Paper Title: Delivering Value in a Federal Government Start Up
Abstract: The Office of Financial Research (OFR) was established within the U.S. Treasury Department in 2010 by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to improve the quality of financial data available to policymakers and to facilitate more robust and sophisticated analysis of the financial system. In October 2015 the OFR initiated a programmatic approach for its work to align its priorities with its mission and strategic plan, to set clear direction and milestones for achieving those priorities, and to clearly communicate those priorities to its diverse stakeholders, which includes the U.S. Congress, regulators, the U.S. and international financial industry and researchers, and the public. The Program Management Office (PMO) at the OFR has been instrumental in rolling out and executing the programmatic approach through its workforce planning and resource management efforts, its guidance and participation on program team, its coordination of work across OFR’s divisions, and its facilitation of the transformation from functionally-organized work streams to cross-functional work teams. The PMO is well positioned to establish common processes and techniques for program management because it operates across organizational divisions and is charged with responsibilities for both governance and management for projects. This paper and presentation describe the approach that the PMO uses to add value to the OFR as it initiates the programmatic approach to achieve OFR’s mission. Challenges and methods for overcoming them, tools and processes, program management model, factors contributing to success, organizational and process changes, outputs and results, lessons learned, and the timeline are discussed.
Biography: Mr. Lau manages technology-, research-, and data-focused projects as a member of the Program Management Office of the Office of Financial Research. Earlier, Mr. Lau managed technical and business projects to build and enhance transactional, operational, financial, and management reporting systems in the private sector. Mr. Lau has an MBA from the University of Maryland University College and a BS from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a certified Project Management Professional, ScrumMaster, and Scrum Developer.
