The Department of Defense dwarfs most Fortune 500 organizations in terms of its sheer size, spectacular budget and global presence. So imagine what an incredible opportunity awaited J.D. Sicilia, the newly appointed Lean Six Sigma Program Office Director, when he was asked to spearhead the mission of implementing Continuous Performance Improvement (CPI) across the DoD. While eliminating the duplication of effort, increasing efficiency and reducing costs are familiar objectives of business transformation; this initiative went a step further: embedding the culture of CPI across the DoD and leveraging the synergies of such a massive deployment.

An Enormous Undertaking

Given the staggering Six Sigma results already achieved at the DoD — including $5 billion in financial benefit, 20,000 projects completed and 25,000 Belts trained — Mr. Sicilia recognized the untapped potential for replication. He also identified the need to incorporate a centralized software application across the DoD to standardize methodologies, streamline reporting and capture best practices.

PowerSteering Called to Action

The DoD’s vision was to leverage the institutional knowledge from successful projects and share it enterprise-wide among the Belts and Champions. They also needed to standardize on a single set of performance metrics — regardless of whether the project originated in the Army, Air Force, Navy or a support agency — so benefits could be calculated and reported on a consistent basis. A thorough software evaluation process led to the selection of PowerSteering as the DoD’s consolidated system for Lean Six Sigma program management. PowerSteering is the backbone of the DoD Enterprise Performance Management System (DEPMS). This critical capability integrates the strategy, performance and budget data into a single application.

PowerSteering Reported for Duty

As the single repository for all CPI activity, PowerSteering allows the DoD to score prospective projects based on their alignment with strategic priorities and objectives to ensure that resources are focused on the right initiatives. It also provides Belts with several time-saving productivity tools including a searchable library of completed projects, collaboration, knowledge management and best practice sharing functionality. PowerSteering’s combination of strategic alignment, executive visibility and financial management capabilities are essential for data-driven decision making and performance accountability throughout the Department of Defense.

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