7
Alignment With the SMD Strategic Planning Process
Is the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Science Plan a strategic plan, an element in a strategic plan, or something else? The clear expectation of the National Research Council committees that reviewed previous editions of the science plan was that it is, or should be, a true strategy.1,2,3 It rapidly became clear during the Space Studies Board’s (SSB’s) initial discussions of the statement of task for this study that there was a sentiment to criticize the 2014 draft Science Plan for its lack of strategic characteristics. As a result, the SSB and NASA agreed to give the assessment committee the additional task of discussing the alignment between the Science Plan and SMD’s strategic planning processes.4
The draft Science Plan is not a strategic plan. It does not describe well the specific metrics for scientific success or achievement, other than for mission launches. There is little sense of what science will be achieved. There is a list of lofty research questions that are broadly consistent with the science priorities in various decadal surveys, and there is a description of programs, but no meaningful linkage of the two. The science goals of SMD’s four divisions, as described Appendix A of the draft Science Plan, are of such broad scope that there is no meaningful way to derive metrics for success.
In short, the draft Science Plan contains little in the way of explicit information about resources, criteria for decision making, priorities, mission plans, time lines, and contingencies. If the draft Science Plan is not a strategic document in the sense that past assessment committees expected, then what is it? The answer is not to be found in the plan itself.
In a conference call between the assessment committee and NASA officials on September 10, 2013, members asked questions about the status of the draft Science Plan and about how it fits into “strategic planning” activities in both SMD and NASA. It was clear from that discussion that the Science Plan is an integral component of SMD’s “strategic planning” process. In addition, the Science Plan both informs and contributes to the overall NASA strategic planning process. However, regardless of whether the name of the plan contains the word “strategic,” it is a “strategic planning” tool, as defined by the mandates of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and the GPRA Modernization Act (see Box 7.1) but provides little, if any, information to do with the resource allocations, criteria for decision making, priorities, mission plans, time lines, contingencies, and other factors typically found in corporate strategic plans. One of the key issues is that the successful execution of the Science Plan depends on levels of funding available for its execution. Some of the tasks described in the draft Science Plan will be accomplished, but much later than advertised and not as thoroughly as advertised. Other tasks may not be accomplished at all. With the probability of even further declining budgets in the future, the likelihood that any plan will be realized is remote.
The draft Science Plan is an integral part of NASA’s “strategic planning” process. However, it does not provide clear descriptions of the mechanisms used to determine the intra- and interdisciplinary prioritization from a scientific perspective and does not describe the manner in which plans will be altered based on available resources. Failure to provide this information drastically diminishes the ability of the SMD Science Plan to serve as a tool by which to clearly and efficiently communicate a coherent picture to readers of what is planned and what can be expected to be achieved by any specific date, if ever.
BOX 7.1
GOVERNMENTAL CONTEXT FOR NASA’S 2014 SCIENCE PLAN
Under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act of 2010, NASA must develop and publish a Strategic Plan every 4 years and both a Performance Plan and Performance Report annually. NASA’s Strategic Plan establishes long-term agency goals; it is developed by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).1 In advance of each fiscal year, the Science Mission Directorate develops its portion of the agency’s Annual Performance Plan, basing its structure and performance measure content on the Strategic Plan and the Science Plan. At the end of each year, NASA provides, in the Annual Performance Report, an evaluation of the agency’s performance using these measures. NASA’s Office of the CFO publicly submits both the Annual Performance Plan and the Annual Performance Report to Congress and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
NASA’s 2014 Strategic Plan will be officially submitted to OMB in February 2014; a first draft has already been submitted to OMB and Congress.
The 2014 Strategic Plan will be the first developed under the requirements of the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010. The related OMB guidance calls for a consistent format, as well as a comprehensive set of strategic objectives and a new set of agency priority goals. Most notably, NASA’s Strategic Plan now consists of four layers in the 2014 strategy performance framework (Figure 7.1). The strategic goals denote the ultimate outcome of what NASA wants to achieve to advance its mission and address relevant national needs. This is followed by the intermediate outcomes (strategic objectives) that express more specifically the path NASA plans to follow to achieve or make progress on the broader goal. These objectives then influence the next four annual NASA Performance Plans. Specifically, NASA develops multi-year performance goals (which include agency priority goals and cross-agency priority goals) as well as annual performance indicators.
FIGURE 7.1 The relationship between strategic goals, strategic objectives, performance goals, and annual performance indicators and indications of the timescales over which they can be expected to change in response to scientific advances or changes in administration policy.
It is important for the health of space science in the United States for SMD to clearly state what can be accomplished and what cannot be accomplished with the baseline budget. It is critical that there are no false expectations that substantial progress will be achieved without the provision of significant resources.
Recommendation: The relationship between the SMD Science Plan, the NASA Strategic Plan, and relevant legislative mandates should appear in a succinct fashion somewhere in the Science Plan itself.
Recommendation: The methods and mechanisms for prioritization from both programmatic, scientific, and resource-allocation perspectives should be clearly described in the Science Plan.
The Science Plan serves as the Science Mission Directorate’s main input to the agency Strategic Plan. Specifically, the science strategic objectives of the 2014 Science Plan will mirror the strategic objectives of the 2014 Strategic Plan (Figure 7.2), thus influencing many of the performance goals of the next four NASA Performance Plans. Additionally, many of the specific annual performance indicators in the Performance Plans are explicitly evaluated against the Science Plan.
FIGURE 7.2 An illustrative example showing the relationship and flowdown between a strategic goal, a strategic objective in the 2014 NASA Strategic Plan, the 2014 SMD Science Plan, and subsequent performance goals and annual performance indicators. Note that the performance goals and annual performance indicators are still to be determined for FY 2014 and beyond. The example performance goal shown here is an example from the FY 2013 Performance Plan.
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1 With input from the Strategic Planning Council (a team chaired by the Administrator) and Mission Directorates.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. National Research Council (NRC). 2000. “Assessment of NASA’s Draft 2000 Office of Space Science Strategic Plan,” letter report. Washington, D.C., p. 2.
2. NRC. 2000. “On the Space Science Enterprise Draft Strategic Plan,” letter report from SSB Chair Claude R. Canizares to Edward J. Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Office of Space Science, May 26. Washington, D.C., p. 2.
3. The terms “strategy” and “strategic” appear more than 100 times in the 27 pages of the 2006 review: NRC, “A Review of NASA’s 2006 Draft Science Plan,” letter report from A. Thomas Young, chair of the ad hoc Committee on Review of NASA Science Mission Directorate Science Plan, to Mary
Cleave, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, September 15, Washington, D.C.
4. That is, a task in addition to those outlined in Associate Administrator Grunsfeld’s letters of April 10 and August 9.
