A Conversation With: Dick Covey

Since earlier this year, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Dick Covey has been leading a subgroup of USA’s Leadership Steering Team – called the Operations Action Team – to further define the next steps in the company’s organizational evolution. In this issue, Covey talks to the USA Update about the latest measures being taken to transform USA’s organizational structure to better support future operations.

UPDATE: Last October, USA implemented a realignment of our internal organizational structure that was designed to better leverage our technical skills and experience base to meet the needs of multiple programs/projects and contracts. What is this newest change about?

COVEY: The organizational change announced last year was the first step in a process to evolve our company so that we are better positioned for the future. Now, we are taking the next steps.

Following a Leadership Steering Team off site early this year, an Operations Action Team was established to further develop the evolution of our organizational structure concept.

What we have come to realize is that our future state will not be a realignment into a traditional functional organization. Instead, we continue to be organized around those key elements of how we do work and how we market the work we do to our customer. Those four key elements will now be defined as Capability Centers.

Organizing in this way is important for two reasons. First, it enhances our ability to manage our transition through the end of the Shuttle Program and into the Constellation era. Second, it allows us to more effectively represent ourselves to customers for future work. This structure better prepares us to compete in the multiple-contract environment we see for future space operations.

UPDATE: So, what is a “ Capability Center?”

COVEY: A Capability Center is a multiple-discipline organization structured around what we sell to our customers and how we deliver what we sell. They support programs (Shuttle, International Space Station and Constellation at this time) in the execution of contract work either by performing work for or matrixing people and capabilities to a program or other Capability Center. We have four identified Capability Centers: Launch and Recovery Systems led by Bill Pickavance, Engineering and Integration headed up by Loren Shriver, Flight Operations led by Chuck Knarr and Logistics and Material led by Mike Jones.

They will be supported by our Functional Organizations and our process sponsors/owners.

UPDATE: How are the Capability Centers differentiated from the Functional Organizations?

COVEY: Our Functional Organizations – or Functions – are single- or related-discipline organizations that support Capability Centers, programs or other Functions by providing services, matrixed resources or program work performance. They include Finance; Information Management; Human Resources and Administration; Safety Quality and Mission Assurance; Legal; and Communications and Public Relations.

UPDATE: How do process owners fit into the new organizational structure?

COVEY: One question we had to resolve, in the absence of an organization structured around particular disciplines or processes – engineering, for example – is how do we elevate the management of processes, tools and skills. The way we have chosen to do that is to take our existing process owner structure and elevate it to the Leadership Steering Team through process sponsorship. In other words, every process will now have a process sponsor who is a member of the Leadership Steering Team. Mike McCulley and I will look to those sponsors, working with the respective process owners, to provide companywide guidance and management of our company processes, tools and skills.

We’ve further defined our processes in two categories: infrastructure processes and technical processes. The difference is that infrastructure processes generally draw from resources within a single Function, and technical processes have resources distributed across multiple Capability Centers and Functions, and therefore require a different approach relative to the implementation of process management.

Some, if not all, of those that we’ve identified as company processes will have a process council led by the Leadership Steering Team sponsor but with different representation from all of the Functions or Capability Centers that have associated skills, tools and processes. We’ve had process councils in the past, but we will elevate participation and the visibility of process councils by having Leadership Steering Team sponsors. The process councils will fill the gap relative to skills management and tools management across the enterprise.

Additionally, we’re going to establish a company process council led by me, the COO, that will include all of the process sponsors supported by the process owners so that we can better manage our skills as we transition from the Shuttle and Station Programs to Constellation.

UPDATE: What will that change mean to most first-line employees? Will they be seeing any differences in their jobs?

COVEY: No, but they may see some changes within the Capability Centers to more effectively manage the work that we do within that Center and align the organization to those capabilities that have been brought together. The changes we’ve seen in the Logistic and Material Capability Center over the last few months are a good example of that.

Most people will not see a significant change in their reporting or management. However, as we continue to move forward, we may find that there are some capabilities that may be more appropriately aligned to a different Capability Center or organization within a Capability Center. Those changes, if needed, should have a minimal impact on most employees.

UPDATE: Where are we at in this transformation process?

COVEY: We are getting ready to expand the Operations Action Team from an initial participation based on Capability Centers to one that includes all of the Functions and program representation.

The Operations Action Team has been meeting regularly for the last three months. We’ve been working hard on defining and getting comfortable with the definitions and differentiations between a Capability Center and a Function. Now we’re including the Functional leaders, so we can appropriately align the interaction and support of the Functions to the Capability Centers and focus on the interaction and support of the Capability Centers to the programs. It seems to be working fairly well now, but we want to be able to address issues that may arise in the future as we take on new contracts that may be different in scope and form than our current ones.

We want to ensure that we know how to appropriately support the programs through the Capability Centers and how to support the Capability Centers through the Functions, and we need to establish the hierarchy of our process councils.

This is an evolutionary process. We will continue to look at opportunities for organizational realignment within our broader enterprise structure that could gain us efficiency or effectiveness, make us more competitive or facilitate the transition of work from current programs to future programs. Any changes will be managed and vetted through an appropriate process before they are implemented. As we continue this work over the next several months, we’ll keep people apprised of how we’re progressing.

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