Recommendations for Executive Action

1. Status: Open

   Comments: While the program has expanded its reporting of contingency reserve information to the Program Management Council (PMC), the information reported at monthly PMC meetings still does not include contingency reserves broken out for each satellite in the GOES-R series.

   Recommendation: To improve NOAA's ability to execute GOES-R's remaining planned development with appropriate reserves, improve the reliability of its schedules, and address identified program risks, the Secretary of Commerce should direct the NOAA Administrator to assess and report to the NOAA Program Management Council the reserves needed for completing remaining development for each satellite in the series.

   Agency Affected: Department of Commerce

2. Status: Open

   Comments: The GOES-R series program has made improvements to its scheduling management practices. For example, all subcontractor activities are now included in the core ground schedule and there is a higher percentage of activities allocated to individual resources in the spacecraft schedule. Overall, the primary schedules for the program's ground and flight project showed improvement in four and two best practices areas, respectively. In late 2013, the program also identified further actions to ensure appropriate schedule logic, including monthly "health checks" and faster elimination of unnecessary constraints. However, the program has not yet provided details showing a realistic allocation of resources, nor has it demonstrated that it has addressed shortfalls in other component schedules. We will continue to monitor the agency's progress in addressing this recommendation.

   Recommendation: To improve NOAA's ability to execute GOES-R's remaining planned development with appropriate reserves, improve the reliability of its schedules, and address identified program risks, the Secretary of Commerce should direct the NOAA Administrator to, for all satellites in the GOES-R program, including those for which detailed scheduling has yet to begin, address shortfalls in the schedule management practices we identified, including but not limited to incorporating appropriate schedule logic, eliminating unnecessary constraints, creating a realistic allocation of resources, ensuring an unbroken critical path from the current date to the final satellite launch, and ensuring that all subcontractor activities are incorporated in contractors' integrated master schedules.

   Agency Affected: Department of Commerce

3. Status: Closed - Implemented

   Comments: NOAA concurred with this recommendation. In August 2013, the GOES-R program updated its risk management plan to clarify policies and procedures for providing timely and adequate evaluations of risk categories, documenting strategies for ongoing and newly identified risks, identifying timeframes for risk mitigation and fallback plans, providing rationale for decisions to close risks, and tracking risk action items from the risk management boards. In January 2014, the program provided screen captures from use of its automated risk management tool, showing how the system is set up to require the evaluation of risks by risk category; the input of information for newly identified risks; time limits for entering risk mitigation plans; the entering of a rationale when risks were closed; and the tracking of detailed handling strategy action items.

   Recommendation: To improve NOAA's ability to execute GOES-R's remaining planned development with appropriate reserves, improve the reliability of its schedules, and address identified program risks, the Secretary of Commerce should direct the NOAA Administrator to execute the program's risk management policies and procedures to provide more timely and adequate evaluations and reviews of newly identified risks, documented handling strategies for all ongoing and newly identified risks in the risk register, time frames for when risk mitigation and fallback plans are to be executed, adequate rationale for decisions to close risks, and documentation and tracking of action items from risk review board meetings or other meetings with senior NOAA and NASA managers through completion.

   Agency Affected: Department of Commerce

4. Status: Closed - Implemented

   Comments: The agency agreed with this recommendation. In 2012, the GOES-R series program added the risk that changes to the first GOES-R series satellite (GOES-R) schedule would impact the schedule of the second satellite (GOES-S) to its critical risk list. By January 2014, the program removed this risk from its monthly management update, and showed that GOES-S remaining slack would be enough to absorb a GOES-R slip all the way to the GOES-R commitment date. Given this, it is not possible for a GOES-R delay to impact the launch date of GOES-S. Finally, the program continued to monitor the program-identified funding stability risk, and identified steps it could take to mitigate the funding stability risk, if warranted.

   Recommendation: To improve NOAA's ability to execute GOES-R's remaining planned development with appropriate reserves, improve the reliability of its schedules, and address identified program risks, the Secretary of Commerce should direct the NOAA Administrator to, given the potential impact to the program, add the risk that GOES-S milestones may be affected by GOES-R development to the program's critical risk list, and ensure that this risk and the program-identified funding stability risk are adequately monitored and mitigated.

   Agency Affected: Department of Commerce

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