Appendices – Appendix B – Glossary
ACCOUNTABILITY A responsibility to explain actions undertaken. Requires managers to: 1) clarify what is expected, 2) examine program activities and performance measures and compare their performance with what is expected, 3) act on findings to improve program activities and performance measures, and 4) communicate findings in accordance with agency and government regulations.
ACTIVITY An action that provides further separation of NOAA’s program components into functions delivering products and services to accomplish an objective. See “Capability.”
ANNUAL GUIDANCE MEMORANDUM (AGM) Strategic guidance from the Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, or NOAA Administrator, to goal team leads for use in the development of Strategic Portfolio Analysis.
ANNUAL OPERATING PLAN (AOP) A plan required by the Deputy Under Secretary (DUS) and produced by the NOAA Line and Staff Offices outlining a schedule of events, responsibilities, and milestones for the current fiscal year. The AOP outlines planned actions to be taken throughout the year to accomplish the approved and appropriated NOAA Program. The status of the AOP schedule is reviewed quarterly by the DUS.
ANNUAL PERFORMANCE PLAN A plan required by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) providing the direct linkage between long-term strategic goals outlined in agencies’ strategic plans and what managers and employees are committed to accomplishing in a given fiscal year given the associated budget. This plan is presented in the first section of the agency’s budget submission to DOC, OMB, and Congress.
APPLICATION The use of research results in furthering NOAA’s mission.
APPROPRIATION A provision of law providing budget authority that enables an agency to incur obligations and to make payments out of the U.S. Treasury for specified purposes. Appropriations are the most common means of providing budget authority. Annual appropriations are provided in appropriations acts; most permanent appropriations are enacted in substantive law.
BASELINE The part of a performance measure that establishes the initial level of measurement (value and date) against which targeted progress and success are compared. A baseline includes both a starting date and starting level or value.
BUDGETING The process for determining the resources required by NOAA to meet its program commitments, justifying these requirements to various review levels, determining the impacts of revised resource levels, and executing the program at the approved funding level.
CAPABILITY The ability to satisfy a given mission requirement (e.g., restore coastal habitat). A capability is a combination of activities, processes, skills, and competencies.
CAPACITY The amount of an asset or resources available (input capacity) or the quantity of something produced (output capacity). Input capacities may include funding, personnel (e.g., NOAA Corps, FTEs, and contractors), laboratories and associated personnel, facilities, vessel operating days, flight hours, satellite usage, etc. Output capacities may include grants awarded, data gathered, products produced, customers served, research projects, and education and outreach efforts.
CAPITAL ASSET Defined by OMB Circular A-11 as “land, structures, equipment, intellectual property (e.g., software), and information technology (including IT service contracts) that are used by the Federal Government and have a useful life of two or more years.”
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER (CFO) Serves as the principal financial manager for NOAA. The CFO’s Office has the responsibility under the CFO Act to provide the leadership necessary for NOAA to obtain a yearly-unqualified opinion in the audit of its consolidated financial statements. The areas under the direction of the CFO are the Budget and Finance Offices.
CLIMATE The weather of a locality averaged over a long term (often 30 years) period, including its variability.
CLIMATE CHANGE The change in the mean state of the weather over periods of time from decades to centuries to millions of years.
CLIMATE VARIABILITY Natural changes in climate that fall within the normal range of extremes for a particular region, as measured by temperature, precipitation, and frequency of events. Drivers include the El Niño Southern Oscillation and other phenomena.
COMMITTEE An established group that reports to a NOAA Council.
CONSTITUENT Any entity to which NOAA provides a product or service or is impacted by NOAA’s mission. This includes citizens and businesses as well as other government agencies.
COUNCIL An established group that provides leadership and coordination across the agency for select functions.
CROSS-CUTTING PRIORITY A thematic functional underpinning of the councils.
CUSTOMER A stakeholder that uses NOAA’s products and services.
DERIVATIVE STRATEGIC PLANS Strategic plans written by NOAA organizations that serve as a bridge between NOAA’s strategic plan and the operational or functional components of NOAA.
ECOSYSTEM A geographically-specified system of organisms (including humans), the environment, and the processes that control its dynamics.
EFFECTIVENESS An assessment of the quantitative level of achievement of program goals and the intended results.
EFFICIENCY The ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input.
ENTERPRISE A purposeful undertaking that generally requires the coordination of different organizations, types of expertise, and capital. The cross-cutting science, administrative, engagement, infrastructure, and management functions that support NOAA’s distinctive capabilities.
ENTERPRISE OBJECTIVE A cross-cutting, near-term, concrete, measured step required to meet a desired state for NOAA’s Enterprise functions.
ENVIRONMENT The biological, chemical, physical, and social conditions that surround organisms.
EVALUATION The systematic assessment of how well a program is working toward achieving program objectives. There are four main types of evaluation, including outcome evaluation (what the program accomplished), impact evaluation (net effect of the program), process evaluation (extent the program is operating as intended), and cost-benefit/cost-effectiveness evaluation.
EXECUTION Consists of two elements: Execution of the Annual Operating Plan (where the work is performed and performance is measured), and Budget Execution (where programs are discharged within approved budget levels through the use of effective fund control and financial management).
EXECUTIVE DECISION PROCESS (EDP) Uses a tiered structure wherein significant NOAA issues are identified, discussed, decided, or framed for decision at the next higher level. The structure comprises the NOAA Executive Council (NEC), NOAA Executive Panel (NEP), Councils, Boards, and Committees.
EXECUTIVE ORDER (EO) Presidential direction to the executive branch of Federal Government (e.g., Executive Order 12906, “Coordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure”).
EXHIBIT 300 The Capital Asset Plan and Business Case Summary designed to coordinate OMB’s collection of agency information for its reports to the Congress required by the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 and the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. This exhibit provides the business case for investments and documents that includes mission statements, long-term goals and objectives, and annual performance plans developed pursuant to the GPRAMA. For Information Technology (IT), Exhibit 300s are designed to be used as onestop documents for many IT management issues, such as business cases for investments, IT security reporting, Clinger-Cohen Act implementation, E-Gov Act implementation, Government Paperwork Elimination Act implementation, agency’s modernization efforts, and overall project (investment) management.
FISCAL YEAR (FY) A 12-month period used for calculating annual (“yearly”) financial reports in an organization. The U.S. Government’s fiscal year begins on October 1 of the previous calendar year and ends on September 30 of the year with which it is numbered.
GOAL A specific component of the NOAA’s strategic vision for the future. Translated from the vision, a high-level result that NOAA will seek to achieve over a multi-decadal time horizon.
GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE AND RESULTS ACT MODERNIZATION ACT (GPRAMA) OF 2010 GPRAMA (P.L. 111-352) makes substantial changes to the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA 1993). Among other things, GPRAMA:
»Continues three agency-level (DOC) products from GPRA 1993, but with changes;
»Establishes new products and processes that focus on goal-setting and performance measurement in policy areas that cut across agencies;
»Brings attention to using goals and measures during policy implementation;
»Increases reporting on the Internet (www.performance.gov); and
»Requires individuals to be responsible for some goals and management tasks.
In making these changes, GPRAMA aligns the timing of many products to coincide with presidential terms and budget proposals. The law also includes more central roles for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), an entity that often seeks to advance the President’s policy preferences. GPRAMA also contains more specific requirements for consultations with Congress. By design, many of GPRAMA’s products are required to be submitted to Congress for scrutiny and potential use. The law also provides opportunities for Congress and non-federal stakeholders to influence how agencies and OMB set goals and assess performance.
For more information on GRPAMA see the following links.
»http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/performance/gprm-act
»http://www.auditforum.org/speaker presentations/swiaf/swiaf 02 2011/licht.pdf
»http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42379.pdf
NOAA (a bureau) is awaiting guidance from DOC (the agency) on how to implement OMB Circular A-11 regarding GPRAMA implementation http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars_a11_current_year_a11_toc.
HOMEPORT The duty station where is a ship is moored whenever it is not operationally deployed or at a shipyard for maintenance. The homeport facility also houses engineering, logistic, and administrative support personnel and is often co-located with NOAA program offices that regularly use the ship.
INDICATOR The part of a performance measure that defines the attribute or characteristic to be measured.
INFORMATION SERVICES Production and delivery of interpreted and/or synthesized data, decision tools, and scientific knowledge and understanding to decision makers and policy makers, the scientific community, and the public.
INPUT The financial and human resources, intellectual processes and infrastructure the organization uses to deliver a capability.
INTERAGENCY OR INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT A formal agreement between one or more agencies/countries (e.g., the Earth Observations Summit agreement).
KEY DECISION POINT (KDP) A significant milestone in project implementation documenting an agency investment decision. The KDPs are as follows (for systems acquisitions, Department Administrative Orders may provide more specific requirements or definitions):
»KEY DECISION POINT-1 (KDP-1) Needs identification and definition: identification and definition of shortfalls, their relative priority within NOAA, and the general magnitude of life cycle costs that may be needed to address them.
»KEY DECISION POINT-2 (KDP-2) Solution alternatives identification: selection of one or more alternatives to be advanced for further analysis (including research and pilot testing).
»KEY DECISION POINT-3 (KDP-3) Solution selection: selection of an approach, including project scope, review procedures, and commitment as appropriate to full-scale research and development.
»KEY DECISION POINT-4 (KDP-4) Acquisition/implementation approval: commitment to full acquisition and/or operational implementation with explicit approval of baseline objectives and project scope to include life cycle cost, schedule, and performance goals.
LEGISLATION Includes a bill, act, or amendment enacted into law by the U.S. Congress (e.g., Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act of 1998 [S. 3014. ES]; Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 [H.R. 4818]). Legislation is not conference language, proposed bills or acts, or other discussions of Congress.
LIFE CYCLE COST Defined by OMB Circular A-11 as “the overall estimated cost, both government and contractor, for a particular project alternative over the time period corresponding to the life of the project, including direct and indirect initial costs plus any periodic or continuing costs of operation and maintenance.” Life-cycle costs includes the total cost to the government over the full project life, including (as applicable) the cost of research and development, investment in mission and support equipment (hardware and software), initial inventories, training, data, facilities, operations, maintenance, support, and retirement or disposal.
MAJOR PROJECT As defined in NAO 216-108, any project with life-cycle costs greater than the NOAA-established threshold ($250 million FY 2005 constant dollars), unless otherwise directed by DOC or higher authority. The life-cycle cost determination should be computed over the service life for physical assets and over 10 years for other projects. The DUS may also designate any project as a major project based on any of the criteria found in OMB Circular A-11, regardless of its life-cycle costs. These criteria include:
»Importance to the agency’s mission
»High development, operating, or maintenance costs
»High risk
»High return and/or significant role in the administration of the agency’s programs, finances, property, or other resources
MISSION A summary of the agency’s fundamental mandates and responsibilities. A succinct and distinctive statement of what NOAA does. A mission statement encapsulating the set of statutory requirements that drive NOAA’s mission functions, assumed to be stable over the planning period
MISSION REQUIREMENT A validated NOAA responsibility resulting from one or more requirements drivers. Mission requirements should be understandable, outcome-oriented, concise, and actionable, and should identify the need but not prescribe specific solutions.
NOAA ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER (NAO) Prescribes administrative management policies, responsibilities, and requirements that apply to two or more NOAA Line and/or Staff Offices.
NOAA PROGRAM An integrated, fiscally balanced, five-year plan reflecting all of NOAA’s appropriated funds, not intended to be viewed outside of NOAA.
NON-MAJOR PROJECT Any project that does not meet the definition of a major project.
OBJECTIVE For each long-term goal, a corresponding near-term, concrete, measured step toward that goal. An outcome that further describes the goal statement by detailing the societal and environmental benefits that NOAA will seek to achieve in the short-term. Evidences of Progress within each objective form the basis of outcome-oriented performance measures.
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET (OMB) The office that assists the President in overseeing the preparation of the President’s Budget and supervises its administration in Executive branch agencies. In helping to formulate the President’s spending plans, OMB evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, assesses competing funding demands among agencies, and sets funding priorities. OMB ensures that agency reports, rules, testimony, and proposed legislation are consistent with the President’s Budget and with Administration policies. In addition, OMB oversees and coordinates the Administration’s procurement, financial management, information, and regulatory policies. In each of these areas, OMB’s role is to help improve administrative management, to develop better performance measures and coordinating mechanisms, and to reduce any unnecessary burdens on the public.
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET (OMB) CIRCULAR NO. A–11 Provides guidance on preparing the budget submission for a given fiscal year, and includes instructions on budget execution.
OPERATIONS Sustained, systematic, reliable, and robust mission activities with an institutional commitment to deliver appropriate cost-effective products and services.
OUTCOME An end result, expected and unexpected, of the customer’s use or application of the organization’s outputs. Outcomes may be long-term, mid-term, or short-term in nature.
OUTPUT The products or services resulting from a capability.
PARTNER A non-NOAA stakeholder that assists NOAA in the conduct of its mission. NOAA collaborates with a wide range of partners. They can be divided roughly into the three types:
»STATUTORY A formal relationship codified by MOUs, or other formal interorganizational agreements to collaborate in the conduct of mutual mission goals and objectives. Examples are Coastal America and Cooperative Institutes.
»OTHER FORMAL A standing statutory relationship with other Federal or state organizations; partner formally authorized to assist NOAA in achieving its mission. Examples are Sea Grant Programs, Coastal Zone Managers, National Estuarine Research Reserves, and State Fisheries Managers.
»INFORMAL A working relationship with other organizations that assist NOAA in the conduct of its mission, not under the terms of formal interorganizational agreements. An example is the Smithsonian Exhibit for NOAA’s 200th Anniversary Celebration.
PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY REPORT A report required by OMB and produced by DOC documenting achievements toward the accomplishment of the President’s Management Agenda, status of the Department’s annual financial audit, and performance against the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act (GPRAMA) goals.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT The systematic process of monitoring the results of activities, collecting and analyzing performance information to track progress toward planning results, using performance information to inform program decision making and resource allocation, and communicating results achieved, or not attained, to advance organizational learning and tell the agency’s story.
PERFORMANCE MEASURE A structured statement that describes the means by which actual outcomes and outputs are measured against planned outcomes and outputs. Performance measures consist of four parts:
»INDICATOR The part of a performance measure that defines the attribute or characteristic to be measured.
»UNIT OF MEASURE The part of a performance measure that describes what is to be measured.
»BASELINE The part of a performance measure that establishes the initial level of measurement (value and date) against which targeted progress and success are compared. A baseline includes both a starting date and a starting level/value.
»TARGET The part of a performance measure that establishes the desired level to be reached in a defined time period, usually stated as an improvement over the baseline.
PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT The ongoing monitoring and reporting of program accomplishments, particularly progress toward pre-established goals by NOAA management.
PLANNING The formal process to determine both internal and external requirements, including program performance.
PRESIDENT’S MANAGEMENT AGENDA An aggressive strategy for improving the management of the Federal Government. It focuses on five areas of management weakness across the government where improvements and the most progress can be made. The five areas are:
»Strategic management of human capital
»Competitive sourcing
»Improved financial performance
»Expanded electronic performance
»Budget and performance integration
PROGRAM ASSESSMENT OR EVALUATION Individual systematic studies conducted periodically or on an ad hoc basis to assess how well a program is working. The assessments are often conducted by experts external to the program, either inside or outside the agency, as well as by Program Managers. A program evaluation typically examines achievement of program objectives in the context of other aspects of program performance or in the context in which it occurs.
PROGRAM COMPONENT The further separation of NOAA’s programs into sub-elements.
PROJECT Any undertaking of a temporary nature (e.g., research, assessment, prediction, acquisition, or stewardship efforts) designed to create a service, product, system, and/or system upgrade in support of a validated NOAA mission requirement. A NOAA project is intended to address a shortfall within defined budget and schedule constraints and terminates when the service, product, or system achieves full operational capability, when the capability gap is resolved or, in coordination with other programs, when directed by the project manager or higher authority.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT The application of knowledge, skills, and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder/customer needs and expectations from a project. All projects have a designated project manager. The Project Manager is responsible for translating mission requirements into a project to ensure a satisfactory solution is delivered. The Project Manager establishes and maintains a process to manage change throughout the project’s life cycle, and is responsible for preparing documentation to support the continuous and systematic review of progress as it relates to key decision points (KDPs) and meeting mission requirements.
PROJECT MANAGER An individual formally designated to manage a NOAA project.
REGULATIONS Published in the Federal Register by the Executive branch of the Federal Government and constitute a set of direction to all agencies of the Federal Government (e.g., 50 CFR Part 600, Magnuson-Stevens Act Provisions; National Standard Guidelines).
REQUIREMENTS DRIVER A NOAA responsibility that is specified in legislation, regulation, Executive Order, policy decision, interagency or international agreement, or other official action that establishes a NOAA responsibility.
REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT The framework that NOAA utilizes to meet the mission goals and outcomes of program performance measures and deliverables.
RESILIENCE The ability of a system to absorb impacts without significant change in condition or functioning.
RESULT The expected or unexpected outcome of NOAA’s products and services.
SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD (SAB) The only Federal Advisory Committee with responsibility to advise the NOAA Administrator on long- and short range strategies for research, education, and the application of science to resource management, environmental assessment, and prediction.
SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM A policy-level group consisting of at least one senior person from each Line Office involved in a Matrix Program that resolves potential conflicts. The Senior Management Team provides vision for the programs, capitalizes on program strengths, and diminishes weaknesses. The Team also ensures that balance is maintained within the whole of NOAA and that NOAA remains aligned with its Strategic Plan.
SHORTFALL The difference between current capabilities and the additional capability needed to meet a mission requirement.
STAKEHOLDER An individual or organization affected by NOAA’s ability to achieve its mission.
STRATEGY A high-level explanation of what the agency intends to do and why it intends to do it. A mission statement (with a corresponding set of functions) relating to a vision statement (with a corresponding set of long-term strategic goals) that succinctly conveys NOAA’s fundamental purpose, strategic direction, and value to society.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT A dynamic and ongoing process for corporate decisionmaking. Strategic management integrates planning, programming, budgeting, and execution and uses a shared system of principles, processes, and support structures.
STRATEGIC PLAN A planning document required by OMB that identifies how the mission will be accomplished through a vision statement, goals, strategies, and high-level outcomes for the agency. The strategic plan is reviewed by NOAA annually and covers a period of not less than five years forward from the fiscal year in which it is generated.
STRATEGIC PLANNING The process by which the future direction of NOAA is embodied in its goals, objectives, strategies, and performance measures.
STRATEGIC PORTFOLIO ANALYSIS (SPA) An analysis that provides NOAA leadership with a review of goal issues and priorities over the planning period.
SUB-GOAL An elaboration of the goal, developing with greater specificity as to how an agency will focus its mission.
THEMATIC WORKING GROUP A group established on an as-needed basis to provide expertise in planning, programming, and issue resolution. These working groups help to ensure the whole picture is understood and the correct data is collected in order to assist the appropriate Senior Management Team to make an educated well-informed decision.
TRANSITION PLAN A document identifying the comprehensive activities necessary to transfer a research result to operations. The Transition Plan identifies stakeholders, defines criteria for when a project will be transferred, and provides funding profiles for operational implementation, information service delivery, and/or follow-up research.
TRANSITION PROJECT The collective set of activities necessary to transfer a research result, or collection of research results, to operational status or to an information service.
TRANSITION TEAM A group of individuals assigned the responsibility to execute a Transition Project.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE (DOC) The parent department of NOAA. NOAA and the Department’s other component bureaus create the conditions for economic growth and opportunity by promoting innovation, entrepreneurship, competitiveness, and stewardship. The DOC’s mission is linked directly to encouraging the economic growth that benefits all American industries, workers, and consumers; enhancing technological leadership and environmental stewardship; and advocating market growth strategies.
VISION A description of an envisioned future state of society and the environment that, implicitly, cannot be achieved without NOAA. A description of long-term (multi-decadal) success in terms of the value NOAA will generate for society. Answers why NOAA exists.
WEATHER The present condition of the atmosphere and its short-term variation at a particular location.
