Case Study
Going the Distance: Assessing and Restructuring a Geographically Dispersed Federal Agency to Increase Efficiencies and Better Deliver on its Mission
With an outdated organizational model and mounting budgetary pressures, a bureau within a large federal agency sought to modernize the structure of a geographically dispersed team in order to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Censeo was brought on to assess the agency’s organizational structure, develop a future state recommendation, and provide support as leadership engaged stakeholders in the implementation of the strategy.
Censeo’s future state recommendation updated the agency’s vision, resized and restructured staff, significantly reduced the administrative overhead, and downsized the geographic footprint, resulting in identified savings potential of almost 40 percent. The plan was approved by Congressional Oversight and adopted by agency leadership during the same year.
This was a major accomplishment for the Agency. To the best of my knowledge, our project was the first time we have performed a resizing of operations in several decades. Your data and analysis were instrumental in making the case inside and outside the agency. – Senior Department Leader
Situation
A team within a large federal agency was operating under an outdated organizational model, adopted several decades earlier. Facing industry changes and budgetary pressures, agency management wanted to modernize the operating model by conducting a full organizational assessment of the team distributed across the U.S. They also wanted to determine if resources were being used in an efficient manner and if the resources were aligned with the agency’s mission and policy priorities. This effort was part of a broader initiative to streamline operations, increase efficiencies, and more effectively deploy the agency’s assets and serve their constituents.
Approach
Censeo’s framework for assessing the organization was to:
- Comprehensively document the current state of organization, activities, processes, expenses, business support, and organizational effectiveness;
- Develop a detailed future state recommendation; and
- Support stakeholder engagement during the initial implementation and adoption of the future state recommendation.
During this process, Censeo engaged more than 160 stakeholders, visited a majority of the agency’s sites across the U.S., surveyed the entire organization’s personnel, and performed rigorous data analysis to capture input during the strategy development process.
Results
Censeo recommended a future state plan that updated the vision of the organization, clarified the role of the teams, resized and restructured staff, significantly reduced administrative overhead, and downsized the team’s geographic footprint. The final iteration of the plan received Congressional approval and was adopted by agency leadership during the same year. Overall, the recommendations accounted for approximately 40 percent in savings when compared to the prior year’s budget. By reducing inefficiencies and redundancies, the agency can reallocate those savings to mission-critical initiatives.
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