GAO's guidelines on its objectives and work priorities, first established in 1990 and reiterated in many forms by the comptroller general, indicate that GAO's work should focus on assignments with the potential to:

1. Contribute to congressional decision-making on significant public policy issues;

2. Fulfill statutory and legislative requirements and commitments;

3. Identify and eliminate serious mismanagement, fraud, and abuse;

4. Realize large dollar savings for the government and the taxpayers;

5. Change policies, procedures, and management structures of major government programs to better achieve desired program results and/or achieve objectives at lower cost;

6. See that major government programs comply with applicable laws and regulations and funds are spent legally;

7. Ensure that funds of major government programs are accounted for accurately; and

8. Enhance GAO's methodological and technical skills. 38

As discussed with vision and mission, GAO seems to be exceeding its appropriate role in this delineation of its guidelines. GAO's work could "contribute" to all of these goals, but GAO cannot reach them on its own. This is not a matter of semantics. GAO cannot "realize" savings, "change" policies, or even "ensure" that funds are accurately accounted for; it does contribute by providing information, evaluating program results, assisting with development of financial systems, and advising on the adequacy of other management systems and processes. GAO needs to acknowledge and focus on what it can actually accomplish and recognize its appropriate role in relation to Congress and the executive branch both of which play direct roles in making dollar savings, changing polices, procedures, and management structures, seeing that major programs account for funds and comply with laws and regulations.

Issue area planning documents describe progress under the prior plan, priority policy and management issues that should be addressed by Congress and/or GAO during the period of the plan, and linkages to high-risk areas in government and to the comptroller general's priorities. Each issue area plan includes a set of narrative tables. Table 3, a prototype for the Transportation Issue Area, illustrates the primary planning chart, as shown in GAO's Policies/Procedures Manual, pp 5.1-10 and 5.1-11.

Congressional Oversight: The General Accounting Office, Statement of Charles A. Bowsher before the House Committee on Government Operations, October 26, 1993, GAO/T-OPP-94-1, p. 9.

TABLE 3

The other required tables in the current issue area plan updates cover:

customers and experts consulted for the plan;
congressional interest in the issues;

anticipated congressional and administrative initiatives; and
distribution of work in the previous fiscal year.

The documents also outline requests for resources (expressed in annual staff-years) as well as efforts to increase skills or add specialists (identified as "capacity building"). In addition, the documents cover "quality improvement efforts," including plans for maintaining communications with Congress by working with the committees of jurisdiction in the related issue areas.

In preparing their strategic plan updates, issue area directors generally meet with congressional committee staffs to discuss possible areas of interest for the next two to three years, including federal programs that will need reauthorization as well as emerging policy and program issues. GAO also confers with federal agencies and experts outside government about issues they foresee. But, based on interviews for this project, congressional staff and others participating in these discussions apparently are unaware of GAO's formal strategic planning process and its planning documents. While some observers say, often with disapproval, that "it looks like GAO has its own agenda," they do not know that GAO has an orderly process for setting out the key themes and areas (programs, organizations, topics, and issues) that it has identified as likely to need attention or as valuable subjects to study.

One reason GAO cites for introducing an organized strategic planning process was to help identify patterns in the problems and opportunities facing the federal government, and to focus GAO's resources on areas in which it has the strongest mandate, skills, experience, and opportunities to contribute. Effective strategic planning also can help GAO identify gaps between the work it should do or wants to do and its skills and resources; based on that assessment, it can reallocate staff, offer necessary training to develop needed skills among existing staff, and hire people with needed expertise. By drawing Congress into discussions of emerging issues and challenges, and identifying areas that most deserved GAO and congressional attention, GAO also hoped the strategic planning process would encourage congressional committees, members, and staff to anticipate coming issues, identify priorities, and request work that addressed the most important and productive topics.

GAO has not realized all of these goals. Internally, the strategic planning process makes a difference in planning future projects, allocating resources among issue areas, and bringing to the surface likely activities and gaps in the work program. But, by not sharing the full range of considerations in the process with Congress, in particular, GAO is missing much of the desired effect on congressional understanding of, and perspectives on, key challenges facing government or on the types of requests it makes for GAO work.

GAO would obtain other benefits by raising the visibility of, and expanding participation in, its strategic planning. In strategic planning in general, the key people or parties involved in carrying out the plans and policies all must be aware of, and committed to, the mission, goals, priorities, and principles. In most effective organizations, this means that leaders, managers, and employees help to articulate the mission and core principles, establish goals, and identify priority areas and strategies

for action.

In corporate strategic planning, the corporation often does not publicly communicate all of the elements of its strategic plan to all suppliers or users of its products and services. For competitive reasons, it keeps many details of its internal business plans and strategies inside the company; however, it generally shares with employees, customers, and suppliers the mission, values, goals, and top priorities that it intends to pursue, in order to gain their feedback as well as their understanding and support, and enhance the credibility of the plans with employees.

Public sector models for strategic planning generally call for a more open process than corporate strategic planning or GAO's current process, and fuller participation in the various phases of the effort. Typically, in the federal government the range of participants includes: top leaders in the organization, managers and employees; key contacts in the President's office, OMB and other central agencies; Congress; other agencies, levels of government, and public bodies that the organization works with; and members of the wider public -- if the agency needs public support and awareness to conduct its work and achieve the desired results. The process appears most effective when the organization includes these parties throughout, from the early identification of issues, to the communication of goals, to the implementation of actions. (Often an agency even informs the media about key elements of its strategic plan, although it might not include media representatives in developing the plan.) Participation by the outside stakeholder groups -- a necessary part of achieving desired results not only helps to ensure that their interests are reflected and their goals can be served, but it also builds their support for the overall strategic plan and their commitment to help carry it out.

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GAO should move to a more integrated strategic planning process, so the work of its different issue areas will be less compartmentalized. Currently, GAO has the framework for meeting that objective by beginning with the comptroller general's priorities and bringing together all the issue area plans for the comptroller general's and OPP's review and coordination. GAO should not simply bind together the issue area plans in a single document, as strong as they may be individually; it should review and evaluate them side by side to assess overlaps, gaps, and synergies across divisions and issue areas, and create an integrated overall plan. Only then will GAO be able to ensure consistent themes and emphases and, beyond that, coordination of work efforts and allocation of resources among competing issue area groups and topics. These improvements will help GAO reach a balance among issue areas that matches the comptroller general's priorities, needs for improvement in government, and Congress's demands on GAO.

RECOMMENDATION:

In its strategic planning process, GAO should conduct a more focused, comprehensive assessment of emerging needs, issues, and topics that likely will deserve its attention in the future, thus providing an over-arching framework for integrating issue area plans. The planning process should include a comprehensive review of individual issue area plans, to redefine and integrate strategic priorities of the organization as a whole, and to bring them into line with realistic levels of resources and skills and with a redefined GAO mission.

RECOMMENDATION:

GAO should share with congressional committees and members the broad objectives and results of its strategic planning process. After developing an internal strategic plan, based on consultation with Congress, GAO should produce a summary strategic plan that outlines potential topics for GAO work, the comptroller general's priorities, and proposals for applying them in specific issue areas. The plan should be subject to consideration by GAO's congressional oversight committees and, in its final form, GAO should distribute the document widely, not only to congressional committees involved in GAO oversight and appropriations, but also to other committees and members who request it and to executive branch agencies and leaders.

RECOMMENDATION:

GAO guidelines for strategic planning should stress building on existing capabilities, meeting near-term needs for information in the various issue areas, and providing useful information and analysis for legislative and executive branch decisionmakers. In reviewing proposed work, GAO should be particularly cautious in approaching those topics involving broad substantive government policy issues; work in that area should be limited and tied to a factual base in GAO research and analysis.

RECOMMENDATION:

As part of its strategic planning effort, GAO should expand its efforts to analyze needs for increased staff skills and information systems within and across issue areas and to integrate plans for making needed upgrades within the issue area plans.

Quality Management Initiatives (TQM)

The comptroller general initiated a TQM process at GAO as a result of findings in its own study of the effectiveness of TQM processes in improving performance in companies around the country." GAO launched its TQM effort in 1991 with a basic goal: "To make continuous improvement a way of life at GAO"0 by motivating employees -- from beginning to end of all of GAO's work rather than relying on end-of-the-line review and hierarchical supervision to assure satisfactory products.

"From that research, GAO noted that the firms were "successfully building quality into their products throughout their processes. And while improving quality, they also achieved higher productivity, greater customer satisfaction, and better employee relations." Congressional Support Agencies: The Role of the General Accounting Office, Statement of Charles A. Bowsher before the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, GAO/T-OPP-93-1, June 10, 1993, p. 17.

40 Continuous Improvement, 1991, p. 7.