Approach

Booz Allen used a structured approach to comprehensively examine technology barriers to telework.

(View a text version of the flowchart)

Logistics

Booz Allen included ten Federal Departments/Agencies in the study

• Booz Allen strove to select a set of organizations based on the following criteria:
  • Inclusion of a broad range of communities of work across the Federal Government
  • Organizations that have sufficiently broad perspectives concerning the technical barriers associated with telework
  • Organizations that have workforce populations representing a significant percentage of the Federal civilian employment base
• Six departments and four agencies were selected

In addition, we conducted interviews with CIO staff at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to gain a DOD perspective on IT challenges facing home-based telework

Assessment

The technology survey was conducted using publicly available industry data, product/services data, and Booz Allen intellectual capital.

INPUTS	ACTIONS	OUTPUT
	Identified and assessed key telework technologies Defined an architectural framework for the teleworking technologies Aligned the framework against telework technologies to identify categories of potential barriers Identified specific potential barriers within each category and identified potential solutions Documented areas for further data collection in follow-on steps

CIO Interviews and Coordinator Focus Groups

Booz Allen designed standardized protocols to capture data through interviews and focus groups

• Interview and focus group protocols were crafted with open-ended questions designed to provoke discussion; interview questions were also designed to flow in a logical progression to keep participants on topic
• Interview and focus group protocols were designed with parallel questions, to the extent appropriate, to allow for comparisons across perspectives
• Each protocol contained open-ended questions in the following categories
  

  IT Equipment and Services Procurement and Funding Systems Performance and Compatibility-Computers Systems Performance and Compatibility-Telephone Communications - Technical Support

  Security Accessibility for Teleworkers With Disabilities Usability Organization and Management

• Additionally, several general questions were asked at the beginning and end of each session
• Focus group participants were also asked to respond to a set of rating and ranking questions
• Seven interviews were conducted with CIOs and their staff between October 23 and November 16, 2001; one interview was conducted after January 1, 2002 due to scheduling constraints
• Ten focus groups were conducted with telework coordinators between October 18 and November 1, 2001
  • Telework coordinators were encouraged to include other staff (e.g., work/life coordinators, human resources staff, technical support staff) with varied insights
  • In two organizations, one-on-one interviews were conducted instead of focus groups due to the limited number of telework coordinators
  • During the planning phase, we determined that one organization (FTC) has not yet enacted telework; therefore, we excluded them from this analysis

Questionnaires

Booz Allen designed questionnaires to gather information about how teleworkers and their managers experience the different categories of technology barriers

• The previously-identified categories of technology barriers were used to design high-level research questions and more specific sub-questions
• The research sub-questions were used to craft questions that would be appropriate from the teleworker and/or teleworker manager perspective
• The questionnaires contained questions in following categories:
  

  Access to IT Equipment and Services Procurement and Funding (Manager version only) Systems Performance and Compatibility Telephone Communications

  Technical Support Security IT-related Training for Telework Accessibility for Teleworkers with Disabilities

  
  
• A total of 2,416 teleworkers and 897 teleworker managers were invited to participate in the questionnaires
  • 1,030 teleworkers submitted responses, generating a respectable response rate of 43 percent; after screening out respondents who did not fit the study's definition of teleworker, there were a total of 678 valid teleworker questionnaires
  • 339 teleworker managers submitted responses, generating a respectable response rate of 38 percent

Case Studies

Booz Allen conducted "Case Study" interviews with representatives from eight Federal organizations with established telework programs

• Ten federal organizations, small agencies, or subcomponent level organizations known to have established telework programs were asked to participate in "case study" interviews
• Eight of these organizations agreed to participate in the study:
  

  Wright Patterson Air Force Base Department of Commerce - Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) General Services Administration - Public Buildings Service Region 7 Department of the Treasury - Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)

  Consumer Products Safety Commission General Services Administration, Region 1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration - Langley Research Center Internal Revenue Service - Modernization Information Technology Services

  
  
• Categories of technology barriers were used to design high-level research questions and more specific sub-questions; the research sub-questions were used to craft questions for the interview protocols that would be appropriate for established telework programs
• The case study interview protocol questions focused on obtaining information about practices and procedures relevant to information technology supporting telework to address and successfully manage technology barriers to telework
• Based on the findings from the case study interviews, Booz Allen presents telework practices for each of the categories of technology barriers

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