ONE'S SCHEDULING PROBLEMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP79R00967A001100030024-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 13, 2006
• Sequence Number: 24
• Publication Date: April 18, 1967
• Content Type: MF

Approved For Release 2006/10/14: CIA-RDP79R00967AO01100030024-1
C E N T R A L INTELLIGENCE A G E N C Y
OFFICE OF NATIONAL ESTIMATES
18 April 1967
MEMORANDUM FOR BOARD AND STAFF
FROM: Chief, Estimates Staff, National Estimates
SUBJECT: ONE's Scheduling Problems
1. It has long been generally understood that the quarterly
Programs of National Estimates are not strict working schedules, but
that they represent hopes and aspirations, sometimes overly optimistic.
Slippage of items from one month to another or from one quarter to
another has become commonplace to the extent that the schedule for
a given quarter is often largely made up of items proposed three
to six months before.
2. A number of problems have resulted from this situation.
First, the reputation of the Office as a workmanlike and efficient
organization has suffered, even though good reasons could be given
for each change in the Program. Second, the balance and pertinence
of the problem has been affected by the hangover of old commitments.
And, third, papers have tended to come to the CES and thus to the
Board, the Reps, and USIB in bunches, making for inefficiency at
all these stages of a paper's life.
- GROUP 1
Excluded from automatic
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I?A-L downgrading and
declassification
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0 C-O-N-F- I- D- E-N-T-I-A-L
3. Recognizing that the Office is subject to influences
and demands beyond its control and that a certain amount of change
in the schedule is necessary and inevitable, there are two changes
in procedure which might help with the problems noted above.
(a) At each Estimates Program exercise, limitation
of nominations for the program of the second of the
two quarters under consideration to those papers on
which work need commence forthwith. (A longer list
of items under the heading of Unscheduled Estimates
would probably follow, but this poses no problem as the
USIB commitment to items on this list is less than to
those on the program for the two succeeding quarters.
Items on the list of Unscheduled Estimates can be
dropped or changed with relative ease.)
(b) Publication from time to time of supplemental
schedules, like that attached, showing target dates
agreed by the CES and the Staffs for the progress of
each paper through the several sues of production
and coordination. Such schedules would be distributed
within ONE only. (No commitment to these supplemental
schedules, except that of intention, could be expected
C?O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L
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and it would be understood that unanticipated
problems, changes in situations being estimated
and the like, would require changes in the
schedule. The value of the supplemental schedule
would be that it would bring to the attention of
the Staff Chief and staff men involved the date
on which a draft must go to the CES in order that
a specific USIB target be reached. It would
also help the CES plan a more efficient spacing
of papers for presentation to USIB0)
 Approved For Release 2006/10/14: CIA-RDP79R00967A001100030024-1
Approved For Release 2006/10/14: CIA-RDP79R00967A001100030024-1