Army Service Day--Council update.

To close the Army Service Day formal program, Dr. Craig College, the Army Deputy G-8, presented an update on the Business Initiative Council (BIC). He informed attendees that the Department of Defense (DoD) established by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to implement better business practices is a good idea. He said that the BIC "is not an efficiency drill as in the past and needs your help" to succeed. The BIC was organized because Secretary Rumsfeld wanted a business transformation to coincide with the Defense transformation; he promised that "whatever goodness [savings] came out of the BIC, it would stay with the Services."

The BIC is different from previous efficiency drills, Dr. College explained, because it is not led by DoD staffers as in past drills, but by senior leaders of the Services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), with the Services alternating the lead. The Navy led Phase I, the Air Force led Phase II, and the Army is currently leading Phase III.

Each phase has as a core event the review and approval of new ideas and their implementation plans. Dr. College said, "You would be fascinated at how [in this DoD BIC process] very senior-level people get together to resolve problems."

Senior executive service and general officer leaders from the Services and the OSD meet two hours weekly in preparation for the quarterly BIC meetings, chaired by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics and including the Service Secretaries, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Under Secretaries of Defense for Comptroller and Personnel and Readiness. Although affording senior-level participation, the process is taking "just as much time to work smaller issues as larger ones," Dr. College indicated. This, he continued, raises a question of how to get more fundamental issues on the table.

As a complement to the DoD BIC, the Army established the Army BIC under the leadership and active participation of Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White. The Army BIC complements the DoD BIC. The Army G-8 leads both the DoD BIC and the Army BIC. The Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller is a strong partner by providing the staff, workplace, and dollars.

In keeping with the accelerated tone, the SECARMY has directed that the MACOMs and headquarter staff principals "come up with one good idea every quartet," said Dr. College. All incoming initiatives must be brought to SECARMY for approval within 30 days of receipt, and no initiative can be omitted from SECARMY review. The Army process is designed to promote an honest broker review and to avoid the bureaucratic danger of the "fox in the hen house," which fears assault on tradition.

Although the Army BIC is accelerated, it encountered minor problems during the first round because it was difficult to ensure that everyone saw the initiatives and reviewed and commented on them. To combat this, the Army BIC is creating a collaborative Web site behind the Army Knowledge Office (AKO) portal to improve ease and adequacy of communication. Dr. College said that he may instill some of the Army process improvements into the DoD BIC process to maintain an accelerated process.

Thirty-two DoD BIC and 16 Army BIC initiatives have received approval to proceed toward implementation.

In another category, the Pioneer Projects initiatives--recently devised as alternatives to the A-76 process--are under review for both Services and Defense agencies. (Initiative descriptions are available on http://www.asafm.army.mil/bic.asp.)

A few of the initiatives included in Dr. College's discussion were the Enterprise Software Initiative, which takes advantage of standard software to drive down prices; the pilot testing of a One-Time Clearance of Priority Placement Personnel to reduce the hiring time; Web-based Invoicing, a paperless way to drive down receiving report costs; and several resource management initiatives to increase the flexibility for funding.

The Army Pioneer Project is entitled City Partnerships, which will allow the Army to partner with municipalities for base support services at selected installations. Dr. College declared, "Most are good ideas, not new ideas; but we must develop bigger ideas with bigger dollar signs." For this, he solicited the help of the attendees to generate more initiatives through their respective chains of command.

Dr. College said that he had never before seen such levels of cooperation, coordination, and teamwork. But the initiatives have been less than he would like to see as far as "big-bang" impact.

Therefore, the Army needs everyone's help to keep the momentum going and to see each initiative through to completion so that the warfighter gets the resources needed for transformation.

Editor's note: Several Army Service Day sessions may be viewed at http://asmc.digiscript.com.

Reported by Peggy Johnson

Ms. Peggy Johnson is a financial management analyst in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Resource Analysis and Business Practices. She is a member of the Washington Chapter.