Program Plan
Agency for International Development - USAID - Global Acquistion and Assistance System (GLAAS) Recovery Plan
Updated 05/14/2009
Objectives
Program Purpose
Investment in the GLAAS system directly serves two essential functions: expansion of e-Gov initiatives and Agency business modernization. GLAAS is able to maximize interoperability and minimize redundancy through integration with a host of internal and external systems. Through the real-time integration of GLAAS with USAID’s financial management system, the Agency is able to provide inclusive, timely, and accurate reporting to better accommodate mandates and management of data calls.
Public Benefits
GLAAS project funding contributes toward 180 full-time work years of employment for individuals in the Washington DC area, the majority of whom are small business employees. Recovery Act funding would be specifically used to procure those needed resources, providing the ability to retain critical systems development staff to provide additional functionality and to hire much needed system trainers and help desk support staff, thus creating a positive impact on employment while providing necessary support to GLAAS. Upon implementation, GLAAS will support USAID’s continuing effort to engage small businesses through acquisitions and assistance projects in support of the Agency’s mission.
Upon full implementation, GLAAS will provide USAID with an automated tool for managing its acquisition and assistance projects by almost 5,000 USAID staff members located in Washington offices and in missions throughout the world. The USAID managers responsible for overseeing these projects will benefit from real-time financial integration of this web-based acquisition and assistance management system. GLAAS will provide to the full range of users, including executive managers the type of real-time acquisition and assistance reports with the financial information necessary to effectively manage these obligations.
The specific capabilities that full implementation of GLAAS will bring to USAID include:
- Approval using the automated system for at least 99% of A&A transactions;
- Use of real-time financial information to manage A&A projects by 100 % of Washington offices and a high, but “not-yet-determined” percentage of USAID missions worldwide. USAID will determine this percentage based on the results of network performance testing, including the viability of options for mitigating network issues at individual missions;
- Production of standardized acquisition and assistance reports for internal and external stakeholders that are produced accurately and on-time on at least a 99% rate;
- Ability to generate standardized acquisition and assistance reports by 100% of Washington offices and a high, but “not-yet-determined” percentage of USAID missions worldwide. (See previous explanation about network performance.); and,
- Using GLAAS to automatically report to FPDS-NG for at least 95% of procurements done by USAID Washington offices and missions worldwide.
Savings or Costs for GLAAS:
GLAAS represents a single, unified A&A tool that will provide significant benefit to the agency in terms of staff workload, deployment, and project management. These benefits include:
- Reducing the burden of training staff by nearly 50% in comparison to deployment of separate systems;
- Allowing the reuse of existing system customizations, configurations, and integrations developed for the PRISM Acquisition tool, a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) product;
- Providing a projected efficiency gain of 10% of the total amount of spend processed through implementation of a combined A&A system; and,
- Reducing the operating expenses required to provide a system that allows USAID staff to manage both contract and grant activities.
Measures
The measures have been revised to enrich the performance metrics for Recovery targets. In some instances, targets will not be available until additional baseline data has been collected.
| Measure | Target/Actual |
|---|
| 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 |
|---|
[-]
Deployments to 66 worldwide missions (GLAAS currently deployed to 15 missions)
Deployments to 15 USAID/Washington offices (GLAAS currently deployed to 13 offices)
Help Desk statistics within service level agreements
Successfull Training reports and surveys | - | - | - | - |
Measure Information
| Frequency : Long-term/Annual | | Direction : No Data Available | | Type : Outcome | Explanation : Cornerstone Deployments
AID Washington Deployment
LAC Deployments
E&E Deployments
Middle East Deployments
Asia Deployments
Africa 1 Deployments
Africa 2 Deployments
Helpdesk and Deployment Operations
Training Materials Development and CBTs
| | Unit : No Data Available |
|
[-]
Successful completion of the User Acceptance Test Reports
and Deployment Readiness Reviews
| - | - | - | - |
Measure Information
| Frequency : Long-term/Annual | | Direction : No Data Available | | Type : Outcome | Explanation : GLAAS 3.1 released into production
GLAAS 3.2 released into production
Custom Report Development
Operations and Production Support | | Unit : No Data Available |
|
Schedule and Milestones
Our detailed GLAAS Plan and milestones will be posted on our agencies website www.usaid.gov/recovery once approved by OMB. Below is a summary/list.
Milestones
• Cornerstone Deployments
• AID Washington Deployment
• LAC Deployments
• E&E Deployments
• Middle East Deployments
• Asia Deployments
• Africa 1 Deployments
• Africa 2 Deployments
• Helpdesk and Deployment Operations
• Training Materials Development and CBTs
Measures for above milestones are: Deployments to 66 worldwide missions (GLAAS currently deployed to 15 missions), Deployments to 15 USAID/Washington offices (GLAAS currently deployed to 13 offices)
Help Desk statistics, Training reports and surveys
Milestones
• Project Controls and Oversight
• OMB and governance reporting
• Launch informational website for worldwide GLAAS users
Measures for above milestones are: Risk Management, Schedule Management, Earned Value, OMB Exhibit 300, User Surveys
Milestones
• GLAAS 3.1 released into production
• GLAAS 3.2 released into production
• Custom Report Development
• Operations and Production Support
Measures for the above milestones are: User Acceptance Test Reports, Deployment Readiness Reviews, Infrastructure Support
Milestones
• Infrastructure Support
• Disaster Recovery (Labor Portion)
Measures for the above miles are:System Availability, Data storage and data recovery
Milestones
| Milestone |
Completion Date |
| Development of critical software functionality required for GLAAS; Operations and production support activities |
09/30/2010 |
| Deploy GLAAS to USAID/Washington offices and to USAID missions worldwide |
06/30/2011 |
| Project Management, Change Management, & Business Process Reengineering support |
06/30/2011 |
Projects and Activities
The Recovery Act funding will be used to procure resources that will support the activities needed to deploy the GLAAS application to USAID’s regions, as well as provide a disaster recovery environment for the GLAAS system. The full-range of activities will span those typical for an IT development and deployment project of this size and complexity. Detailed plans are located to the www.usaid.gov/recovery website.
Funding: $23,530,000
Activity: ScheduleDeploy GLAAS to USAID/Washington offices and to up to 81 USAID missions worldwide (3)
Characteristics: Existing Time & Materials (T&M) contract with small business
Delivery Schedule: Jun-11
Funding: $7,790,000
Activity: Provide Project Management, Change Management, & Business Process Reengineering support for GLAAS (4)
Characteristics: Existing T&M & Fixed Price contracts (5)
Delivery Schedule: Jun-11
Funding: $5,690,000
Activity: Complete development of critical software functionality required for full deployment of GLAAS (2); Conduct operations and production support activities
Characteristics: Existing Cost Plus contract; new contract, type to be determined
Delivery Schedule: Sep-10
Funding: $990,000
Activity: Provide Disaster Recovery support
Characteristics: Existing T&M contract
Delivery Schedule: Jun-11
GLAAS Total: $38,000,000
1 Recovery Act Funds cover a portion of costs for above milestones; other sources of funds including $10 million of CIF and $2 million of OE for FY09 will supplement the Recovery Act funds to allow completion of the project.
2 Existing contract expires in September 2010. Will require a new contract to provide services through completion of deployment in June 2011.
3 Deployment includes the delivery of the GLAAS software and supporting business processes to USAID users at all USAID locations worldwide. These activities consist of data migration, training material development, training delivery, pre-deployment activities, site and user configuration, and post-production support. A small business is performing this work.
4 Project management support includes organizational change management, business process reengineering, and system and subject-matter expertise.
5 Existing contract expires in May 2010. Will require a new contract to provide services through completion of deployment in June 2011.
Review Process
The GLAAS Project will continue to use USAID’s Performance Based Management System (PBMS), which employs Earned Value Management (EVM) to provide visibility into the status of the project activities including cost and schedule performance. The EVM System (EVMS) provides timely, valid, and auditable project cost and schedule status information to project managers, senior managers, executive sponsors and stakeholders. EVM is performed in conjunction with a full spectrum of project controls to improve project execution and provide senior managers the insight they need to make informed decisions.
The GLAAS Project will implement Earned Value Management in a manner consistent with standards established by the Office of Management and Budget and the USAID Project Life Cycle process described in Section I. We will monitor cost and schedule variance on a monthly and cumulative basis, including conducting a more in-depth analysis for any control account that exceeds established thresholds. This analysis includes the cause for the variance, the impact on cost and schedule, and any corrective actions required. For the GLAAS project, any control account that has a monthly or cumulative cost or schedule variance of 10% will require analysis to determine the basis for the variance and to develop a corrective action plan.
The key outputs from the program’s activities and milestones will be managed, monitored, and completed as defined within its integrated master schedule. A summary of the expected outputs are defined in the below table:
The GLAAS project will continue to be monitored within USAID’s project Life-Cycle governance process. This will ensure that direct line of business accountability for reporting, monitoring, evaluation and mediation is established before funding is provided to contractors. Our life-cycle governance process provides methods for tracking performance and risk, including specific project metrics required to measure value and progress, and report results to stakeholders. These metrics and other subjective elements will be used to track accomplishments and assess the performance of the project managers.
The USAID Project Life-Cycle Process, is a proven framework and methodology based on the Project Management Institute (PMI) PMBOK for Project Risk Management, the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) Std 1058-1998 for Software Project Management Plans and the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for Systems/Software Engineering v1.1.
Completed work and costs for GLAAS will be measured against planned work and costs using standard USAID Earned Value Management methodology.
Cost and Performance Plan
Transparency: USAID’s plans, costs, accomplishments, and results will be updated on the Agency Recovery Act webpage, with appropriate information also provided to Recovery.gov. The GLAAS measures identified in Table 6 will be updated on a monthly basis, or as appropriate based on the deployment schedule.
Ultimately, GLAAS will enhance USAID’s ability to provide important financial information to the public, thereby promoting transparency and accountability.
Accountability: Earned Value measurement will be used to track accomplishments of the planned work and will be used in personnel performance evaluation for the managers of these projects.
Barriers:
Given USAID's mission and where we operate, the following known risk could impact effective implementation of the GLAAS system:
• Uncertainty of political environment within foreign countries could impact operational conditions
Energy Efficiency Spending Plans
Federal Infrastructure Investments: Consistent with the objectives and requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, this project will help with decreasing paper retention and paper outputs of USAID and thus will save personnel time and office space. In addition, equipment and approaches used in this project will be evaluated for appropriateness of “green” equipment for increased energy efficiency in USAID-occupied buildings.
Program Plan Award Types
No Data Available