We have all heard the terms “use it or lose it.” It can refer to government leave, known as “use or lose” time that has accrued over the year. It can also mean funding. Programs and government departments hang on to funds throughout the year, anticipating needs that might not have happened. As it gets close to the end of the fiscal year, programs need to expend those funds or risk losing them and even receiving a financial cut the following year. Many teams wait for the announcement of funds being available to start thinking about what they would do with some extra money. Smart program managers begin planning a few months out on how to use this anticipated funding to advance programs. Here’s how I’ve done it in the past.
Identify a Need
Not just any need, like new computers for your team or some new software, unless it is mission-related. That is really the key – whatever the need is, make sure that it ties back to the mission. I engage my team beginning in July and August and have them start thinking about what is needed. I had an interesting position, overseeing both mission system and infrastructure system administration, so our needs tended to relate to servers, memory, storage, and the like. If you really needed those things, and could justify the need, that is what we were looking for. Sometimes small things like memory or storage would really be needed, could be justified, and so were added to our list. However, what I really liked doing is using this opportunity to make a big improvement or add a new capability, so thinking ahead was really important in order to identify and plan out a strategy.
find Mission Improvement Projects
We were systems administrators, so we were looking at best practices related to that field. These are things like providing better security, better monitoring of running systems, potentially identifying failures before they would happen, adding remote resolution capabilities, and remote baseline tracking and installs. I had some great system admins working with me on Unix, Windows, and VMS, and I encouraged them to come up with some very forward-looking ideas. We had a site Operations and Maintenance mission, so our bottom line focus was to provide newer and better ways to keep the systems operational and accessible, ready for mission. Great people came up with great ideas. We then discussed them and determined which ones we would go forward with.
create a Detailed Write-up
By starting earlier than everyone else, we had a several week head start to not only identify the best ideas within our team, but to also write them up. We identified a great idea – like the time we enhanced our remote monitoring and system access capability. We wrote up exactly what we wanted to do and included why this change would be beneficial to the mission and other users on the program, what each item would cost, and how we would do the work ourselves. We even provided a timeline. We went out and obtained multiple quotes if an expensive item such as a server was needed. We included everything from the items required in a system build to the licenses and maintenance costs.
‘Your Project(s) Have Been Selected for Funding’
When the emails came out informing everyone that the program had some leftover funds and to let management know if they had a need that could use those funds, we were putting the finishing touches on our ideas and detailed write-ups. Within a few days, we would submit our very detailed, itemized, and tied-to-mission improvement requests for funding. We were always selected. This allowed us to provide serious improvements to the services we provided to the various missions and site personnel. Better up-times, more capabilities, and overall better service. We knew our customers and we helped them to do a better job. By looking ahead and preparing, we were able to ensure that our group provided increasingly improved capabilities, had minimal downtime, and received the best ratings on the program.
Prepare to Succeed
Budgets are very tight these days. You may not see opportunities like this, and ‘use it or lose it’ funding may never come your way. However, if you do, it is best to be prepared if you want your organization and team to benefit. Keep an eye on the best practices in your field of work. This is much easier to do these days with professional organizational memberships, web forums, and the like. Think about how these best practices could be used in your environment to provide more or better services or capabilities. Consider what it would take and how you would implement the idea. Even without end of year funding, by taking these ideas to your management and the customer, you may receive special funding anyway. Be known for thinking ahead, being proactive, and making good things happen. It improves the mission, is a lot more fun, and will even enhance your reputation as someone who can make improvements and can get things done in your own work environment and mission area.
