Improving PDSO
Over the years, PDSO had been unable to develop the necessary competencies to
fulfill its mission of developing IT-based business solutions. PDSO personnel felt that
most of the CEC staff saw the unit as a hindrance in the successful implementation of
new IT systems and the improvement of existing systems. At the end of 2004, Bosley
appointed Rita Gass to lead the transformation of PDSO. Just a few months after her
appointment, Bosley regarded the observable improvements in PDSO as revolutionary
compared with the slow evolutionary advancement in the rest of ITSB. Her upbeat
“let’s get it done” attitude had revitalized the PDSO staff.
Gass began by building a communications plan, with PDSO and the business
units as audiences. Her objective was to make PDSO’s purpose clear. She wrote
and communicated the unit’s mission not only to her staff but to all CEC personnel.
To support the mission, she and her staff reviewed the services they would deliver to
their customers and how would they deliver them. This led to the creation of
PDSO’s internal value chain that identified and defined each service they would provide. Similar to Bosley’s approach, the value chain broke down the services into subcomponents to determine the processes, resources, and tools needed to deliver the
services. Gass then assigned staff members to the services, based on their respective
competencies and brought in contractors to address areas where PDSO staff lacked
competencies. Through the process of this redesign, the staff developed a sense of
ownership over PDSO’s role and clarified their individual contributions to the overall
mission.