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Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
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GLOSSARY AND LIST OF ACRONYMS

Activity-based metrics: Measures of performance or progress focused on specific aspects of an individual activity or project.

Adversary measures: Measures that assess the potential or actual actions of adversaries that can have a direct impact on the process or system.

Aspirational goal: A desired performance level or milestone beyond the minimum requirement. Such goals are useful for guiding the program or project toward the larger objective and can be the basis for performance incentives.

Attribute: A characteristic of a system or process.

Benefit cost measure: A metric reflecting benefits attained relative to the costs, which may be monetary or other costs.

BS&S: Biological safety and security

BTRP: Biological Threat Reduction Program

BW: Biological weapons

Capabilities based planning: Capability based planning focuses on the planning, engineering, and delivery of strategic capabilities by defining objectives, identifying what capabilities are needed to achieve the objectives, and then determining how to ensure that those capabilities are developed operating in an uncertain real-world environment.

CBEP: Cooperative Biological Engagement Program

CBP: Capabilities Based Planning. In context, CBP may also mean Customs and Border Protection.

COCOM: Combatant Command

Constructed metric: A metric that is developed by relying on integral judgments of experts.

Constructed scale: The range of a metric that integrates several performance attributes into one artificial scale (e.g., a 5-star safety rating).

Cost effectiveness: Cost effectiveness assesses attainment of an objective or task relative to the costs.

Criteria: Factors that differentiate alternatives.

CRL: Central Reference Laboratory

Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
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CTR: Cooperative Threat Reduction

CWEP: Chemical Weapons Elimination Program

Direct measure: Measurement of an attribute that itself embodies the status of a threat to be reduced. Change in a direct measure indicates impact.

Direct outcome measure: A measure based on attributes that are the direct results of an activity or program.

DoD: Department of Defense

DSCA: Defense Security Cooperation Agency

DTRA: Defense Threat Reduction Agency

EDP: Especially dangerous pathogen

Efficiency measure: A measure of how resources are used in a project or program.

Environmental measure: A factor that could have a direct or indirect impact on the system or process but is not under the control of the program or project managers.

FOC: Full Operating Capacity

FSU: Former Soviet Union

Higher level program performance metrics: These metrics are developed to measure the impact and effectiveness of a program or project on a more strategic level, rather than on an activity level

ICBM: Intercontinental ballistic missile

Impact and effectiveness: The extent to which the program or project is reaching strategic objectives and is achieving results.

Inputs: The resources invested into a project or program, or the activities undertaken that are meant to lead to outcomes.

Input measure: A measure to identify the resources or activities provided for a project or program.

IOC: Initial Operating Capacity

Lagging indicator: A measure that is available after the current activity allowing corrective action only for future processes and operations.

Leading indicators: Measures that provide early indicators of impact and effectiveness and allow managers to take corrective action on the process if required.

Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
×

Maturity model: A tool to assess progress throughout the duration of the project or program, moving from stage to stage of the project or program.

Metric: A standard or indicator of measurement.

Minimum performance level: The minimum level at which a program or project can perform to be considered within acceptable performance range.

Natural scales: An already available means of measuring the impact and effectiveness of a project/program against the stated objectives.

NWSSP: Nuclear Weapons Safety and Security Program

Output: A direct, measurable result of a process, activity, or project that may or may not reflect impact.

Outcome: An overall result of an activity, project, or program.

Performance measure: Describes how well a subsystem, system, or process meets its required performance.

Program: An organized effort toward an overall goal and a set of objectives supporting that goal. Typically, a program comprises a set of projects or activities carried out under the program.

Program goals: Goals designated for the overall program as opposed to the specific goals of the projects that are implemented to carry out the program.

Program management measure: A measure that is useful for measuring the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of the project/program, but not necessarily the impact and effectiveness of the program toward the overall program objectives.

Program objective: An objective that is linked to threat reduction and is applicable to the program as a whole rather than to the parts of a program.

Project: A set of activities carried out to support one or more program objectives. Projects usually constitute the actual implementation of a program.

Project goals: Goals developed to guide a discrete project as opposed to an overall program.

Project metric: Metrics designed to measure the impact and effectiveness of the project against the project goals.

Proxy measure: An indirect measure of the impact and effectiveness of an aspect(s) of a program or project.

Resource measure: A measure that identifies the resources (e.g., dollars, people’s time, or materials) used by a system or process.

Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
×

SOAE: Strategic Offensive Arms Elimination Program

Strategic metrics: A metric developed to determine the impact and effectiveness of a program or project against the strategic goals.

Sustainability: The ability and likelihood of a project or program being maintained into the future.

Sustainment: The continuation of the efforts, impacts, and outcomes of a program or project into the future, eventually solely by the partner country.

Swing-weight analysis: A swing weight matrix defines the importance and range of variation for a set of metrics. In the analysis, a metric that is very important to the decision is weighted higher than a metric that is less important. A metric that differentiates between alternatives is weighted more than a metric that does not differentiate between alternatives.

Threat measure: A measure that assesses capabilities and the intent of a potential opponent.

WMD-PPP: Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation Prevention Program

Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
×
Page 60
Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
×
Page 61
Suggested Citation:"Glossary and List of Acronyms." National Academy of Sciences. 2012. Improving Metrics for the Department of Defense Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13289.
×
Page 62
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The Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program was created in 1991 as a set of support activities assisting the Former Soviet Union states in securing and eliminating strategic nuclear weapons and the materials used to create them. The Program evolved as needs and opportunities changed: Efforts to address biological and chemical threats were added, as was a program aimed at preventing cross-border smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. CTR has traveled through uncharted territory since its inception, and both the United States and its partners have taken bold steps resulting in progress unimagined in initial years. Over the years, much of the debate about CTR on Capitol Hill has concerned the effective use of funds, when the partners would take full responsibility for the efforts, and how progress, impact, and effectiveness should be measured.

Directed by Congress, the Secretary of Defense completed a report describing DoD's metrics for the CTR Program (here called the DoD Metrics Report) in September 2010 and, as required in the same law, contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to review the metrics DoD developed and identify possible additional or alternative metrics, if necessary. Improving Metrics for the DoD Cooperative Threat Reduction Program provides that review and advice.

Improving Metrics for the DoD Cooperative Threat Reduction Program identifies shortcomings in the DoD Metrics Report and provides recommendations to enhance DoD's development and use of metrics for the CTR Program. The committee wrote this report with two main audiences in mind: Those who are mostly concerned with the overall assessment and advice, and those readers directly involved in the CTR Program, who need the details of the DoD report assessment and of how to implement the approach that the committee recommends.

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