Managing non-technical projects in the Central Intelligence Agency

Introduction

This paper describes a new and comprehensive approach to integrating project management principles and practices into non-technical projects. This approach has helped improve mission executions and outcomes in projects that range from updating the on-boarding process for new Agency employees to recruiting agents, to establishing a forward operation base (FOB).

Typically, Agency project management courses have focused on how to manage technical projects in the fields of science and technology, information technology, and facilities. As a result of that focus, the value of using established project management principles and practices on non-technical projects has been lost. In addition, the variety of operating environments within the Agency has often made it difficult to consistently apply the principles taught in the classic project management courses.

To address these situations, courses were developed that present project management as it is applied in non-technical Agency projects. Course content was tailored, and examples of projects in the Washington metropolitan area, overseas, war zones, and special (classified) environments were used to illustrate project management principles. The program was designed to include at least three types of instruction: general non-technical training, training for a specific discipline (human resources, logistics, etc.), and project team training (i.e., improving the Agency’s on-boarding process).

It was planned that instruction would not be restricted to the classroom. Post-course assistance is now provided to link learning to students’ actual, and often geographically distributed, operating environments. Course concepts are reinforced through just-in-time performance support tools that include a help desk and a comprehensive website that contains an information repository with collaboration tools, real-time consulting, FAQs, lessons learned, and exemplars.

The program has been exceptionally well received and has evolved from a single course for a non-technical career service with a few hundred officers, to a multiple-course program run at the directorate level that has trained over 1,000 officers over the past 2½ years. The program continues to expand and is now expanding to other directorates.

Abstract

In the government, as in any large organization, many people provide a wide range of non-technical support for programs, projects, and other activities. In the CIA, most of these individuals provide important support functions that allow field officers to do their jobs; their areas of specialty include communications, facilities, budget and finance, acquisition, human resources, medical support, and logistics. The current Agency project management and system engineering curricula do not seem relevant and applicable to these professionals because they work in non-technical operation environments, and the traditional project management programs have been geared toward technical project management.

Although the CIA University has had a formal project management training and certification program in place since 2004, it was primarily targeted to scientists, engineers, and IT professionals. It soon became apparent that the non-technical staff members who were considered to be more “incidental or accidental project managers” also needed to learn how to apply basic project management fundamentals to their day-to-day activities in order to accomplish their work more successfully.

An internal assessment, conducted in 2007, indicated that some officers, particularly those in the field, often did not feel project management would work in their operating environments, whereas others recognized the need for project management but were uncertain how and if project management principles, practices, and tools could be effectively integrated into their volatile work environment. The challenge for a “non-technical” project management program was to show that it does apply, and that project management principles and practices will significantly improve mission efficiency, effectiveness, and overall mission outcome. This will address comments, such as, “I do not have time to plan, only to react,” and “The project management structure gets in the way of doing my job,” or “My manager doesn’t care how I get it done, only that I do get it done.”

This paper will describe both the Agency’s updated and evolving project management certification and training program and the on-going effort to establish a project management program and culture aimed at meeting the non-technical community’s needs.

Overview of the CIA

As illustrated in Exhibit 1, the CIA is made up of multiple directorates. Each directorate has a distinct, but vital role in accomplishing the Agency’s mission. These differences create challenges for establishing an Agency-wide project management environment.

Exhibit 1 – CIA Organizational Chart

• The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) serves as the head of the Intelligence Community (IC), overseeing and directing the implementation of the National Intelligence Program and acting as the principal advisor to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to national security.
• National Clandestine Service (NCS) - The clandestine arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
• Directorate of Intelligence (DI) – Provides timely, accurate, and objective intelligence analyses on a full range of national security and foreign policy issues to the President, cabinet, and senior policymakers in the U.S. government.
• Directorate of Science and Technology (DST) - Develops, adapts, deploys, and operates technical solutions and applies technologies to the collection, processing, and analysis of intelligence-related information.
• Open Source Center (OSC) – Responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating open source information (such as all publicly available information, from the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial data, photos, and commercial imagery) government-wide, and transforming that information into intelligence data to be used by those who make and support U.S. policy. OSC activities constitute the core of the Intelligence Community’s efforts.
• Directorate of Support (DS) - Provides a full range of mission-focused support services to the CIA that include: building and operational facilities, robust and secure communications over multiple networks; acquiring and shipping critical equipment, securing our buildings, people, data, and networks; and managing the “businesses” within CIA (contracts, financial services, administrative support, HR, communications, etc).
• Chief Acquisition Officer (CAO) - Owns the overall acquisition process and strategy, including acquisition, project management, and Systems Engineering integration and training

Within this structure, some organizations, such as the DST, DS/Facilities and DS/IT, have formal project management occupations and positions. Others, such as the NCS, DI, Open Source Center and many of the remaining DS functional areas have numerous non-technical project managers who perform project management as one component of their jobs.

Officers and managers across the Agency have acknowledged a need for a project management culture in which project management is more than just tools, control gates, and documentation; they want to look at project management as a way of thinking with a common terminology and as a community of practice that works for their own professional career service goals and competencies.

Problem Definition

Throughout their careers, Agency officers are asked to fulfill different functional roles in order to accomplish the Agency’s mission. Consequently, highly qualified individuals can be assigned to important project management roles without the training or tools to effectively or efficiently manage their projects. These incidental project managers (IPMs) typically have successful backgrounds in other professional disciplines but many have little project management experience and no intention of making project management a career.

The currently available training has not been particularly helpful to IPMs. Current training focuses on technical projects, is often difficult to adapt to non-technical projects, and has a somewhat narrow view of what project management really is. The situation is complicated by the fact that many non-technical projects are not currently recognized as projects by the IPMs or their organizations, and therefore project management principles are not being used on those projects.

The Agency needs a new centralized approach to managing non-technical projects.

Current Situation

Most Agency personnel are assigned projects in addition to their normal jobs and activities and often receive no additional administrative or project management support and little to no project management training. The current technical focus of Agency project management training can leave those who deal specifically with non-technical projects feeling overwhelmed. Non-technical project managers feel that the material does not apply to their environment and that the training is not in their “own language.” The result of this lack of appropriately focused training is that often, non-technical projects are neither planned nor executed effectively and efficiently. Instead, results are accomplished through the “heroics” of the IPM.

This situation further leads to a lack of lessons learned and collaboration, so each IPM ends up “re-inventing the wheel” from project to project. The collaboration tools and current information repositories either overwhelm users with technical information, are not easily accessible, or are lacking all together, which reinforces the feeling that each project is being done for the first time without any point of reference.

However, as the saying goes, “every cloud has a silver lining.” Several internal, senior-level managers have become champions for the creation of a better approach to meeting non-technical mission objectives through improved project management. In response to the need for training, and with managerial support, a two-day course targeted toward support officers was created in 2007 and was added to the overall Agency project management curriculum. The success of this course has been the catalyst for a much broader project management program that will meet the project management needs of all CIA officers from the time they start working for the Agency.

Desired Situation

The desired project management culture is one in which non-technical projects are fostered, lessons learned are developed and shared, and personnel speak a common cultural language about the project environment. The culture will span the personnel spectrum, will be utilized at all levels, and will be reinforced and supported by senior and middle managers. Agency officers will receive training that speaks to them in non-technical language and is application oriented. They will learn about practical tools rather than the theory already given in many of the other classes; a website with a set of online, accessible collaboration tools, examples, and templates will be available to them for on-the-job use. These tools will allow officers to share processes, projects, and lessons learned. The tools will also encourage officers to use the past experiences of others and apply them to their own projects, which will reduce the information losses that occur when personnel rotate from station to station, in order to further their experiential learning.

Vision and Mission

Creating a new project management culture that included both technical and non-technical components required careful planning. We needed to clearly understand who we were and what we wanted to accomplish. In addition, we needed to consider the needs of the Agency’s directorates and the types of project management activities that occurred in each one. With that in mind, we created a vision and mission statement to help communicate what was to be done. This statement was a communication tool for our stakeholders and served to keep the organization focused on the fact that our purpose was not to replace current project management training, but to support and enhance it.

Our Vision and Mission were:

• Vision: Develop a program management culture within the non-technical project management career services to significantly improve the execution of non-technical projects in direct support of the Agency’s mission.
• Mission: Establish an integrated project management training and life cycle project management development program that begins when the support officer enters the career service and continues throughout his or her career. Develop project management principles, processes, procedures, and tools for project managers that will become a routine way of doing business, within the DS career service and potentially beyond the Agency. Significantly enhance project execution by achieving the right mission solution, when needed and within planned resources, using internalized (ingrained) project management principles and concepts.

Goals and Objectives

We also developed a set of program goals and objectives to help us achieve our mission and vision. The goals were challenging but were championed by a few senior managers, who strongly supported the development team in the execution of the following goals and objectives.

Goal 1 - Plan an “Incidental” Project Management (IPM) program for the DS career service that focuses on improving core program management knowledge, skills, and project execution on non-technical projects that directly support the Agency-wide mission.

Objectives

• Develop IPM fundamentals (level 1) and journeyman (level 2) courses
• Develop IPM course for executives
• Develop project management competencies that align with Agency and ODNI guidelines

Goal 2 - Deliver training that significantly improves non-technical project management using a wide range of instructional delivery methods for both domestic and overseas environments by leveraging existing Agency project management processes, procedures, training courses, IT capabilities, and organizational structures.

Objectives

• Develop a generic and discipline-specific IPM curriculum
• Tailor IPM courses for Agency offices in the Washington, DC area and overseas
• Develop blended-learning and computer based training (CBT) versions of the course materials for non-technical project managers

Goal 3 - Develop an on-line project management information repository, collaboration tools, and help desk capability to support geographically distributed DS project managers in meeting or exceeding mission requirements, customer expectations, and timely delivery within or under budget.

Objectives

• Develop real-time information and collaboration website templates, best practices, FAQs, and so forth.
• Develop courses for post-training collaborative feedback and mutual support

Goal 4 - Develop a project support team to assist incidental project managers throughout a project’s life cycle in order to enhance the DS career program management culture.

Objectives

• Develop a virtual project management “help desk” to provide post-course assistance and information
• Develop an “IPM Tiger Team” capable of providing on-site and on-call support, consulting, and coaching to domestic and overseas support officers

Program Characteristics

The resulting program has two special characteristics. First, it focuses on service and result-oriented projects, not on projects centered on a specific product or system rollout. Secondly, it simultaneously addresses two audiences: new non-technical project managers and experienced non-technical project managers. The new project managers learn about project management responsibilities and how to apply project management tools and techniques prior to assuming their project management responsibilities. The experienced project managers receive exposure to instruments, such as collaborative tools and performance reviews.

To achieve these characteristics, the program is approached from three different, but integrated perspectives: 1) the culture and organizational mindset, 2) life-cycle applicability, and 3) managerial support, as illustrated in Exhibit 2.

Exhibit 2 – Project Management Culture

The Culture and Organizational Mindset - Moving program participants away from the mindset of not viewing their work as projects, to one of thinking from a larger project-based perspective, is important. This shift in thinking requires that participants stop viewing everything from what was going to be delivered (the hard skills) but also how it was going to be delivered and by whom (leveraging soft skills.) By using simple examples, such as taking a cross-country trip with the family, VIP visits in foreign countries, facility renovations, and specialized white papers and reports, the program emphasizes that project management is more a common-sense approach to thinking through how something should be accomplished. Participants often approach many of their projects with the attitude of “I don’t have time to plan,” seeing the planning and initiating steps as bureaucratic, and oftentimes, intensive steps taking up precious time without producing immediate and tangible results.

Showing Life-Cycle Applicability - With the overall environment and culture, the “value proposition” is always a consideration. This program focuses on the WIIFM factor (or “What’s in it for me?”) of how participants can use materials in their own working environments. We focus on applicability. Theory is taught and discussed but it is constantly intertwined with application in the officer’s environment.

The incorporation of actual field-based case studies is a key design concept for the entire program. Those studies take the material from theory to on-the-job application that is quickly and readily understood through common experiences. Some of the actual case studies include:

• A mission-critical upgrade to an information technology (IT) system at a 24-hour, 7-days per week, overseas operational site that required the coordination of many geographically dispersed stakeholders.
• An unanticipated VIP visit to a secure site that included managing all aspects of the visit to maintaining the safety and well-being of the personnel visiting, while still achieving operational mission objectives.
• An emergency evacuation from a remote overseas facility during an emergency crisis.
• Making significant revisions to the Agency new-hire orientation and on-boarding process

The field-based case studies and the project templates are used by officers who work in a variety of locations. Case studies, templates, checklists, and other tools are available via an internal website and are supported by a help desk. The website allows officer’s access to the same tools and templates no matter where they are located.

These tools can also be used to capture lessons learned from various projects and programs throughout the Agency. In fact, many of the developed templates were created by those in the field or rotating through assignments and then validated by senior management to ensure buy-in.

Senior Management Support - Senior management support is secured and validated throughout all aspects of the program. Senior management input is used for the identification of appropriate projects, case studies, and tools. Managers and key stakeholders are kept involved throughout the program, including the integration of training into conferences and taking the course into the field to ensure maximum coverage of officers that would normally not receive the training. The IPM program would not have succeeded without the vision and support of a few senior and executive managers. The support included finding funds in austere budget environment, on-going communications with key stakeholders, dealing with change management challenges, delegating, and trusting their IPM development team, always being willing to get involved, when asked, and last by not least, watching the back of the IPM team.

Non-Technical Project Managers and Project Management Certification

The non-technical project management program has now “come in from the cold” and has moved into the Agency’s PM/COTR Certification & Management Model (PM Model) as equal partner with the technical domains, facilities, IT systems, and science and technology. The Federal Acquisition Institute’s (FAI) project management areas of focus and associated competencies were used as the framework for the PM Model development. Using the FAI competency framework, ODNI and CIA specific project management competencies were built into the PM Model in order to facilitate the transferability of project management certification across the community.

Furthermore, the concept of “learning through application” is now the centerpiece of project management certification. Certification is no longer obtained by passing a fact-based test but is a result of demonstrating a mix of training, experience, and observed project management performance. The PM Model, effective 1 October 2009, requires “training or equivalent competencies.” Project managers are not required to take training courses if they have the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform at the certification level for which they are applying. To support this concept, project management competencies have been developed by level as a framework for relating competencies to training courses. A PM/COTR Training Standards Sub-group has been established to assess project management competencies for individual courses.

It should be noted that project management and system engineering are now the responsibilities of the following:

 1) Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum for Chief Acquisition Officers (CAO), dated April 25, 2007 – The Office of Federal Procurement Policy announced the establishment of a structured development program for program and project managers. The rationale for this policy was that well-trained and experienced program and project managers are critical to the acquisition process and the successful accomplishment of mission goals.

2) The Chief Acquisition Officer Established a Professional Certification Council – The council represents all Agency directorates; their function is to recommend a certification process, standards, and procedures for Contract Officer’s Technical Representative (COTRs) and project managers. In addition, certification authority has been delegated by the Chief Acquisition Officer (CAO) to office directors or heads of independent offices. The project management certification process begins with the individual requesting certification and includes specific documentation of training, experience, and examples of previously demonstrated performance. The application is forwarded to the first-line supervisor for review, validation, and concurrence/non-concurrence, including the individual’s current ability to manage projects at the level requested. The application is forwarded to the individual career board for concurrence. Throughout the process, feedback and evaluation occur as parts of the annual performance review cycle and the career progression board process. This process is applicable throughout an employee’s career.

3) The Agency Developed a Comprehensive Project Management and COTR Certification Process – The Agency’s project management certification process has changed significantly and is currently based on training, experience, and demonstrated performance. The training also integrates both hard and soft skills into the project management training program, which are application based, in lieu of content based. The five core training areas for project management certification are:

1. Core project management principles
2. Domain specific (IT, facilities, science and technology, and non-technical)
3. Acquisition
4. Leadership
5. Business, finances, cost estimating, and earned value

Each of the three project management certification levels (basic, intermediate, and advanced) requires the identified hours of training or equivalent competencies.

Exhibit 4 lists the required number of hours of training required in each of the five core training areas.

Exhibit 3 – Project Management Certification and Training Requirements

Program Design

The program focuses on the common-sense aspects of project management application and is structured around developing skills that can be directly and immediately transferred to the workplace and then built on throughout a career. The program is designed to evolve as the role of the non-technical project manager evolves.

To ensure that participants receive transferable usable skills, the program design is tied to the typical Agency career development life cycle, as illustrated in Exhibit 5.

Exhibit 4 – Career Development Life Cycle

• Individual competencies – What do Agency employees need to know? When in their professional development do they need to know it? And how much do they need to know in order to fully understand and be able to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities? While working with their functional managers, employees determine their specific competency requirements for the position.
• Project management training – Based on the individual’s position and job requirements, what level of training should be required—ranging from the fundamentals for new hires, progressing through intermediate level training, then to more advanced or expert level training for more senior and experienced personnel?
• Application and mission-oriented outcomes – Being able to fully perform on the job at the appropriate level. Application includes not only job performance, but being able to demonstrate those skills and abilities through measurable outcomes and results. Application also includes the ability to coach and mentor junior and less experienced members.
• Performance appraisal – Providing performance-related feedback and setting professional development goals as parts of the performance review process. Championed by senior managers, a positive feature of this design component is the recognition of members for their use of project management to improve project performance and stakeholder management. Project management competencies are an integral performance criterion for annual performance reviews.

A blended-learning and experiential-learning approach is utilized throughout the life cycle to integrate career development activities with multiple on-line tools, technologies, and templates. These items are shared via internal websites, Wikis, blogs, online project management information repositories, collaboration tools, and help desks. Almost all of the collaboration tools have been created in commonly accessible Microsoft tools, such as Excel^® and Word^®, because the sophistication and complexity of MS Project^® or WBS Chart Pro™ are not necessary when applying the fundamentals of project management to smaller non-technical projects typically handled by directorates interested in this program. Several of the templates have been provided by former course attendees who have actively applied the course materials in their functional areas and have achieved greater project success.

This integrated support network is a critical component to the program design, because participants are not “professional” project managers, the role of project management is gaining greater management visibility, and many participants are challenged by the mechanics of creating a project charter, building a work breakdown structure, developing an integrated schedule, and conducting risk workshops. Tailored follow-up support is also available using a variety of media to accommodate the diversity, experience, and geographic location of the Agency personnel.

Lessons Learned

To be the most effective, project management instruction must be applicable to the student’s working environment, and students need to see how they can apply project management principles and practices in their own jobs. This program is successful because it provides classroom and on-the-job instruction that is specifically designed to meet the needs of non-technical project managers. The courses mix proven content with practical exercises. Practicing project managers who are stationed throughout the world provide case studies and templates for the courses. These materials are then integrated into presentations that serve to keep students interested and show them how to use the content. Once students return to the workplace, the online website with collaboration tools and templates significantly enhance students’ ability to keep up-to-date and work together with their project management peers. The program continues to evolve, and participant feedback is imperative to ensuring that new iterations of the course and its material will be applicable to the students and senior management. From a program development perspective, the following lessons learned have made the program successful were:

• Having a strong and influential champion
• Partnering with other internal domain leaders in project management
• Creating alignment and traceability with the Agency’s strategic goals and objectives
• Benchmarking other Agency’s project management programs for best practices
• Clearly understanding the operating environments in which project management will be used
• Training to and implementing project management concepts and practices in a “bottom up and top down” manner which allows non-technical training at all levels within the organization, from subordinate to management levels. Focusing project management training on the operating environment(s)
• Addressing higher Agency guidelines, such as OMB, FAI, ODNI, etc.
• Use project management competency as a basis for training development and assessment
• Use outcome as the basis for performance measurement and value to mission

Conclusion

Since its inception, the program has continued to grow and influence project management throughout the Agency.

It has evolved from an initial two-day course on the fundamentals of project management and presented to a single career service, and finally, to an enterprise program that is now being championed both domestically and overseas. The success of the program has lead to planning for further expansion throughout the Agency as well as into other organizations within the intelligence community.

In summary, the recognition by a new and growing population of Agency employees that project management principles and concepts will enhance mission execution, shorten project duration, and reduce resource requirements continues to gain momentum, popularity, and acceptance.