Pursuit of Excellence

This fourth blog is dedicated to the topic of excellence. By now you have heard me stress at staff meetings and at our director’s management reviews that we, as a team, should strive to better communicate our plans and needs. We need to set clear expectations and relay these plans to our customers and stakeholders. We need to pay attention to detail in our planning products, reports, and other documentation to make sure they are error free and consistent with Agency policies and direction. Our goal should be to pro-actively address issues so that our working relationships, internally and externally, are developed and maintained in an environment of trust. Perhaps you remember our push for continuous improvement, in which we are dedicating our organization to improve our processes to provide value added to the Agency’s investment in independent programmatic assessment. Our goal is to help define and implement a holistic programmatic analysis capability that fully integrates elements of technical, cost, schedule and risk. IPAO is becoming further challenged to better adjust to the scope of work we are chartered to perform across the Agency and to provide enhanced recruitment opportunities to a broader spectrum of talent from the field centers.

All of these are part of our drive for excellence. In my view, our office is more than capable of achieving excellence, and as you can see from the examples that I mentioned above, we are well on our way. Why drive for excellence? The answer is simple – the Agency deserves no less for the important role we have been entrusted. We have a strong foundation to build upon. Remember excellence requires an extra effort. In my view, excellence is achieved by a vibrant organization whose products, at all levels, are known for their quality. It is an organization that is trusted as a willing partner in achieving the Agency’s goals; and in our case, an organization that is trusted to be a competent, objective, and fair assessor in all our engagements. This is a high bar but one that we can certainly achieve!

I know you all want to be part of such an organization. As we continue moving forward, your support and dedication will be a key enabler. As always, let me hear what you think.

James Ortiz
Director (acting) IPAO

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