Guidelines Primarily Associated with Effectiveness.

DOE-DP-STD-3023-98

significance. For example, the data needs for prioritizing inexpensive, single-year

activities will be considerably less than those for expensive, multi year programs. The

heavy use of judgment for assessing risk parameters in the former case should be

sufficient. Therefore, the information sources might be limited to facility records

and/or personnel. However, evaluation of expensive, multi-year programs should rely

on information from detailed technical studies, such as facility hazards assessments

and safety analysis reports (SARs), where available. The most significant and

controversial programs, such as major environmental remediation activities, should

use formal risk assessment methods, where available, as input to the scoring process.

The extent and quality of the information should also be based on the need for highly

accurate prioritization results. For example, a prioritization in response to regulatory

requirements will probably require more accurate results than that needed for a

budget estimate.

9.6 Guidelines Primarily Associated with Effectiveness.

9.6.1

Guideline 6.1-- Decision Options Definition. An explicit definition should be provided

of the types and nature of " ecision options"the RBP system is intended to evaluate

and prioritize.

Discussion. The intended function of the RBP system depends on specifying

appropriate decision options. RBP systems designed to support budget decisions will

typically use activities or sets of activities as decision options. Therefore, specifying

the nature of the decision option includes determining the unit of work that will be

evaluated by the system, including what options will be considered. For example,

decision options might be specified as " es-or-no decisions for all independent,

separately costed activities proposed for the coming year."

9.6.2

Guideline 6.2-- Decision Option Size. The " ize"of decision options should be

appropriately defined for the prioritization effort. Specify the size of decision options in

terms of their range of costs and scope of work. Activities should not be defined so

large as to provide insufficient advice for "ine-tuning"decision making, nor should

they be so small and detailed that they force an overly burdensome and costly

evaluation.

Discussion. Activities to be evaluated using an RBP system should represent a

decision option that is sufficiently detailed to support key decision-making needs. If it

is important for the system to support independent funding decisions about two tasks,

then those tasks should be defined as separate activities for prioritization. However,

the smaller the decision option (i.e., the lower the level at which activities are

distinguished and defined), the greater the scoring burden will be on those who should

provide the prioritization system inputs. There is no single " est"approach to

balancing these two considerations. Instead, the approach should reflect a

managerial value judgment as to what kinds of decisions should be analyzed using the

prioritization system versus what types should not be analyzed.