Appendix II: Environmental Analysis
Key Factors Affecting the Achievement of the Strategic Goals
The NTSB's ability to achieve our strategic goals may be influenced by the changing balance of industry operations, other federal, state, and local government activities, national priorities, market forces, and resource availability. The following factors may affect the achievement of strategic goals for fiscal years 2013 to 2016:
- Challenges in achieving closure of significant recommendations.
- Retaining and recruiting staff with critical technical experience.
- Retirement or attrition of key personnel.
- Budgetary constraints, including fluctuations in appropriations.
- Emerging technologies that affect the NTSB's investigative process as well as its advocacy and outreach.
Evaluation and Planning Process
The agency's approach to performance measure evaluation has helped drive the agency's overall planning process. Over the last 2 years, the planning process has been improved by the establishment of streamlined collection and reporting techniques. Overall, the agency has improved the selection and evaluation of our performance measures, resulting in measures that have been designated priorities for the agency and can be accomplished in 2 years or less. Our measures are more aligned with our strategic objectives in this strategic plan as well as our annual operating plan. This approach will continue into the future and will result in additional improvements to the evaluation of our planning process.
Consultation
In developing this plan, the Board and staff have devoted significant time to coordinating and consulting with internal and external stakeholders. We gathered input during several stages of the process and developed a multi-staff level workgroup to revise and streamline the document. We also published a draft document in the Federal Register and posted it on our agency website for public and staff comment.
