GroupSystems Speeds OMB A-300 Peer Review by 50-90%; GroupSystems' Services, Collaboration Software Can Double Approval Rates

Business Wire, August 2, 2005

BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- Group Systems Corporation, a leading provider of team collaborative thinking software and solutions, announced today the formalized release of a tailored service methodology for electronic peer review of the A-300 exhibits required by the Office of Management and Budget. The company has found that its process can significantly reduce the time required for the internal reviews of A-300's and improve approval rates by as much as two-fold.

Each Federal Government Agency is required to annually submit a report (Exhibit A-300) to the OMB for each of its significant and major IT investments in order to justify funding. The OMB scores the report for completeness and quality and makes a recommendation regarding funding. Funding for major IT systems and projects is at risk if A-300's do not accurately and adequately document compliance with OMB criteria.

Conventional methods of A-300 review prior to submission are often costly, time-consuming and resource-intensive. While some agencies rely on previous years' successful submissions as models for preparing current year's submissions, the OMB's required format and rating criteria has historically changed from year to year, making this is an increasingly risky approach.

"As a continually evolving document that reflects the increasing role of information technology within the federal government, the A-300 is becoming both more complicated and ubiquitous within agency environments," said Bern Norfolk, Director of Consulting for GroupSystems. "Agencies are churning out as many as 300 submissions in a year and they are realizing they need a more efficient and effective means for doing so- they can no longer rely on an annual fire drill where they just update the previous year's submissions."

While many agencies are using peer review to improve their A-300 processes, the subjective nature of the OMB rating criteria makes it difficult to establish a means for effectively judging the quality of exhibits that will be used consistently by every peer reviewer. Additionally, peer review traditionally requires numerous individuals to rate each submission in isolation - without the benefit of multiple perspectives. As a result, any feedback they do get can be limited, biased, unhelpful, and if multiple people are providing feedback, it can even be contradictory.

GroupSystems offers a pre-packaged service methodology that resolves this issue by enabling subject-area experts to actively participate in the process regardless of their physical location or ability to attend a particular review meeting. The company combines peer review with software technology that enables review participants to quickly and accurately collect and organize information, conduct polls, analyze the results and distribute an accurate report on teams' meetings as soon as the meeting ends. In short, the technology allows a team of reviewers to more quickly review documents and supply collective feedback to authors. In addition to providing technology tools, when a review group does meet obstacles in reaching agreement through virtual meetings, GroupSystems' consultants act as facilitators of face-to-face meetings aimed at achieving consensus.

This approach has been proven to save time and money for federal agencies while substantially increasing the rate of OMB approval on initial submissions of A-300 exhibits. GroupSystems' approach electronic peer review process has also been recognized as a method for quality assurance accepted by both SEI Level 3 and ISO 9001.

As an example, GroupSystems helped the U.S. Department of Energy raise its rating from a red to a green status by implementing this process. A team of ten reviewers was able to review as many as thirty A-300's on a weekly basis, as well as score and generate feedback on each in a single four-hour session. As a result, the agency was able to increase the percentage of OMB A-300 approval on initial submissions from 41% to over 80%.

About GroupSystems

For more than a decade, GroupSystems has developed offerings that transform traditional team collaboration into efficient, productive workgroup events by offering an effective means of accelerating problem-solving and decision-making processes. Initiated by IBM and the University of Arizona, GroupSystems leverages 15 years of continuous product innovation resulting in the largest installed client base in the workgroup decision-making market. Today, GroupSystems offers remote collaboration combined with on-demand services that allow face-to-face and remote participation in a fast, furious and fun environment.