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(An Example of Successful Facilitated Intelligent Solution)

Facilitation of Cultural Change for One of the Most Successful Complex Robotic Radioactive Cleanup Challenges in the U.S. DOE Complex

Assistance in changing the culture and integrating multiple government and contractor organizations that had primarily been research organizations to become successfully integrated teams in one of the most complex cleanup projects in the DOE Complex. Prior to this effort, most of the organizations at the facility had been focused on research and development, rather than actually accomplishing very complex tasks on a fixed schedule.

Key Challenges

Initially there was some confusion about whether the goals of the program were associated with cost or full compliance with the EPA's CERLA requirements. While it appeared that there was no confusion about the program goals, it was later determined that not only was there confusion, but the effort was not focused on the required goals for the program.
There was significant confusion about how the various organizations at the facility would work together and differences of option among the EPA, the state regulators, the U.S. DOE, and some of the key contractors. In some cases key managers would disavow any responsibility for certain key functions.
The organizational structure for this program had to be defined for the project, because many of the contractors and organizations had never worked together before at this particular DOE facility.
There was confusion about which data would be collected, which data would not be collected, and the value of the data.
The required cultural changes necessary to simply accomplish tasks on a schedule would require significant cultural changes.
Long-term and short-term budgets and funding continued to fluctuate during the entire program.
At times there were conflicts between DOE managers and other contractors as far as who was really running and directing the program. A special culture among the key managers of the various organizations had to be created and expanded during the program over a four year period.

Successful Results

A key APARIQ solutions coordinator worked very closely, over a four year period, with an extraordinarily talented program manager from the coordination contractor. An innovative coordination approach was created that allowed more than 20 entities to input their feelings and options to create a very large flow chart. This flow chart (a precedence chart) was used in a meeting of all of the organizations to develop an overview plan for the organization of the four year program. The overview plan was used as the skeleton to develop a written overview plan that significantly helped reduced costs, helped define cultural interfaces and operating boundaries, and helped define the amount and type of information that was collected. The definition of the cultures, the definition of organizational relationships, carefully defining new operating and safety cultures, and changing old unacceptable cultures became a key part of the success of this program and the ultimate success of the project over life of the program. This was one of the most intensive and effective cultural change situations ever facilitated in the DOE complex.