Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 22

this guiding coalition was the coordinated effort of the USA , the VCSA , and the director of the Army staff , working as a united front to pull together all thirty-two HQDA principals to achieve the end state on 31 March 2015 . However , by limiting the guiding coalition to a small core working group outside of the other agencies , the review did not reach the full potential as envisioned by Kotter . in terms of work and information flow , as proven in other large civilian business headquarters . In addition to the de-layering efforts within each of the HQDA organizations , the USA wanted to examine ways to reorganize the HQDA work flow across the ARSTAF and secretariat agencies . An OBT-led group of subject-matter experts reviewed several enterprise work flow functions , to include the Planning , Programming , Budgeting , and
· Span of control ( SoC ) target of eight — executive assistants , executive officers do not count in span of control
· Seven echelon maximum
· Deputies will not be used as “ span breakers ”
· If principal and principal deputy both fill the principal role , then SoC target is ten – Principal and principal deputy “ two in a box ” model is applicable only at principal level – Both principal and principal deputy exist at echelon 2 – Any additional deputies reporting to the principal must meet SoC target of eight
· No deputies for leaders below echelon 3
· No new deputies
· All executive assistants shared for leaders below echelon 2
· No same-grade reporting
· All general officers ( GOs ) and senior executive service ( SES ) leaders must have direct reports
· GOs , and SES leaders ( level 1 ) within the top four echelons ( secretary of the Army , under secretary of the Army , chief of staff of the Army , vice chief of staff of the Army are layer 1 )
· No general schedule ( GS ) -15s below echelon 5
· All positions — managers and individual contributors — should be considered for re-leveling
· Cost and structure targets must be met before proceeding to the next echelon
· Exceptions held to an absolute minimum and must be aired to the senior team
· If work is pushed somewhere else , the people must move with it and it must be accepted by receiving organization
Figure 4 . Comprehensive Review Design Principles
( Graphic by authors )
The USA and VCSA supported the third step of Kotter ’ s process , “ form a strategic vision and initiatives ,” by forming a singular strategic vision and set of initiatives that guided redesign activities toward the “ future state .” They used the information gleaned from the initial documented review phase to illustrate that HQDA had too many echelons in place for clear and effective communication , leaders had low spans of supervisory control , and numerous deputies or senior employees were too deep within organizations to operate effectively and often reported to each other . The USA and VCSA stated their intent to reduce the number of echelons and redundant management processes , or “ de-layer ” the headquarters , to reverse these trends . In the long run , de-layering the HQDA could offset some of the impact of the 25 percent personnel authorization reductions , making organizations easier to manage and more efficient
Execution ( PPBE ) process and the Total Army Analysis ( TAA ) process . 11 While the future strategic vision and initiatives were well supported with quantitative data , they were not well communicated across the HQDA and FOA population , except downward through the existing information channels , which were suboptimal in rapidly passing information throughout the thirty-two agencies . Many participants suggested publishing “ frequently asked questions ,” a headquarters concept plan , and senior-leader meeting notes to the workforce ; however , these approaches were never implemented . The lack of information had a significant impact on the speed of the effort and the ability of the workforce to understand how the redesigns would support future state .
In addition , this lack of information transparency made it extremely difficult to “ enlist a volunteer army ” as identified in Kotter ’ s step 4 . Without this internal
20 January-February 2017
MILITARY REVIEW