into the content of any existing standard WBS element

• WBS Level 3 elements, Level 2 subordinate (children), are determined by the project

• Level 3 and lower elements may differ from project to project and must include only work that rolls up into the standard WBS Dictionary definition of the Level 2 element

• An inactive placeholder element (and inactive placeholder financial code) will be established if no work fits into a standard WBS element

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NPR 7120.5 Level 2 WBS

Space Flight Projects

WBS

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NPR 7120.8 Level 2 WBS

Research & Technology

Portfolio Project WBS

Technology Development

Project WBS

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NPR 7120.7 Level 2 WBS*

Information Technology

Project WBS

* Courtesy of Kenneth Poole, MSFC

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Standard Level 2 WBS Benefits

Facilitates planning and control of cost, schedule and technical content

Unifies the technical and financial structures of a project Enables Project Manager to identify which components are

causing cost and/or schedule overruns and mitigate the root cause(s) of the overrun

Eliminates the need for Project Managers to create their own Level 2 WBS

Enables Earned Value Management for IT projects Improves financial reporting/tracking across projects

We are considering extending the standard WBS to level 3but need more discussion within the Agency before doing so

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Criteria for Projects to be Subject to NPR 7120.7

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Criteria for Projects to be Subject to NPR 7120.7

Current criteria»New systems/capabilities: $500K or greater total

development and implementation cost or affects more than one Center

»Modification to or enhancement of existing IT systems or capabilities: $500K or greater total modification/enhancement cost, regardless of how many Centers are affected.

»The NASA/ Center CIO deems that the NPR will apply (requires consultation with sponsoring organization)

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Criteria for Projects to be Subject to NPR 7120.7

Issues with current criteria» Projects with modest budgets may have trouble meeting all the

NPR requirements without submitting substantial waivers» Projects with short durations may have trouble accommodating all

the required reviews without submitting substantial waivers» The Agency and Center IT PMBs (Governing Bodies overseeing

projects) may not have bandwidth to conduct all the required reviews

We plan to work with NPR 7120.7 stakeholders to come to agreement on whether the current criteria should be modified

One possibility is to create tiers of requirements corresponding to project size/risk/importance/etc.

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I-Tools

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Summary

Continual Improvement - the Agency OCIO continually identifies, solicits, and implements modifications to our policies to advance the success of the Agency’s IT programs and projects

Alignment – the Agency OCIO strives to align IT policies and procedures with our Human Space Flight (NPR 7120.5) and Research and Technology (NPR 7120.8) program/project management policies to maintain consistency across NASA

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Questions/Discussion?

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