Organizing Science at the
Southern Research Station

Developing a Strategy for Realignment

The realignment effort began with a 2003 Management Team meeting in which the financial viability of RWUs was a major focus. Afterward, the Leadership Team developed a four prong approach to improving viability by:(1) attracting additional support for high priority research, (2) taking advantage of retirements to consolidate units, (3) working with marginal RWUs to cut expenses, and (4) ensuring that Forest Service leadership is aware of the impact of flat budgets and increasing costs and changing administrative burdens.

For several years, the strategy succeeded in pulling RWUs out of the “red” but the new realities posed by the cost of relocating business processes to the Albuquerque Service Center and budget recissions looming in Fiscal Year 2006 prompted another session on RWU viability at the Management Team meeting in October 2005. With input from that meeting on possible ways to re-organize research, the Leadership Team brainstormed several concepts for organizational structure and chartered a team to develop input from the Management and Leadership Teams into alternatives for a realignment strategy. The realignment team met twice, for two days in December to define the task at hand and again for a week in January. Included in the December meeting was a session on successes and lessons-learned from reorganizations in other research organizations with particular attention to the Pacific Northwest Station. In between the two meetings, employees reviewed two preliminary Concepts (A and B) for organization and provided additional input. The realignment team used input from employee and administrative group leaders to refine and expand the concepts into three organizational models (Concept A, Concept B, and Concept C).

The development and evaluation of the organizational models involved three steps. The first was to identify logical groupings of scientific activities (called Science Areas) within which current RWUs could be organized. These Science Areas define broad scientific communities which share common subject matter, disciplines, and/or research models. They also define the core research strengths of the Station and provide a logical structure for coordinated research planning. The second step was to develop alternative organizational models for managing research (defined in this report as Concepts) given this set of Science Areas. In the third step, the team visited field locations to describe the Science Areas and Concepts and to ensure that all employees had an opportunity for face-to-face as well as written input into the realignment process. The team emphasized that its charter was to develop models that would set a course toward fiscal solvency and better integration of research. Although some belt-tightening would likely to be necessary in the future, the final strategy from the team would NOT address the question of cuts in funding or personnel. Rather, these organizational models would provide a framework within which better decisions affecting costs could be made. Nor would there be the need for many employees to relocate, as all of the models operate under the assumption of a largely virtual reporting structure, at least initially. Any movement of employees would be gradual and accomplished to the maximum extent possible using vacancies created by attrition.

Over a two week period, comments came in from every part of the Station and most levels of the organization, including project managers, scientists, professional support people, and administrative employees, both in the field and in headquarters. One additional Concept was offered (Concept D) and employees pointed to weaknesses both in the Science Areas and in all four Concepts (A through D). The team reviewed the comments about all the proposed Concepts and developed one that they believed would incorporate their best features and avoid the pitfalls pointed out during the comment period.

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