2014 NVSBE Events Satisfaction: White Paper

Request for Fast-Track Approval for Collecting Feedback
on 2014 NVSBE Events Satisfaction: White Paper

Situation

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) requests approval for the Fast-Track process (or generic clearance) for collecting service delivery feedback under the Paper Reduction Act (PRA). OSDBU needs to collect satisfaction information at the 2014 National Veterans Small Business Engagement (NVSBE) regarding attendees, right after specific events or activities that will take place during the engagement. The NVSBE is the VA Secretary Signature event and will take place December 9-11, 2014. It’s main goal is to provide Small Business Owners access to federal agencies, commercial corporations, and prime contractors in order to increase their procurement opportunities.

OSDBU has presented metrics to the Chief of Staff that measures the success and the return on investment that VA receives from this event. The 2014 NVSBE Events Satisfaction collection will provide some of the information required to determine success. It includes the following forms: 1) networking roundtables, 2) business requirement sessions, 3) learning sessions, 4) senior leaders’ roundtables, 5) exhibitors satisfaction, and 6) CVE booth satisfaction. The targeted respondents are the attendees, to include federal employees, small business owners, and corporations’ personnel.        

PRA Information Supporting the Fast-Track Process

The Fast Track Process is designed for information collections that focus on the awareness, understanding, attitudes, preferences, or experiences of customers or other stakeholders relating to existing or future services, products, or communication materials (FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Point 2, page 1). The 2014 NVSBE Events Satisfaction collection focuses on the experiences that attendees have on each event or activity were they participate. In order to gather the most accurate data, the feedback will be electronically collected immediately after each activity.

As this information collection intends to learn about the customer level of satisfaction regarding the 2014 NVSBE activities, it should qualify for generic clearance (FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Section III, page 3). The estimate of the hour burden of the collection (541 hours) and the fact that it does not raise substantive or policy issues, supports its suitability for a fast-track process as well. (FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Section XI, page 4).

If results need to be shared with potential attendees, it will be indicated that these are not generalizable to the population of study, as established on the FAQs for New Fast-Track Process, Section IX, page 5.

Summary

OSDBU faces a very limited time frame to get this collection cleared by OMB and to be ready to start delivering the forms on Dec 9, 2014, the first day of the 2014 NVSBE.. Given this situation and the fact that it meets the requirements, OSDBU requests that the 2014 NVSBE Events Satisfaction collection goes through the fast-track approval process in order to meet this important deadline. As previously mentioned, this is a customer satisfaction, low-burden collection which results are be fundamental for the after action report that is expected by VA Chief of Staff.