CPS delivers training, coaching and mentoring, and deployment advising services to equip Army officials with continuous process improvement (CPI) and LSS concepts and tools to enhance enterprise performance, support institutional adaptation, and improve organizational effectiveness. Our team, along with our partner Accenture; provides Army training in accordance with the Army Systems Approach to Training for 5 Programs of Instruction (POI).

The CPS team of Army LSS- certified instructors conducts classroom training using the Army Program's of Instruction (POI) to include the following courses: Master Black Belt, Black Belt, Green Belt, Project Selection and Identification Workshop (PISW), Civilian Education and Project Sponsor Workshops. The purpose of this training is to develop the skills of the Army workforce in order to execute improvement projects that provide meaningful and quantifiable results. We also provide subject matter expertise on belt certification The team trains the following Army personnel: Executive Leaders, Project Sponsors, MBB Candidates, BB Candidates, and GB Candidates.

CPS has provided support to the Business Transformation Agency of the Department of Defense in a number of strategic areas. As part of the ODUSD-BT Office Support Task, CPS Professional Services, LLC (CPS-PS) provides direct on-site operational support to the Deputy Under Secretary for Business Transformation (DUSD-BT), the Business Transformation Agency (BTA), and the Deputy Chief Management Officer in planning and conducting a variety of events and in coordinating Continuous Process Improvement/Lean Six Sigma (CPI/LSS) Training. CPS-PS provides event planning support and conduct of the Defense Business Agility Forum (Agility Forum), the Deployment Leadership Workshop, the DoD CPI Symposium, and the first Federal SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) Symposium.

Event Planning. CPS-PS supports logistics and facilities for a variety of leadership workshops, symposia, conferences, and forums. For most events, CPS-PS contacts potential venues, performs site visits, and briefs government senior executives and the Contracting Officer's Representative on possible event venues.

CPS-PS activities on this contract fully support SIN 874-1 Consulting Services task areas and provide the Business Transformation Agency consultation on process improvement and user interface design for the Joint Contingency Contracting System (JCCS). CPS-PS provides testing plans, testing implementation, training program development and training delivery.

CPS-PS was contracted to consult on the operations, maintenance, and development of the Joint Contingency Contracting System Software. The software serves as the primary centralized Web-based reporting and tracking tool. It is a real-time database for contract information and reporting, producing over 20 reports on demand.

CPS-PS coordinated the work efforts of a team of consultants who tracked software changes, tested functionality, developed documentation, and trained government personnel on the use of the software. The consultants provided work strategies, audits of software function, and quality control services. CPS-PS provided customized training as needed to the team and to the government's pilot program in the field while conducting real time testing. CPS-PS subcontractor, IBM, continues to refine the software while it is actively deployed.

CPS has been working with The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) International Services (IS) on a variety of business transformation projects, including the following three tasks:

CLIN 01: Developing a Talent Management and Succession Plan:
The team researched both Foreign Service and Civil Service personnel systems. Through meeting facilitations and interviews performed by CPS Black and Green Belts, the team learned the regulations governing and duties assigned to Senior Foreign Service Officers. The Team visited Action Programs operations in Panama, Mexico and Guatemala, to conduct Subject Matter Expert interviews. Where several processes existed to achieve a common goal, best practices were selected. Functional descriptions common to each program were defined and workflows documented.

CLIN 02: Development of Alternatives to Increase the Efficiency of the MP&S:
CLIN02 focused on the administrative services provided by MP&S to IS Field offices. The same discovery process was used as in CLIN01, By documenting the current operational state and formulating an optimal future operational state using standard organizational development methods and Lean Six Sigma process improvement techniques, the CPS Team has been able to situate MP&S on a path to the business transformation it desires. The CPS Team identified a pivotal group, the Field Program Managers (PMs), who act as liaison between MP&S headquarters and the Field Offices. The CPS Team has developed a coaching and mentoring program for these key individuals.

APHIS International's mission involves combating diseases and pestilence overseas to prevent a pathway to American Agriculture. This program unit focuses its resources on the most serious threats, which may occur anywhere in the world. The decision on where to open, sustain or close an APHIS office rests on a number of important factors that can be classified as the ratio of "seriousness of threat" to "administrative feasibility" in setting up a worksite. These decisions were traditionally made through unstructured expert elicitation. In order to defend expenditures in tough economic times, management determined that a more systematic process should be developed to stack rank possible locations through an objective decision-making process.

APHIS turned to CPS to provide a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt to facilitate an executive meeting in Mexico City. The Black Belt prepared discussion points, provided briefing materials, and conducted a Vision, Mission and Goal Alignment session followed by a brainstorming meeting to gather decision criteria. CPS used these criteria to create a mathematical model involving the systematic weighing of factors to aggregate a score to support ranking. The resulting model was used to run "what if" scenarios supporting final decisions on which locations provided the best return on investment.

CPS has helped the APHIS International Services (APHIS IS) Management Policy and Services program unit develop a Concept of Operations to design, staff, support, and sustain an APHIS overseas workforce. The Concept of Operations was to include sufficient detail to expedite both routine and extraordinary critical processes and to allow successful implementation of procedures by individuals who are not necessarily the experts in each process. CPS-PS Staff visited Indonesia, India, Thailand and Mexico to interview USDA and State Department Subject Matter Experts to develop more than eighty procedures covering Human Resources, Office Logistics, Information Technology, Finance, Budgeting and other management topics.

The original 2007 contract has been modified several times to allow CPS to continue to expand APHIS's library of supporting Standard Operating Procedures. A new contract has been put in place to help develop an APHIS IS internal policy development function.

The APHIS Security program unit needed information in order to make good decisions regarding its security program's knowledge transfer. The group needed to compare NIST knowledge requirements for each functional description against its current staff's level of mastery. The group also needed to discompose its current training resources into objectives to be mapped against NIST requirements. The ensuing Gap Analysis help to outline the Security Program's training development needs. CPS not only provided this background information but also outlined the new development needed through building learning objectives, creating a development framework, providing a training plan and surveying available resources APHIS could use to expand its security training program.