Federal Government Relies on Guidehouse’s Integrated Program Management Solution to Provide the Public with Critical Information

Challenge

Government agencies find it increasingly challenging to educate and engage with the public. The proliferation of media channels, the cacophony of social media, and the rise of mis/dis information further exacerbated the ability of this government agency to break through with a vital and time-sensitive “call to action.” With a target audience consisting of essentially every household in the United States, the task required a deeply researched, highly integrated, creative approach flexible enough to adapt to changes in the environment.

Solution

To support the massive campaign, Guidehouse deployed an equally comprehensive program management approach grounded in the principles of our TruePMO^SM strategy.  Key elements included: 

Schedule management – Guidehouse created an integrated master schedule that linked and associated thousands of education and outreach campaign activities. Key to this schedule was mapping the relationships and dependencies of the activities to provide client and program leadership the ability to anticipate potential impacts associated with missed milestones and to adjust resources where necessary to stay on track. 

Budget/financial management – With hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars invested, planning the allocation of funds across numerous activities and contractors was critical.  Guidehouse served as the lead for budget and financial management for this effort, tracking each and every dollar spent, its purpose, its return, and its value. This level of detail allowed client and program leadership to approach both long-term and urgent investment decisions well-informed. 

Risk and quality management – With so much at stake in the campaign for every community in America, the government was eager to minimize risk and deliver a highly effective outreach effort. Guidehouse served as the lead author for the campaign’s risk plan, which included risk identification, mitigation planning, and risk tracking.  Through weekly meetings with the client, our risk management team provided leadership with insights into potential challenges or situations that could limit the success of the effort. Some situations were low risk and accepted by leadership. Others required detailed mitigation plans as the scenarios could likely derail the mission and desired outputs. Guidehouse brought an equally rigorous approach to quality management to ensure deliverables met and exceeded client expectations. This effort demanded a crisp eye and a focus on getting it right the first time. Guidehouse successfully brought these forces together earning the highest levels of satisfaction and ratings from the client.

Impact

In today’s environment, bringing together Americans for a common goal can be difficult. Through the tremendous energy of numerous Federal entities and partner organizations, as well as state and local governments, the effort was deemed successful: milestones were met, precontract program initiatives were achieved, and the government also received action steps and a draft plan to use on the next effort which will help to streamline future start up challenges.