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Is TCAT the New ZBR (Zero Base Review)?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 1, 2013
Filed under ,

Message from the Associate Administrator — Aligning Our Agency for the Future
“Since TCAT was established, the budget environment has remained challenging, and the team’s work has gained increased priority. As a result, you may see elements of the assessment or implementation underway at your center. The goal of this effort is to strengthen our centers in their primary areas of expertise. Each center will see increased investment in some areas and decreased investment in others. … Since this work is so important right now, we have brought one of the agency’s most seasoned professionals on board to oversee it. Lesa Roe, currently Center Director at the Langley Research Center in Virginia, will be detailed to Headquarters as the Deputy Associate Administrator to oversee TCAT.”
Keith’s note: Sounds like Son of ZBR (Zero Base Review) i.e. ZBR 2.0 to me.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

4 responses to “Is TCAT the New ZBR (Zero Base Review)?”

  1. dogstar29 says:
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    Yet another political budget battle, as if there weren’t enough. Forcing technology development into narrow stovepipes that every proposal has to claim to stay inside is one sure way to stifle innovation.

    OTOH some of us know one program we would love to zero-base, but I don’t see it happening any time soon.

  2. Anonymous says:
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    Ive struggled to understand the dynamic here in a simple way, but here is a try. NASA is a 10 percent agency, sending out 90 percent of its money to contractors. Three things have upset this workforce and money ratio.

    First, as the budget drops, the civil servant side has not dropped as fast. No RIF after all to even the pace with the drop in budget. Worse yet, the shift between development, technology and manufacture and operations after the end of Shuttle makes these ratios between civil service and budget/contracts even worse out of wack at specific locations.

    Second, lacking budget, some programs have moved below the ratios traditionally applied between NASA management, engineering and so on vs. contracts. So big project A program manager, getting a budget choice, decides to spend more in procurement and contracts vs. civil servants. Ratios upset one again, and civil servants and infrastructure see the repeat of the old 90s excess capacity issue and unassigned unsupported facilities etc.

    Third, the commercial programs are running at ratios of civil service to budget significantly lower than past ratios. Perhaps 1 percent civil service ratio vs. budget for the project, contracts, etc. Further creating unwanted, homeless civil servants, orphan facilities, etc.

    The end result is being seen in high numbers of charging to generic management or technology codes, but lacking real procurement dollars, raising the question of limitations on productivity there.

    Another effect being that once programs shift again, into manufacturing or operations, or later program phases, the people and facilities have to be drawn back from wherever the musical chairs may have last left them.

    All very difficult to address as each stovepipe fends for themselves in a tragedy of the commons.

    • Mal Peterson says:
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      I would have preferred you didn’t use the “percent of budget” approach. It simply is not very useful, even as a gross measure. (It is almost as bad as comparing expenditures on NASA programs to the percentage of GDP.) The relationships between the types of expenditures are so indirect that anyone needing to make an informed decision won’t find the ratios useful.
      Also, most NASA program managers don’t make marginal decisions on $ for civil service vs. contract in a vacuum. The preservation of needed capabilities (in the civil service or in government-owned facilities) is a discussion about the future. Center Directors and HQ officials provide a longer-term perspective to avoid poor decisions driven by only short-term considerations.

      • Anonymous says:
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        Symptomatically in can be useful to do the % of budget, if only to understand what’s been moved somewhat out of whack (but not why). Although yes, the phrase and measure is not useful when going into details. If there is a useful context for the measure it is in that both civil servants and facilities that lack procurement dollars (when areas with procurement dollars go below the typical ratio) will have to struggle to figure out how to be productive. This issue of productivity (vs. preserving capability) is sure to arise in the TCAT, I would think.