Timeboxed earned schedule approach (TESA): An innovative framework to program schedule management for programs within OTAs

Abstract

Use of Other Transaction Authority (OTA) vehicles helps accelerate research and development (R&D) of prototype technologies for government entities. However, OTA is not subject to Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) performance reporting requirements. This increases the potential for cost and schedule performance risk. To reduce this risk, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Code 34 Force Health Protection portfolio is leveraging an innovative timeboxed earned schedule approach (TESA) to program schedule management that provides performance situational awareness without impeding the benefits of OTA for streamlining research and development. TESA appropriates concepts from Agile project management and earned value analysis to provide a schedule performance monitoring protocol across multiple programs, projects, and performers. The approach retains EV’s cumulative performance analysis benefits for evaluating schedule accomplishment across multiple efforts and accommodates different audience summarization needs at a variety of abstraction levels.