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2.1 Overview of Department and its Area of Responsibility
2.2 Strategy and Structure Prior to the Transformation
2.3 Forces for Change
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3.1 The North Star Task Team
3.2 The Agricultural Policy Framework
3.3 Mechanisms for Stakeholder Engagement
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4.1 Vision
4.2 Strategic Outcomes
4.3 Program Changes
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5.1 Need for Realignment
5.2 Creation of Horizontal Teams
5.3 Creation of Enabling Teams
5.4 Collaboration with Other Government
Departments
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6.1 Departmental Governance
6.1.1 Management Council
6.1.2 Audit and Evaluation
6.1.3 Inclusiveness
6.1.4 Policy Brief
6.1.5 Values
and Ethics
6.2 Team Governance
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7.1 Organization of Work
7.2 Methods of Working
7.3 Team Management
7.4 Planning and Accountability
7.5 Budgeting
7.6 Performance Measurement, Monitoring and
Reporting
7.7 Risk Management
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8.1 Centralization of Support Services
8.2 Methods of Working
8.3 Finance and Assets
8.4 Human Resources
8.5 Technology and Information Systems
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10.1
Policy and Strategy
10.2
Organization and Teamwork
10.3
Governance - Boards
10.4
Delivery - Team Operations
10.5
Support Services and
Infrastructure
10.6
The Change Process
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Results for Canadians is the management
framework that establishes the Government of Canada's commitment to: building a
citizen focus into its programs and services; applying sound public service
values; focussing on achieving results; and spending responsibly by promoting
discipline, due diligence and value for money in the use of public funds. Modern Comptrollership
is a key component of this framework. It is about the sound management of
resources and effective decision-making within and across organizations and
with partners.
Bringing the elements of Results
for Canadians and Modern
Comptrollership together requires the integration of management and
accountability within organizations and with partner organizations. Although
they are at different stages of development, Environment Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
(AAFC), the Transportation Safety
Board and the Royal
Canadian Mounted Police agreed to participate in a study in which they
would document their experiences, including how performance information is used
in planning and decision-making, how accountability for results is assured, and
how horizontal management and accountability within departments and agencies
and with partner organizations is achieved.
In January 2003, the Treasury
Board Secretariat, in collaboration with these four organizations, engaged Consulting
and Audit Canada to research and prepare the case studies as well as to
prepare a synopsis document that synthesized and compared the approaches used
and identified guiding principles for use by other organizations.
This report
contains the case study for AAFC and is based on interviews conducted with 20
senior officials in the Department and on a review of documentation provided.
The study outlines a comprehensive transformation process that has taken place
in AAFC over the past three years and which is still in progress*.
* Accordingly,
the information that reflects "current" structures and processes may no longer
be accurate at the time of reading.
This
section proves a brief sketch of AAFC and its strategy and structure prior to
the transformation. It then outlines the key forces for change in the areas of
policy and management that are driving its current transformation.
The history
of AAFC as an institution stretches all the way back to Confederation, while
many of its functions are older still. Today, it has around 6,000 employees
(over 2,000 of whom are scientists) and an annual budget of close to $2
billion. The agriculture and agri-food sector, although not as central to the
Canadian economy as when the Department was founded, is still of enormous
importance today. Thus, it accounts for 8% of GDP, is the largest contributor
to manufacturing in seven provinces, accounts for one in seven of Canadian jobs
and contributes around $7 billion per year to the nation's trade surplus.
Throughout
its history, AAFC had seen its primary mandate as one of supporting farmers and
their interests. It carried out this mandate by administering programs to
stabilize farm incomes in the face of the vagaries of nature and the
marketplace, sought and promoted markets for Canadian agricultural produce
throughout the world and conducted extensive scientific research leading, among
other things, to increased crop yields, more productive livestock and new
agricultural products.
Prior to
2000, AAFC had been organized, like many departments, into separate branches,
each headed by an independently accountable Branch Head and each with its own
budget. Each branch had a mandate limited to a specific area of responsibility
and carried out its own discrete set of activities (research, financial support
programs, market development, etc.) in support of that mandate. In addition,
there were 19 research centres spread across the country that acted largely as
independent franchises focussing on research related to issues of regional
interest. Most support services (human resources, financial and asset
management, informatics, etc.) were delivered in a decentralized fashion, with
each branch and research centre meeting its support needs from its own budget.
One result was a proliferation of, according to one estimate, some 500 systems,
with little compatibility or communication between them.
The old
model was an efficient arrangement for managing discrete sets of activities in
support of AAFC's primary mandate, and it enabled the Department to carry out
much excellent work. However, because the Branches operated in relative
isolation from one another, some opportunities to create synergies between them
were missed. Furthermore, the structure did not make it easy for the Deputy
Minister (DM) to provide integrated advice, so the Minister frequently had to
deal directly and individually with the Branch Heads. Finally, although
agriculture is an area of shared jurisdiction under the Canadian Constitution,
federal/provincial/ territorial governments made only limited efforts to
coordinate their activities in this area, again leading to loss of
opportunities for synergy and mutual reinforcement. As the new
millennium dawned, it became clear that a fresh approach was required if Canada
was to compete effectively in the 21st century in world markets for
agricultural products. Up to that
point, although vast sums of money had been spent supporting farmers and
protecting farm incomes, there had been no comprehensive policy for agriculture
in Canada. It seemed that AAFC was only on the government's agenda in times of
crisis or disaster. By 2000, the federal government recognized the need to move
from crisis management to sustainable growth by developing a policy that was
national in scope, well-integrated, comprehensive and forward-looking. This
required a number of changes, including much better coordination between
federal and provincial/territorial governments, a more integrated approach to
program delivery to exploit potential synergies (for example, between science
and marketing), a focus on the entire "field to fork" value chain and an
emphasis on innovation. Moreover, and consistent with the federal government's Results for Canadians management agenda,
the agriculture policy would need to address the interests of all Canadians, as
consumers as well as producers of agricultural products. This meant that in
addition to traditional concerns, such as managing business risks to farmers,
promoting exports of agricultural products and conducting scientific research
to improve farm production and develop new products, the policy would have to
better integrate issues such as food safety and the environment in its approach
to agri-food policy and program delivery.
The federal
government laid out the direction for change in the 2001
Speech from the Throne, by announcing its commitment to "...help Canada's agricultural sector move
beyond crisis management - leading to more genuine diversification and
value-added growth, new investments and employment, better land use, and high
standards of environmental stewardship and food safety."
Meanwhile,
during the late 1990s, in response to public and media pressure, central
agencies within the federal government began to encourage all federal
departments to adopt a more integrated approach to management and to strengthen
their ability to account for the use of public funds. In support of these
objectives the Treasury Board issued Results
for Canadians and the Modern Comptrollership strategy,
which were outlined in the introduction to this document. This strategic
emphasis on integrated management and alignment with results added a force for
change in the area of management that reinforced the need for AAFC to develop
and deliver a more comprehensive and integrated policy framework. In summary,
the transformation of the agenda at AAFC brought it more in line with the
overall Government policy and management agenda.
AAFC's transformation began in the spring of 2000 with the appointment
of a new DM one of whose first actions was to establish what became known as
the North Star Task Team. The DM gave this team three weeks to develop a vision
for the Department and its policy over the next ten years. This team consisted
of 40 knowledgeable individuals at different levels from across the Department
who collectively possessed the mix of expertise required for the task at hand.
There was no chair and members were asked to put aside their branch
affiliations and focus on the Department as a whole. As it turned out, Task
Teams operating in this manner were to become the standard method for
addressing transformation issues at AAFC in the years to come. The output of
the North Star Team laid the foundations for what was to become the national Agriculture Policy Framework
(APF) and helped the Department to organize its position before beginning its
discussions with industry and with the provinces and territories on the
development of the APF.
There were
two strands to the vision that emerged from the North Star exercise, one
leading to the development of the APF and the other leading to an integrated
department capable of delivering on its APF commitments. The two strands came
together in the summer of 2002 with the endorsement of the APF. The main events in this process are shown in
Figure 1.
Figure 1
Once the North Star Task Team had made its recommendations, the federal government began
consultations with the provinces and territories on the shape of the APF. The
Federal Minister of Agriculture also commissioned a blue ribbon committee of
sectoral leaders to review the recommendations of the Task Team, thus beginning
a process of wider consultations with industry. He then presented a recommended
strategy for the agri-food sector to Cabinet, which was based on the findings
of the Task Force, and received strong endorsement for the recommended
approach. This endorsement was reflected in the January 2001 Throne Speech,
quoted earlier.
The APF has
five components:
The APF
Agreement sets out common goals, targets, indicators and implementation
measures for each of the components. In addition, the APF agreement contains a
section on branding Canada as "the" world leader in
supplying high-quality food and safe food produced in an environmentally
responsible manner and sets the objective of maximizing international marketing
opportunities for agricultural products. There was considerable discussion
among stakeholders as to whether Canada should be characterized as "a" world
leader or "the" world leader. However, it was noted that Canada can already
claim to "a" world leader in this area and, consequently, that the more
demanding target of becoming "the" world leader should be adopted.
In June 2001, at a meeting in Whitehorse, Federal/Provincial/Territorial
Ministers of Agriculture agreed in principle to the APF and to a national
action plan for its development. Since
the signing of the agreement, AAFC has been working with the signatories to
develop implementation agreements that will set out the specific program
elements, funding and delivery arrangements needed to make the APF a
reality. In June 2002, the federal
government announced that it would invest $5.2 billion in Canadian agriculture,
including $3.4 billion for the APF. In the same month, in Halifax, all but
three provinces formally ratified the APF agreement. At the time of writing,
only two provinces have yet to sign on. Under the APF, some programs are
cost-shared with provinces/territories, some are funded exclusively by the
federal government and others are funded exclusively by the
provinces/territories. The APF provides the umbrella to help ensure that all
the various programs complement each other and are aligned with the APF goals.
In fact, the APF follows the Social Union Framework Agreement model for new
program development and reporting on results, emphasizing common purpose,
citizen focus and collaboration.
In addition to widespread discussions with industry and other
stakeholders (such as universities) in the development of the APF, a more
formal structure for stakeholder engagement in the form of round tables has
been established for ten different commodity groups. Their purpose is to
provide input to policy development and to address issues specific to those
commodities. In keeping with the comprehensive nature of the APF, these round
tables have representatives from each stage in the value chain from producers,
through processors, distributors, marketers and retailers, as well as
representatives from federal/provincial/territorial governments. Federal
representation is not necessarily limited to AAFC and may include representatives
of other AAFC portfolio organizations such as the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency (CFIA) and the Canadian
Grain Commission (CGC), depending upon the commodity group in question.
Following the report of the North Star Task Team, in June 2000, AAFC
began the process of transforming itself to meet the challenges posed by the
APF and by the Government's results-based management framework. The
transformation process can be characterized in terms of five roughly sequential
but overlapping phases, namely: (i) strategy; (ii) organization; (iii)
governance; (iv) delivery; and (v) support. The major pieces of this
transformation are now in place, although some work remains to be done,
especially in the last two phases.
The first
step was for AAFC to align its own vision and strategy to that of the APF. To
this end, it adopted the following vision statement:
An
innovative and competitive Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector, whose
partners work in unison to be the world leader in the production and marketing
of food and other agricultural products and services that meet global consumer
needs in a way that respects the environment and contributes to the best
quality of life for Canadians.
In December
2000, Task Teams identified three strategic outcomes, each of which was
associated with a number of identifiable benefits for Canadians and was aligned
with the priorities of the APF. These are as follows:
- Security of the Food System: Making
Canada the world leader in producing, processing and distributing safe and
reliable food to meet the needs and preferences of consumers.
- Health of the Environment:
Making Canada the world leader in using environmental resources in a manner
that ensures their quality and availability for present and future generations.
- Innovation for Growth:
Making Canada the world leader in innovation to develop food and other related
agricultural products and services that capture opportunities in diversified
domestic and global markets.
Based upon
the view that programs are the instruments to deliver outcomes, the Department
undertook an analysis and gap assessment to determine if it had the right
program mix to support the sector and influence change. As a result, a number
of new programs were developed, in collaboration with provincial and territorial
governments, to support the new AAFC strategy and the broader agenda of the
APF, while other programs were changed or have been or will be phased out.
Among the new programs are an Environmental Program that encouraged the
development of plans to measure and manage the impact of farm production on the
environment, a Food Safety Program, which included the development of a system
to trace food products from the farm to the consumer and a Help to Farmers
Program, which helped farmers to make the transit out of farming or provided
them with skills to enable them to supplement their farm income with other
work.
Many of the
APF goals require input from some or all of the old AAFC branches; managing the
necessary coordination under the old structure would have been difficult. Consequently, it was necessary to realign
the Department's technical expertise and competencies along horizontal lines
that were compatible with the APF objectives (and the strategic outcomes) and
that would encourage the degree of cooperation and teamwork necessary to
deliver on those objectives. This would allow the Department to speak with a
single integrated voice on key APF issues. Moreover, a single voice was also
needed for the Department to engage effectively in the roundtable process for
stakeholder consultations.
In the
summer of 2000, the Policy Branch was split into a Strategic Policy Branch and
a Farm Financial Programs Branch (which also incorporated financial programs
from other branches). This helped to bring both policy and programs into focus
at the departmental level and was the first step in organizing in terms of
outcomes rather than organizations that would soon guide the entire Department.
The
realignment of the Department, based on horizontal and enabling teams, took
place towards the end of 2001. The core of the new organization (see Figure 2)
consisted of five horizontal teams, linked to the APF priorities.
The five
horizontal teams and the areas on which they focus are as follows:
- Risk Management: Focus
is on enhancing the producer's capacity to manage risk and increasing the
sector's viability and profitability. (Note: this includes the major income
stabilization programs that account for a significant proportion of
departmental expenditure.)
- Food Safety and Quality: Focus is on
minimizing the risk and impact of food-borne hazards on human health,
increasing consumer confidence, and improving the sector's ability to meet or
exceed market requirements for food products.
- Environment: Focus is
on achieving environmental sustainability of the sector and progress in the
areas of soil, water, air and biodiversity.
- Innovation and
Renewal: Focus is on
equipping the sector with new business and management skills, bioproducts,
knowledge-based production systems and strategies to capture opportunities and
manage change.
- International
Issues: Focus is on expanding
international opportunities for the Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector.
Figure 2 - AAFC Revised Structure
 There is a
close match between this team structure and the APF components (including the
international markets objective). The
main difference is that while the APF agreement recognizes science as a key
component on its own, AAFC has distributed science capacity among three teams:
Environment, Food Safety and Quality, and Innovation and Renewal. Policy
capacity has been decentralized from the former Policy Branch to these
horizontal teams. The old branch structure has all but disappeared, although
for legal reasons it continues to exist for the purposes of human resources
management. This horizontal and flexible structure is intended to enable the
Department to adapt more smoothly to changing priorities than would have been
possible under the old branch structure.
Around the
time that the horizontal teams were being planned, a Task Team on corporate
functions recommended the establishment of seven consolidated "enabling" teams.
Four of these deliver standard corporate services: Human Resources,
Finance, Asset Management and Information Systems. As noted in Section 2.2,
these functions were formally provided on a decentralized basis. Consistent
with the unified department approach in support of the APF, AAFC decided to
centralize these services in order to ensure that the acquisition and
allocation of key resources (people, money, assets and information) would be
managed more on a department-wide basis. In keeping with the principles of good
management, AACF established corporate management outcomes in each functional
area and aligned the technical expertise and competencies needed to deliver
them. Moreover, in order to support horizontal management across the
Department, it is particularly important to have a centrally managed
communications and information systems infrastructure.
The three
remaining enabling teams are Policy Analysis and Planning, Communications and
Consultation, and Program Delivery.
Under the new structure, the operational policy analysis and planning
functions have been decentralized to the horizontal teams in order to improve
coordination between policy and management. The Policy Analysis and Planning
Team coordinates, supports and integrates these activities across the teams.
Although its role is currently one of support, it could play more of a
challenge role in the future. The Communications and Consultation Team provides
external communications and consultation services to all the other teams.
Finally, the Program Delivery Team is responsible for a number of routine
program delivery functions, such as issuing cheques under the Net Income
Stabilization Account (NISA), and for integrating program delivery across teams.
However,
collaboration does not end at the boundaries of AAFC. Given the components of
the APF and the corresponding priorities of the horizontal teams, it is clear
that AAFC's new strategy highlights areas of common interest with other
government departments (OGDs) that should lead to wider collaboration. Thus
there are clear links between the work of the Food Safety and Quality Team and
the work of Health Canada, between the Environment Team and the work of
Environment Canada, between the Innovation and Renewal Team and the work of
Industry Canada (innovation) and Human Resources Development Canada (skills)
and between the International Team and the work of the Department of Foreign
Affairs and International Trade. In some areas this could eventually lead to
joint reporting on outcomes. In addition, AAFC works closely with the Canadian
International Development Agency on the provision of expert assistance to
developing nations in the area of agriculture and agri-food. However,
collaboration with OGDs is not limited to the horizontal teams. Centralizing
the enabling teams also sets the stage for closer collaboration with OGDs in
the area of support services and infrastructure.
In taking
an outcome, competency-based approach to managing, the Department found it
necessary to take a more inclusive, consultative approach to decision-making.
Therefore, at the same time as it was developing its new team structure, AAFC
also made changes to its governance structure, as illustrated in Figure 3. One
result of the new governance arrangement is that Team Leaders now discuss
program and policy issues directly with Boards and the Deputy Minister.
Figure 3
The central
decision-making body on management issues is Management Council. It is, in effect, the Department's central
deliberative body on management issues. It is co-chaired by the Deputy Minister
(DM) and the Associate DM. The members of the MC include all eleven Branch
Heads (a mix of ADMs and DGs) and the General Counsel. Horizontal and Enabling
Team Leaders (see Section 7.3) attend MC meetings
on an "as-required" basis. The MC
focuses on all management issues that have to be addressed at a departmental
level, provides strategic direction to the Boards on plans and priorities and
ensures that decisions on management issues are in line with departmental
priorities. The MC meets weekly to discuss items brought forward by the Boards.
The Departmental Audit and Evaluation Team (DAET) is one of
two other management committees.
Chaired by the DM, it includes the Associate DM, the ADMs, DG Review
Branch and General Counsel. DAET oversees and approves the planning and
reporting (both internally and to central agencies) of audits, evaluations and
reviews. In addition, the DAET monitors management action plans and follow-up
activities and is supported in the execution of its mandate by the Boards of
Directors.
One of the Deputy Minister's first undertakings after
arriving in the Department was to shift the audit and evaluation mandate and
resources back to an assurance role. Under this new mandate, the Director
General of Review provides DAET with independent assurance, information and
advice on the efficiency, effectiveness and economy of programs, policies and
operations. Audit and evaluation now play a key role by providing up-front
advice on the design and delivery of APF programs and teams and by providing
relevant and timely information to support decision-making. To ensure the
Director General is able to execute his mandate, avoid conflicts of interest
and maintain independence, the position reports directly to the DM. A DAET
approved audit charter prohibits the Director General and his staff from
becoming directly involved in departmental operations. A risk-based and
strategically focused planning process has been developed to identify annual priority
audits and evaluations.
The
Inclusiveness Committee (IC), also dealing with an aspect of departmental
management, was established in the summer of 2001. It is co-chaired by the DM
and the Associate DM and consists of volunteer employees below the EX level
from across the Department. The original members of the IC were selected from
among a pool of 70 volunteers by a specially convened committee. The IC now
makes its own selection replacing one third of its members each year. The Committee
looks at a wide range of issues related to inclusiveness, such as reviewing
Team Accountability Plans (TAPs) from an inclusiveness perspective, ensuring
that staffing boards are representative and encouraging the creation of more
bilingual positions. The Committee can request managers to appear before it to
answer questions related to inclusiveness.
The final
formal element in the departmental governance structure is the Policy Brief.
This mechanism supports the DM in his role as policy advisor to the Minister by
integrating policy input from the Boards (see Section
6.2) and elsewhere.
Although,
there is no formal framework of ethics and values at AAFC, certain values are
built into the communications strategy. Foremost among these are teamwork,
inclusiveness, environmental awareness, ethical decision-making, valuing people
and fairness in staffing. As noted, teamwork has been built into the structure
of the organization, while the IC has been established explicitly to promote
inclusiveness. Each of the
teams, both horizontal and enabling, is governed by a Board consisting of three
or four ADMs. The only exception is the Human Resources, Finance and Asset
Management Teams which are grouped together under a Corporate Management Board
consisting of four ADMs and a special advisor*. Board members are selected on the basis of the skills and knowledge needed to
address the team's area of responsibility from multiple key perspectives.
Membership of the Boards overlaps so that each ADM sits on more than one Board
(typically three or four). Overlapping membership is intended to support strategic
integration among the horizontal teams and coordination between the horizontal
and enabling teams. These Boards, which meet frequently on an as-required
basis, are responsible for:
- setting
the strategic direction for the team;
- seeking
and allocating resources;
- approving
the Team Accountability Plans (TAPs - see below) and ensuring that they are
consistent with the principles of results-based management and aligned with the
APF/departmental objectives;
- monitoring
progress against the plans and adjusting the plans as required;
- addressing key team-related
policy and management issues as they arise and referring them, as
required, to the Policy Brief and Management Council respectively; and
- reporting results to the
Management Council.
The Board
members are collectively accountable for team performance, although some
members may also have individual accountabilities that derive, for example,
from legal obligations. Board accountability frameworks are posted on the
Intranet. Although the Boards appoint chairs to call meetings and coordinate
the agenda, these positions are rotating. Each Board has an "executive
secretary" who ensures that issues going before the Board are decision-ready
(this includes a challenge role), prepares the agenda, writes and communicates
the record of decision and oversees the flow of paper. Board secretaries meet
as a committee to do weekly forward planning for the Boards. Most Boards
require two members to be present for a quorum, and absentee members are bound
by the decisions of those present, although in the case of planned absences,
every effort is made to consult with absentee members beforehand.
* Since completing the case study
research in June 2003, further changes have been made to the boards, whereby,
the Food Safety and Quality and the International Issues teams are now overseen
by a single board as are the Policy and Planning and Business Risk Management
teams.
Under the
transformation, work has been organized into discrete projects. In effect, the logic model linking the
projects together is the strategy for implementing the APF. People are assigned
to these projects on the basis of their skills and availability. Thus, although
each staff member is nominally assigned to a team, the system operates in
matrix fashion so that members of one team can be assigned to work on projects
in another team. To support this resource allocation process, AAFC is
developing a comprehensive database of the skills and competencies of its
staff. This database will also be used to assess the gap between available and
required skills and to identify the nature and timing of recruitment and
development activities needed to fill the gap.
This
approach to organizing work also supports a central tenet of results-based
management, namely the ability to link resources to results. This is possible
because each project has identifiable costs and can be plausibly linked to a
specific strategic outcome. This has necessitated the development of a new
financial coding system to track expenditures to teams and, within teams, to
projects/activities. This coding system will also make it possible to track
expenditures along other dimensions as well, such as by province/territory.
This
approach to organizing work is not new to AAFC, since most of its scientific
work was already organized along project lines. However, scientific work has
been reorganized in other ways. A particular challenge was to integrate the
work of the 19 hitherto semi-autonomous research centres across the country. To
help bring this about, research work has been grouped into the following four
national science programs that cut across the regional centres and are
integrated into horizontal teams. These are:
The last
two programs are part of the activities of the Innovation and Renewal Team. In
the process, science projects have been consolidated from over 500 to around
200 study components under these four programs. The link to other activities
through the team structure may also bring a broader set of criteria to bear on
project selection than in the past. For example, considerations of
marketability may be factored into research decisions at an earlier stage. In
addition, research has been organized in terms of broad scientific themes
(e.g., research into genetically modified products) that cut across regions and
projects. These changes are aimed at integrating research in line with the
concept of a single unified department thereby providing more effective support
for the APF strategy. As a consequence, the regional centres now have a more
national focus and their directors are responsible for national programs and
themes. From a results-based management perspective, this integrated approach
is intended to increase the cost-effectiveness of scientific work at AAFC by
eliminating duplication, increasing synergy and focussing research on a broader
set of departmental objectives.
AAFC is one
of those government departments whose members (many of whom have a family
background in agriculture) bring to their work a high level of personal
dedication and extensive contextual knowledge and specialized expertise. The
challenge was to find a way to support the forward-looking and innovative
direction of the APF by tapping into this dedication, knowledge and expertise
throughout the Department and not just at the top. The approach taken was to
flatten the hierarchy in order to bring more ideas and perspectives to the
table and, as noted, to address key issues by using self-managed Task Teams
drawn from across the Department, whose members were selected on the basis on
knowledge rather than rank. Again, as with the organization of work, this
approach is quite consistent with previous practice in the science area.
However, it has now spread to other parts of the Department. This is not to say
that hierarchy has completely disappeared. It is still needed for
accountability and career advancement purposes and remains the best way to
organize purely operational functions, such as program delivery and some
support services. These changes in methods of working are part of an effort to
change the culture of AAFC from one of working in isolated boxes to one of
working collaboratively and inclusively. Each of the
teams has a number of Team Leaders (mostly DGs and Directors) who manage the
team collectively but who also have specific areas of responsibility. The
organization of the teams and the number of Team Leaders (TLs) vary by team.
Thus, the Environment and Innovation and Renewal Teams each have four TLs,
while the International Issues Team has three. The TLs have overall
responsibility for developing the TAP and submitting it to the Board for
approval. They are also responsible for reporting to the Board on progress, and
generally for managing the team and its budget. Each project/activity has a
Project Leader who is responsible for its management. In some teams, there are
also Coordinators (usually at the Director level) who: (i) help to ensure that
project plans/objectives are linked to the Department's strategic outcomes,
(ii) foster consistent project approaches where needed, and (iii) facilitate
the exchange of best practices. Planning,
which is led by the TLs, takes place at the team level within the context of
the APF and departmental priorities. Planning practices vary among teams. For
example, last year, the Environment Team held a series of regional planning
meetings followed by a national meeting at which the results of the regional
meetings were brought together. Following the planning meetings, each team has
to prepare a Team Accountability Plan (TAP). In keeping with the inclusiveness
approach, the expectation is that the TAPs will be developed through broad
consultations with team members, both to elicit ideas from as many people as
possible and to help secure buy-in. The TAPs are to include:
- A team
outcome statement
- A list
of specific team outcomes
- Outcome
performance measures and indicators
- Lists
of outcome-related projects/activities and their priorities
- Resource
estimates, responsibilities, timelines and activities for each project/activity
The TAPs
are then submitted to the Board which must ensure consistency with the APF and
may require changes, and are finalized once budgets are allocated (see below).
The TAPs are not cast in stone and can be adjusted as circumstances change.
Indeed, planning is an on-going process; it is not a once-a-year exercise. The
Policy Analysis and Planning Team supports the process of TAP development and
is responsible for ensuring that the TAPs are aligned to the Minister's agenda
and that they encompass all the DM's commitments to the Clerk and central
agencies. The TAPs are also an important input to the development of the
Results-Based Management and Accountability Frameworks (RMAFs), required by
Treasury Board in support of new or revised programs.
As the name
suggests, the TAPs serve accountability as well as planning purposes. Thus, the
TLs are individually accountable for their areas of responsibility within the
TAP, although there is an element of shared accountability among TLs that
varies from one team to another. The Project Leaders are accountable for
delivering the projects/activities for which they are responsible. Team members
are accountable for their specific contributions to the projects/activities to
which they have been assigned. Information on projects/activities is stored in
a database that can be queried using a Web interface. This database, which
includes the current composition of the project team, is regularly updated.
To support
the AAFC transformation, budgeting has moved from a branch-based to a unified
departmental approach. Budgets are now allocated to teams and, within teams, to
projects. The budgetary process is intended to work both from the top down and
from the bottom up. The TLs develop a list of possible projects to support each
Team Outcome. The Team Outcomes are then ranked in order of priority, and under
each Team Outcome the projects contributing to that outcome are similarly
ranked. Based on this information, the Boards then determine which projects to
recommend to Management Council. Once
the projects are confirmed, they are costed, with the scope and timing of the
projects being the variables adjusted to balance the budget. This approach has some of the
characteristics of the Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB) and Planning, Programming and
Budgeting Systems (PPBS) that have been proposed in the past. As noted in Section 7.1, this approach to budgeting required
changes in the financial coding system that enables the Department to determine
how much it has spent on each of its objectives. In principle, this approach
has the potential to produce resource-outcome linkages across the Government,
following the establishment of an agreed-upon set of outcomes and a consistent
coding system. Eventually, it might also help to highlight areas of overlap and
duplication between departments. Since TAPs
only began to be implemented in 2002/2003, many of the performance measures
relate to activities and outputs, rather than outcomes and have been developed
by each team in relative isolation. The intention is to move more to
outcome-linked measures once the Department develops the capacity to generate
the required data and to present a more integrated view of departmental
performance. Although a preliminary framework of 113 departmental performance
indicators has been developed, more work is needed to make the required data
available.
Most
monitoring takes the form of tracking and reviewing the progress of
projects/activities against plans. More sophisticated results-based monitoring
may be possible once the performance data are available.
Teams
report regularly to the Boards on their progress on TAP commitments. The Boards
may then submit progress reports to the MC. The introduction of a Corporate
Management Board has encouraged the development of more integrated reporting of
the functions under its direction. Furthermore, the centralization of support
functions enables them to report on a department-wide basis, which had not been
possible before. However, until the performance measurement system is
operational, the capacity to report on results is limited, although Statistics
Canada does provide comprehensive statistics on farmers and producers and
further information is collected by AAFC under the Net Income Stabilization
Account (NISA).
In the
past, AAFC's
Report on Plans and Priorities (RPP) was prepared corporately using input
from the Branches to weave a coherent story. Now, it is possible to let each
team tell its own story through its TAP, and the RPP can be simply prepared by
rolling up the TAPs. The Policy Analysis and Planning Team is currently
developing a departmental reporting system to support this process. In the
future, the development of the RPP may include discussions with OGDs that have
related strategic outcomes. Other reports include the Departmental
Performance Report (DPR), the Health of the Sector Report and APF Reports
on Progress.
While
risk management for the Agriculture and Agri-Food sector is one of the key
components of the APF, risk management for departmental projects/activities is
less formalized, relying heavily on the judgement of experienced managers.
Boards can play an important role in identifying risks and ensuring that risks
are managed. Indeed, it could be argued that by bringing multiple perspectives
to bear on a set of activities at an earlier stage, potential problems are
likely to come to light in a timelier manner than they would have under the
branch structure. To identify and understand the risks inherent in the
realignment of the Department, members of the Management Council participated
in a corporate risk assessment. The risk assessment identified five areas of
high risk that could impede the Department from achieving its strategic
outcomes. This information was used by the Review Branch to assist in
developing the audit and evaluation plan. In addition, the results of the risk
assessment were considered and contributed to Team Accountability Plans and the
development of the corporate risk mitigation strategies. The Department intends
to build risk management into the planning framework to clearly assign responsibility
for managing risk to Project Leaders, Team Leaders, and ADM Boards, as well as
Management Council. Indeed, in the science area, there was already a system in
place to review science projects (which are inherently risky) to determine if
they should be continued, modified or terminated. The planning framework will
also allow for the determination as to whether risks are being managed at the
right level and, if not, will enable appropriate adjustments to be made.
As noted in Section 5.3, support services
have been centralized in order to manage key resources on a department-wide
basis and to support horizontal working. It can also be argued that such
centralization can help to ensure compliance with central agency policies, can
deliver economies of scale, can facilitate more effective management of assets,
can help to develop and effectively utilize functional skills and can offer
more career opportunities for functional specialists. However, centralization
of support services also has certain disadvantages, such as reduced ability to
coordinate support at the local level and a loss of service orientation if the
support function becomes bureaucratized. AAFC is attempting to address these
drawbacks through the development of service standards for support functions,
by designating members of the enabling teams to sit on each of the horizontal
teams, by providing co-located functional support in the regions and by working
on the development of a "single window" support interface, such as the "service
to science" approach being developed to support the research centres. However,
the development of a smooth interface between the horizontal and enabling teams
remains a work-in-progress.
Like the horizontal teams, the support teams also operate on the basis
of TAPs and they have also been encouraged to work collaboratively. For
example, the Finance Team now uses "tiger teams" to prepare TB submissions.
These are self-directed teams that include all those that have to be involved
in the preparation of a submission. In the past, drafts were handed off
sequentially to all interested parties, but now the team prepares the
submission together and is collectively accountable for its quality. The aim is
to improve the quality and timeliness of submissions. However, given the
operational nature of many support functions, some hierarchy is still needed to
promote efficiency and maintain consistency of service. The balance between
horizontal and hierarchical working within the enabling teams will likely
evolve over time and may well vary among teams, depending upon the nature of
the functions they perform.
This budgetary process (outlined in Section 7.5),
which links expenditures to individual projects, complicates the process of
tracking expenditures consistently. In response to this challenge, the Finance
Team has developed a system of Financial Situation Reports (FSRs) as a vehicle
for ensuring consistent and accurate financial reporting across the teams.
Currently, the MC receives these reports on a monthly basis.
Assets are now managed on a department-wide basis to help ensure more
effective utilization. This includes the possibility of achieving further
savings through the sharing of assets (including real estate) with OGDs. The AAFC
transformation has significant implications for recruitment and selection of
staff. The recruitment strategy is to emphasize generic skills rather than
specific jobs in order to support a flexible team approach. For selection
purposes, AAFC is currently developing a comprehensive tool to identify staff
competencies along a range of parameters, such as scientific background,
languages, project experience and current assignments. The process for matching
skills to specific project needs is still under development. This change in
staffing strategy could result in the recruitment of fewer staff with a family
background in agriculture, leading to possible long-term change in the culture
of the Department.
AAFC cannot operate effectively on a national and horizontal basis without
a sound information and telecommunications infrastructure. As noted in Section 2.2, the proliferation of systems has been greatly
reduced and the ability of systems to communicate with each other increased. An
enterprise information management system is being developed to provide an
integrated information base for decision-making across the Department. Two
priority areas are the development of systems to support performance
measurement, as noted in Section 7.6, and
a strengthening of the telecommunications and videoconferencing infrastructure.
There has also been on-going work to develop interactive Intranet sites to
support intra-team communication and a number of Government On-Line initiatives
to support information transfer and electronic transactions with clients.
Finally, work is also underway to develop a building and workspace environment
that supports the team-based approach.
The DM,
with the support and encouragement of the Minister, created the conditions that
drove the change process forward. At
the start of the process, AAFC operated very much as a traditional government
organization. However, as noted, many of its employees cared strongly about
agriculture and could be persuaded to work in a different way if it could be
demonstrated that this would further the interests of the sector. Moreover,
many members of staff were scientists who were used to working in teams and
networking with other scientists. The DM's approach was both top down and
bottom up. He started by presenting a general vision of a unified department,
built on teamwork and inclusiveness. His technique was to persuade people that
this was the best approach by telling stories that made sense to the audience.
However, he left the shaping of the policy and the details to the Task Teams,
thereby tapping into expertise throughout the Department and helping to secure
support for the overall concept.
As noted,
these Task Teams were self-managed groups brought together to focus on a
particular issue over a specified period of time. The teams were comprised of
people who were selected on the basis of relevant expertise rather than rank
and who between them possessed the range of skills, knowledge and experience to
address the issue at hand thoroughly and comprehensively. Members of these Task
Teams were selected on the basis of what they bring to the table as individuals
and do not represent any particular part of the Department. Consequently, they
could not delegate either up or down. Care was also taken to ensure that each
team included people who readily embraced the transformation process and who
could act as change agents. Most of the details of the transformation process
have been worked out, and continue to be worked out, in this manner. To date,
some 450 employees have participated in Task Teams.
Management
retreats provided a further forum for obtaining broad input from the management
levels. These were focussed on key aspects of the transformation process and
were purely internal gatherings, with no outside speakers. This is symptomatic
of another central aspect of the transformation process, namely that the work
would be done and the ideas generated from within the Department, rather than
using consultants or other external change agents. These retreats made
extensive use of breakout groups to focus on particular issues.
Throughout the transformation, the DM's approach was to encourage open
debate and to allow people to take risks and to learn from their mistakes. He
was constantly challenging people at meetings, forcing them to prepare their
arguments thoroughly and was consistently driving the transformation forward.
The
formation of the Boards was central to the entire transformation process.
However, at first, Board members did not accord the intended priority to Board
operations, due largely to uncertainty over the roles and responsibilities of
Board membership. Once these became clear, and with some encouragement from the
DM, the situation did change and the Boards began to function as intended,
especially after the fall of 2002. However, the unfamiliar process of
negotiating collective accountability agreements proved quite time-consuming,
in some cases requiring over 100 hours of work to complete.
Although,
as is clear from the next section, there are a number of challenges still to be
met, the change techniques that have brought AAFC to this point are likely to
continue. Since the DM was so much at the centre of the change process, there
is some concern as to what would happen to the transformation if he were to
leave. However, many people at senior levels within the Department appear to be
sufficiently convinced that this is the right way to go, that the process may have
passed the "tipping point" from which it can proceed more under its own
momentum.
Substantial
progress has been made with the AAFC transformation process and, as noted in Section 9, it may well have passed the "tipping
point." However, it still faces a number of challenges, especially in the areas
of team operations and support services. This section provides an overview of
the progress the AAFC has made in the transformation process and some of the
challenges that remain. It is important to note that the observations in this
section are not based on a rigorous and objective audit of the change process.
They largely reflect the views of those interviewed, who were all at a senior
level and are not necessarily representative of the views of staff at all
levels.
The Department's policy position is
much clearer than in the past, and the Minister is receiving more integrated
and consistent policy advice. Furthermore, the Department's response to
strategic issues raised by the Minister has a much firmer policy foundation.
The
Department now has a more strategic and proactive approach to issues. Moreover,
the unified department approach enables AAFC to respond more readily to changes
in the environment and to realign its focus and resources to meet changing
priorities.
The
remaining challenges in this area are to complete the implementation of the APF
with the cooperation of all provinces and territories and to get all the
stakeholders round tables working effectively.
After some
adjustments, the teams are now in place and their general areas of
responsibility are established. However, there is still some work to do to
complete the process of communication so that all employees understand the
nature of and reason for the transformation and their roles within the new
structure. In the process, the roles and responsibilities of the teams
themselves may also need to be further refined and clarified.
There is
now a greater awareness among ADMs and TLs of the Department as a whole and
what it does; this enables them to work in a more integrated and synergistic
manner. Under the team structure, there is a greater willingness to bring problems
forward for discussion; problems are less likely to be seen as individual
failures. At the same time, reductions in hierarchy and the use of broadly
based Task Teams have generated more ideas for innovation and improvement from
all levels in the organization. In the science area, there is less isolation
and a greater focus on department-wide issues. There is more synergy among the
regional research centres, and the "not-invented-here" syndrome is disappearing
as centres work more closely together on common themes.
Because of
the greater emphasis on horizontal coordination, decisions that would formerly
have been made within the Branches now take longer to make than they did
before. However, decisions that would have involved coordination across the old
branch lines can now be made more quickly.
The new
team structure has also raised awareness within AAFC of the need to collaborate
with OGDs on areas of common interest. Indeed, in some areas, such as the
environment, greater collaboration is already evident. However, working more
closely with OGDs on joint contributions to common outcomes is likely to remain
a challenge, especially where the OGDs remain stovepiped.
Although it
took some time, the Boards are now functioning in the manner intended and are
generally providing good direction to the teams. The collective accountability
of Board members has made it difficult to maintain hidden agendas, reduced turf
wars around budgeting and encouraged a greater focus on departmental
priorities. However, some challenges remain. In the view of some, the Boards
currently absorb too much ADM time, possibly because they can become involved
with issues that are better addressed at a lower level. Thus further work may
be needed to refine the role of the Boards to focus more exclusively on
strategic issues. It may also be necessary to make adjustments to the number
and composition of the Boards.
Although
the TAP process has only been in place for just over a year, it is generally
viewed positively by those involved and is expected to evolve and improve over
time. As noted in Section 10.2, there is
clear evidence of greater teamwork in nearly all areas of operation.
Furthermore, the greater flexibility in resourcing resulting from the matrix
approach is generating a greater variety of work and learning opportunities for
employees. Finally, consistent with the requirements of Modern Comptrollership, there is now an enhanced capacity to link
resources to results.
However, a
number of challenges remain in this area. Among these are:
- promoting
more integrated planning among horizontal teams and between horizontal and
enabling teams;
- refining
the priority-setting process among a highly diverse set of projects/activities;
- building
up policy capacity in the horizontal teams, while maintaining peer functional
relationships related to policy development (e.g., economic analysis) through
communities of practice;
- refining
the criteria by which employees are allocated to projects;
- finding
effective means to operate in a matrix arrangement in which managers are
responsible for human resources, while Team and Project Leaders are responsible
for the work; and
- establishing
the appropriate balance between individual and collective accountability in a
team environment.
Centralization of support services in the enabling teams has improved
asset management, achieved some economies of scale in purchasing and resulted
in a more equal level of support across the Department. It has greatly improved
transparency and accountability in these areas so that there is now much better
information on departmental assets and on the skill sets of staff. Work has begun on the development of a
departmental performance measurement and risk management framework. The
department-wide and more focussed approach has led to more sharing of best
practices (in areas such as performance measurement or ATIP procedures) with
OGDs. Discussions have also taken place with OGDs on the possible sharing of
infrastructure.
Currently,
there are a number of difficulties concerning relations between the horizontal
and enabling teams. These include confusion in some cases over how to access
enabling services, insufficient coordination and prioritization of the demands
being made on some enabling services, difficulties in determining appropriate
resource levels for the enabling teams, insufficient integration of planning between
the enabling and the support teams and unclear delineation of responsibilities
between the two in areas such as program delivery (Programs Team) and staffing
and recruitment (Human Resources Team). Thus, a major challenge in this area
lies in improving the interface between the enabling and horizontal teams,
including (as noted in Section 8.1) how best to integrate the delivery of
support services. Other
challenges in the area of support services and infrastructure include:
- improving
the ability to recruit on the basis of a set of generic competencies;
- further
developing and refining departmental performance measurement and risk
management frameworks and supporting systems;
- improving
the videoconferencing infrastructure to support regional participation in
national operations; and
- finding
and exploiting opportunities to share infrastructure and support services with
OGDs.
Change,
especially of the magnitude of the AAFC transformation, is inherently
disruptive and potentially confusing, and it is inevitable that some employees
have had difficulty in coming to terms with it. Some, especially in the
regions, remain confused over changes to the decision-making structure and to
accountability and reporting relationships. Also, given the more national focus
of regional operations, there are uncertainties concerning the future role of
the regions in relation to specifically regional issues. There is also some
uncertainty as to who is in overall control of the budget in the new decentralized
system. Some employees feel threatened by the more open and ambiguous
team-based structure, while some middle managers are uncomfortable at
surrendering control over a specific set of resources in order to work as
members of a larger team. Many
people, even among those who strongly support the transformation, have found it
extremely demanding to address transformation issues, while simultaneously
keeping the regular work of the Department moving ahead. Some have raised
questions about the sustainability of this level of effort. Certainly, a major
challenge will be to find ways to work sustainably with available levels of
resources while managing horizontally and running the new programs. A number of
lessons have emerged from the AAFC transformation experience so far. While some
of these are of general application, others apply more specifically to
organizations whose work and policy environment are similar to those of
AAFC.
- Holistic versus Incremental
Approach: A holistic
approach, involving simultaneous changes to the policy framework and to the
management and organization of the Department, is extremely demanding and
carries the risk of trying to do too much all at once. However, in a situation
such as that faced by AAFC, in which the policy framework is either outdated or
non-existent, a holistic approach may be unavoidable if a true transformation
is to be achieved. In such cases, the organization and management of the
Department has to be aligned with the new policy objectives, while the new
policy objectives provide the motivation and guidance for management and
organizational change.
- Clear Overall Direction: In any change process, it is
important to have a clear sense of the overall direction (vision and strategy)
of the change from the outset, combined with clear lines of decision-making.
- Willingness to Experiment: Although the overall direction has
to be clear, there has to be a willingness to experiment and take risks, to
learn from experience and to admit and rectify mistakes. In most cases, it is
neither realistic nor advisable to try to develop a detailed blueprint from the
outset.
- Leadership: Strong and consistent leadership
from the top is essential. Moreover, large-scale change takes time and it is important
that the leader be left in place at least long enough for the change to reach
the "tipping point" after which it develops its own momentum. However, one
person cannot lead every aspect of a complex change process, and it is
important that the leader create the conditions for leadership to be exercised
throughout the Department in order to work out the detailed design and to
implement the required changes.
- Inclusiveness: It follows from the above that the
change process should be as inclusive as possible, both to access the widest
possible range of ideas and insights and to help secure ownership and buy-in
from employees. It follows that those who have to live with the changes should
be responsible for their design, as opposed to relying on outside consultants
and external change agents.
- Communication: Communication has to be systematic,
consistent, personal and honest. This includes a willingness to admit mistakes
and be as clear as possible about people's roles and responsibilities in the
change process. Building trust can be difficult, so it is important to provide
opportunities for people to ask questions so that they can understand the
nature and rationale for the change and what it will mean for them. This has to
be an iterative process, because people tend to filter what they hear through
the lens of their own experience.
- Commitment to Teamwork: Although most people appear to
support the idea of teamwork, at least in principle, it does require
commitment, knowledge and a willingness to become involved.
- Thorough Preparation: In order to secure the support of
politicians and stakeholders for the planned changes, it is important to
thoroughly prepare the case for change, anticipate and be able to answer any
questions that are likely to arise and be willing to be flexible without losing
sight of the overall direction of change.
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