Business Process Reengineering Assessment Guid

Business Process Reengineering Assessment Guid

Federal agencies are being challenged to reduce the cost of government while improving
their performance. As noted in GAO's executive guide on strategic information
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management, achieving major levels of cost savings and performance improvement nearly
always requires that agencies redesign the business processes they use to accomplish
their work. Many of the largest federal agencies find themselves encumbered with
structures and processes rooted in the past, aimed at the demands of earlier times, and
designed before modern information and communications technology came into being.
These agencies are poorly positioned to fulfill their mission and meet their strategic goals.
They need to consider replacing outmoded work processes with streamlined ones that
more effectively serve the needs of the American public.
The need for agencies to reassess their business processes was recognized in the Clinger-
Cohen Act of 1996. Among the provisions of this landmark information management
reform, agencies are required to determine whether their administrative and mission-
related business processes should be improved before investing in major information
systems to support them. In addition, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has
reenforced this by requiring that investments in major information systems proposed for
funding in the President's budget should, among other things, support work processes
that have been simplified or otherwise redesigned to reduce costs and improve
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performance. This recent legislation builds on other general management reforms. The
Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 provides the framework for defining
and measuring how well an agency is meeting its mission goals. And the Chief Financial
Officers Act of 1990 addresses the need for agencies to have accurate financial
information to understand and manage their operations.