DOD cites progress on agenda items

The Defense Department has improved its scorecard rating in two of five initiatives laid out in the President’s Management Agenda, the deputy undersecretary of Defense for plans said.When the Office of Management and Budget unveiled the agenda in June 2001, the DOD had the worst possible rating of red in each of the five categories, including strategic management of human capital, competitive sourcing, financial performance, e-government and budget and performance integration.Gail H. McGinn, speaking today at a luncheon sponsored by the Association for Federal Information Resources Management at George Washington University, said DOD’s poor performance was due to the size and complexity of a department with more than 3 million active-duty, Reserve and civilian personnel. In the 20 months since the management agenda was introduced, DOD has improved its ranking to yellow in human capital and budget and performance integration, she said.In the financial performance area, DOD hired IBM Corp. to merge 1,800 disparate financial systems into a common system.McGinn said she was happy with the progress made by the DOD, but added that although the agenda doesn’t establish a timeline to accomplish agency goals of transformation, it would take Defense eight to 10 years to reach the green goal envisioned by the president.