It was pointed out that many TSW folks read on their phones and my screenshot yesterday was too tiny to read. I think it’s important as it gives some historical context for some of the changes the current Admin is trying to make.
Also, there are many new people signing up to TSW, so I thought I’d mention that there was a massive effort in 2007 (almost 20 years ago now) with various hard-working and thoughtful internal teams that dealt with some of the same (long-standing) issues. Some units took it seriously.. and changed their structure. Others waited and hoped it would pass and sure enough it did. Reducing RO’s was a thing; I think one alternative was to get down to three. Certainly it’s a larger step to go from three to zero, but the trajectory is not out of line with past internally-generated ideas of how to improve.
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I was trying to find documentation of Transformation and did find some (in the attic of one Kathy Kurtz, many thanks to her!). Other folks contacted me and said that they had saved some, but wouldn’t let it go without FS approval. I tried to contact the FS historian, but they either didn’t exist or wouldn’t return my messages. So if you know who that person is, or if that’s the right person to talk to, please let me know as I asked the National Museum and the Forest History Society and they both were very light on organizational improvement documents.
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Anyway, here’s that page of my 2007 comments. I fixed some spelling and spelling but not the tone. Like I said yesterday, this was probably a first draft and got toned down before it went anywhere. Background “TOS” is Transfer of Station, “Rosslyn leases” are for an office building (at least one) in Virginia across the river from DC. I italicized the pieces that the FS is still apparently dealing with.
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- Are there any key areas deserving extra focus and evaluation as a part of this transformation effort?
- Human Capital Management should be on the table in the Transformation process.
- Specialists of all kinds in terms of project and broader scale planning – we need them but how many do we need and can we share better and actually have higher quality available at a lower cost?
- When can people work from wherever and when it is important that they be together? Our organization seems to be unclear on this and makes different decisions at different points in time before we spend beaucoup bucks on TOS shouldn’t we have a corporate principle about this?
- There is so much change going on right now. How does it all fit together and when will it stop? The agency as a whole may be at a breaking point in so far as continual change is concerned. There is a perception at the upper levels of the Agency that the field is resistant to change, while in fact change has been continuous. The agency has gone from a predominately timber focused organization to one focusing on fire ecology and management, a very significant change.
- The Agency as an organization is not functioning well.
- The Charter says we will leverage new technology but we have not been able to do so. For example, we cannot pay our bills on time.
- Many Forest Service organizations have undergone efficiency changes. Don’t penalize those organizations that have already made efficiency changes.
- The Case for Change in the Charter is written defensively and needs to be written with a positive focus such as:
- We want to be able to do our mission better, here are some reform ideas.
- Need to explain the origin of the Case for Change
- Rosslyn leases were up and an opportunity to operate more efficiently became apparent.
- The Regional Foresters agreed to being able to deliver an extra million dollars in funding to each National Forest. This later became a 25% reduction in WO/RO funding.
- In the Charter Key points it says, “Leverage the capacity of the Agency’s centralized business operations services in Albuquerque.”
- Albuquerque has not been a success. There is not any capacity in Albuquerque to be leveraged and they have not been able to deliver what has been asked of them.
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To be fair, I would think ASC has improved since those earlier days. Point being, I don’t think it’s fair to characterize all the Reorg ideas as by the current Admin. A Trump Admin was not a gleam in anyone’s eye in 2007. Also it downplays the hard work and deep thinking of the career folks who worked earnestly in 2007, and those who have worked on the current effort. It’s not easy or popular work- to make government work better- you could even say “thankless” .. but some of us appreciate those folks.