Engineer Memoirs _____________________________________________________________________
Q:
The decision on forming this office did have its people who had questions about it, were
skeptical about it. One of the concerns that was raised at the time that this separate Office for
Strategic Initiatives was established had to do with the very fact that you've looked on as a
strength: the isolating of a strategic planning team. Originally some of this was handled out
of the Resource Management office. Also, there was the involvement of, perhaps, a broader
spectrum, or a deeper spectrum, of the staff, which maybe is not so much the case under the
way things function now. Would you have a comment on that?
A:
What you're suggesting is that when Resource Management had it, there was involvement of
a broader, deeper spectrum of staff?
Q:
I wouldn't necessarily tie it together to that. It's just the arrangement that existed before,
another group that existed, was called the Strategic Planning Initiatives Group. That group
involved a lot of less senior people, as well as senior people.
That is not so much the case now. It was said at the time that this strategic initiatives
proposal--because that was worked through the staff and everything--it was said that doing
this would, in effect, really destroy that old arrangement, and therefore strategic planning. All
managers needed to think strategically, and there would be nothing left in place to get them
to do that, in a sense, nor to take advantage, perhaps, of some of their contributions to the
whole process.
A:
Well, the latter one is the most important point. Back when there was Resource Management,
and Kathy Thompson was involved with it--a very capable person--I was involved, I guess,
when I was in the ACE.
Q:
It's called Future Directions Branch, Resource Management, I think.
A:
I don't know whether I was involved with the Strategic Planning Initiatives Group, or what it
was called. I remember meeting, when I was Deputy ACE and Deputy Director of Civil
Works, in future planning sessions that Kathy Thompson was getting off the ground. Maybe
it developed deeper later.
Q:
It was in Civil Works then, later.
A:
Well, what I was going to say was I never had a feeling it really worked. I think the problem
with it was--and I'm not really being fair, and I'm not castigating her under any
circumstances because she is very capable--that it was all too structured. It was almost like
the information management experience I have just talked about. The senior managers had
only tuned in to the technical guys when they said, "Here's what we got." They never put
their minds and thoughts really into CEAP to make it something, so that management never
bought in. Senior managers participated every now and then, but they didn't buy into
strategic planning. I'm talking about senior managers, director level. Although you might
have had a lot of players, it might have been like some of those other staff activities I
mentioned. We play in a lot of arenas in the Corps; we're a bunch of professionals and we
talk and plan, but getting down to doing it, that's another question.
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