Challenge
The structure and size of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) many programs creates project management challenges as each program has subtle differences and preferences, causing the potential for inconsistencies.
Solution
Boston Government Services (BGS) provides project monitoring across all EERE programs. We created the Project Management Center of Excellence (CoE) to increase collaboration between EERE program teams and eliminate duplication of efforts, achieving timesaving and quality efficiencies. CoE makes the collaboration process more intentional and formalized across EERE programs.
The purpose of the CoE is fourfold:
- Improve quality, consistency, and efficiency of work within EERE
- Improve value added to EERE through BGS services
- Increase employee job satisfaction and engagement
- Enhance team collaboration through implementation of project management best practices
The BGS CoE team meets on a regular basis to identify areas for improvement that can be shared across EERE program teams and maintains a centralized resource hub for templates, tools, and documents. The BGS CoE team also created a desktop reference guide on how to prepare various types of requisitions for actions on awards and developed and distributed a project monitoring guide and a step-by-step guide for funding opportunity announcement (FOA) managers.
To encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing, the BGS CoE team has hosted meetings on topics related to project management, plain language writing, and communication, among others, where attendees share ideas and best practices and lessons learned from others in EERE. The team has also hosted meetings where representatives from technical program offices introduced and demonstrated tools for managing data, FOAs, and merit reviews.
For more information, please contact info@bgs-llc.com.