Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
C Interview Discussion Outline For purposes of this interview, facilities investment includes new construc- tion, renewal, maintenance, retrofitting, replacing and decommissioning of facilities. 1. How would you characterize your organization's role in making decisions about facilities investment? Own facilities Lease facilities Provide facilities to others Use facilities Manage facilities Approve facility projects Approve funding for facility projects Track/audit expenditures for facilities projects Measure performance of facility projects Other 2. Does your organization have an inventory of facilities and their condition? 3. What is the mission of your facilities investment/management organiza- tion? 4. How are your organization's goals and objectives integrated into the deci- sion-making process for facility investment? 5. How does your organization document objectives to be satisfied by facility investment? 137
138 INVESTMENTS IN FEDERAL FACILITIES 6. What performance measures/metrics are used to evaluate the results of fa- cility investments? (For example, rate of return, discounted cash flow, non- financial indicators). At what point in the process are they used? At what level of functionality are they applied (project level, portfolio level, both)? 7. How does your organization define success for facility investments? De- fine failure/inadequate performance for facility investments? 8. How does your organization identify facilities projects/opportunities for facilities investment (market analysis, specific search based on strategic goals, conduct a comprehensive needs assessment, gap analysis between current and needed capabilities, other)? 9. How does your organization document the need for facilities? 10. How does your organization identify and evaluate alternative approaches for facility investment (build new, lease, purchase, renew/retrofit existing)? Who is involved and what criteria are used for establishing alternatives? 11. How does your organization quantify the costs, benefits, risks, and trade- offs of alternatives? 12. How does your organization rank and select projects? 13. How does your organization make trade-offs among facility projects and other organizational objectives/programs? 14. How does your organization obtain funding for facilities? 15. Does your organization use a top-down or bottom-up approach to fund fa- cility investments? 16. Who must approve your facilities investment budget/revenue and operating plan internally? Externally? (name of groups, positions, not persons) 17. What type of innovative approaches to full up-front funding are consid- ered? How do you weigh alternatives to full up-front funding? 18. How is your organization's long-term capital plan prioritized for the cur- rent operating year? 19. How do you estimate the availability of funding? How do you know how much money you have available to spend? 20. When acquiring or retrofitting a facility, does your organization have a long-term expectation for the use of the space? Design flexibility into the facility to accommodate unexpected or multiple uses? Conduct a life-cycle cost analysis? 21. Does your organization develop an up-front exit strategy for a facility in- vestments--that is, a plan for getting out of a facility investment at any time at a reasonable cost? 22. How does your organization approach decisions related to operating and maintaining facilities? 23. How does your organization decide that money should be invested to renew or retrofit a facility? 24. How does your organization decide to decommission a facility? Who is involved in the decision process? What criteria are used?
APPENDIX C 139 25. Who is responsible for reviewing projects after a fixed period of usage to determine whether the alternative assumptions were correct? 26. How does your organization incorporate lessons learned into the decision- making process? 27. Please share any other comments/information that you believe may be of value to the committee for its study.