Wasteful Defense Spending Is a Clear and Present Danger

[J Wolfsberger]

Example: Massive defense corporation A has an analytical branch. It is contracted to do a study of issue X for a TRADOC-like entity. It also has branches that can provide manpower and systems that will carry out the recommendations of such a study. The TRADOC-like entity is under no obligation to implement the findings of the study, but the contractor in this case is telling the TRADOC-like entity what it needs. It the TRADOC-like entity decides to implement the findings of the study, won't corporation A be likely to have a huge advantage in the bidding? Not to mention that the surveys that the high-paid PhD and his crew came up with would fail any graduate level research design class as completely flawed.

Companies that perform studies and analysis for organizations like TRADOC are usually small and specialized, and generally aren't involved on the acquisition side.

One of the major problems, highlighted by the GAO, is that massive XYZ corporation isn't doing the necessary up front system analysis and engineering. Usually, because it's written out of the contract, inevitably resulting in program failure.

I wind up doing what I think is necessary to get the right tools to the soldier, but my magic phrase is "I'm always happy to work on a best effort basis at the direction of the customer." As a result, I have data in hand when I have to explain why F still equals Ma, why survivability does indeed trump ease of maintenance, etc. I will also walk away from a contract where the customer demands I do something stupid.

Unfortunately, too many contractors think about having to go home and explain how they got laid off or fired for not doing something stupid. ( And before you judge them harshly, take a look at your own family and think real hard.) They cave, and a lot of them especially cave when confronted with someone from the government side who walked into the contract having predetermined that all contractors are lying thieves out to cheat the government. I don't, but I've paid a price and do not begrudge anyone who made a different decision.

It's your adversarial attitude I'm responding to. Here's some free advice: Stay out of acquisition. If you ever go into the acquisition side with the attitude you've shown here, you will enjoy a self fulfilling prophecy. The only contractors who will want to work with you will be the ones who live down to your expectations.

[pjmunson]

You are being far to defensive, taking this far too personally, and not reading my posts carefully. Calm yourself down. And, by the way, I don't need your free advice to know to stay out of the world of acquisitions. This is not an acquisitions discussion board, and many of the people here have seen the ugly end results of poor acquisitions management on the DoD side and unscrupulous contractors on the commercial side. You need to understand that in order to realize that I don't have to have a Masters or PhD in acqusitions or contract management to have a voice. If you had opened your input in this discussion with something other than, "You should probably learn at least a little bit about how the defense industry operates before writing such slanderous nonsense," then maybe we'd be having a less adversarial conversation and I'd have more respect for you point of view. As it is, I still have responded to your posts with logical explanations of my position, rather than insults.

First off, look back at my last post. When I said "contractors" up front, I specified "speaking of the companies more than the individuals." In a number of places, I spoke to the profit motive and stated that it was rational (actually I should have said necessary) behavior in the business world. A company that doesn't want to make a profit is like an animal that won't eat. Its not long for this world. Now, with regard to the individuals, I know that they are under intense pressures from the companies to make this profit. I understand that not caving in to such pressures can mean not putting food on the table of your family. I also understand that poorly written, sourced, and executed contracts, for all the reasons I've laid out above, can lead to human wreckage. I've also said that there is plenty of blame to go around, some of it individual, much more of it institutional.

It all comes down to the fact that a profit-motivated world is dealing with a world that does not live and die by profits, and therefore, the relationship is unequal and leads to, let's say, inefficiencies in sterile terms.

[pjmunson]

"Companies that perform studies and analysis for organizations like TRADOC are usually small and specialized, and generally aren't involved on the acquisition side."

Details aside because my example in the post you were responding to is real, the company doing the study is not small, and while it has a specialized analytical branch, evidently, it is heavily involved on the acquisitions side. Again, rational business behavior. Major defense contractors have the influence and economies of scale to operate more efficiently in all modes of defense contracting, plus when they branch out into analysis, they're helping their own cause out. While it may not be direct influence, as I do not know the ethical and legal obligations of fencing off such a study from the other branches of the company, they are at a minimum gaining insight into where DoD is looking for change and can clue their other branches to look for marketable activities there.

[Ron Humphrey]

I do think J Wolfsbergers last

It's your adversarial attitude I'm responding to. Here's some free advice: Stay out of acquisition. If you ever go into the acquisition side with the attitude you've shown here, you will enjoy a self fulfilling prophecy. The only contractors who will want to work with you will be the ones who live down to your expectations.

Is fairly accurate both on the attitude perception side and especially the part about self-fulfilling prophecy.

As a contractor myself I have seen and experienced much of what each of you has mentioned but have to say that in general most of those who work for DOD do not approach everything from a "get everything you can" perspective. This from Ken

Well, I think both of you are correct. You are not
talking past each other but you are focusing, it seems to me, on different aspects and perhaps, as they say the truth is somewhere in between. The process is flawed, we all acknowledge, contributors to problems exist in all categories of persons involved, I think we all said one way or another -- so the problem is that we -- Whoa! I'm retarded, -- YOU are both victims of that flawed process and you're hacked off by it.

I'm not even a victim -- now -- and I'm hacked off. The problem existed back in my day but it has gotten significantly worse in the last few years. It is borderline criminal and it sure needs to be fixed -- for the sake of the contractors, the services and the nation.

absolutely hits the nail on the head.

The larger problem however is that there are problems on the military/ Civilian sides as well which more often than not create that survival of the fittest/ CYA requirement since either of the above on a whim can bring a whole lot of pain for very little purpose other than that they are not happy with some aspect of a given mission requirement or position.

Want to really see what kind of impact this can have look at the current Civilian hire move as defined by those who decided on it and taker a deeper look at how it is being implemented at the lower echelon's.

Long and short, Yes some things gotta change; point is make sure your looking at the entire cycle and all players involved before devolving into the easier bash the contractor only to find in the end that rather then getting things right for the future you instead ended up knocking them back to 6 years ago and have essentially ensured things will stay there for the next ten.

As to this last-

Perhaps it's just my youth and relative inexperience but are you saying that it's a bad thing for organizations which perform services for a customer to actually work hard to know what the client may require for the future and do their best to provide options when and if the time arrives that they are asked for it.

(PS IMHO any good general analyst can have at least a fair idea of what those requirements might be w/o necessarily having the "inside scoop" )

"Companies that perform studies and analysis for organizations like TRADOC are usually small and specialized, and generally aren't involved on the acquisition side."

Details aside because my example in the post you were responding to is real, the company doing the study is not small, and while it has a specialized analytical branch, evidently, it is heavily involved on the acquisitions side. Again, rational business behavior. Major defense contractors have the influence and economies of scale to operate more efficiently in all modes of defense contracting, plus when they branch out into analysis, they're helping their own cause out. While it may not be direct influence, as I do not know the ethical and legal obligations of fencing off such a study from the other branches of the company, they are at a minimum gaining insight into where DoD is looking for change and can clue their other branches to look for marketable activities there.

IF on the other hand your simply saying there are those who stack the deck then OK;Exactly how do you differentiate between the former (mentioned above) and the latter. (your apparent concern)

[Ken White]

I'd hate to shut a good thread down because civility got lost. But I will.

ADDED: Ron's post snuck in while I was typing mine; he seems to be relatively chilled and I think I am...

We all need to remember that this is not a good communication medium, nuances and smiles get missed so one has to be pretty careful how one words things, else something not meant to give offense may not be taken as innocently as it was meant.

[Entropy]

...which feels a lot better than being spun-up!

This thread reminds me of a contracting story told by RJ Hillhouse over at her neglected blog. It contains many elements of dysfunction that we probably all see in the current system. The one that strikes me is the experience mismatch between uniformed, government and civilian acquisitions/contractor personnel. In the Air Force, for example, many of the best acquisitions personnel, particularly the technical and science ones with advanced degrees, leave the service because the Air Force is stupid and doesn't mentor, nurture and promote them as it should. The result is that our supposed technology-focused service drives out the technical experts it needs to understand the technology and explain it to the service leadership who must make procurement decisions. I get the sense that the services often don't have the technical expertise to provide proper oversight and management.

Oh, and the process is probably just a bit overcomplicated. Click on the flowchart on that site - yes, it's one powerpoint slide! Need we say anything else?

[Ken White]

Thanks for the link. I think.

The thing that really irks me is that those yo-yos in Congress, the institution who is responsible for much of this -- acknowledging that services do tend to drive out the really sharp techies who can translate things for those senior but unversed (and that I certainly wouldn't want to be an acquisition guy...) -- will get on their high horse in a fraction of a second over any kerfluffle in the process they created...

The terrible thing is that it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

[J Wolfsberger]

If you want to know why we're having such problems, notice that the final Capabilities Description Document (CDD) appears at the top just before Milestone B, and never feeds back into product development. Add in the "Fundamentals of System Engineering Management" ca. 2000, where System Analysis is redefined as a "management and control activity," and I think we can completely explain why 70 out of 74 major acquisition programs out of the last 10 years have been in trouble (GAO report to Congress).

If we really want to improve the process, we scrap the "V" diagram and "Fundamentals," return to the 1990s version with a traditional waterfall approach to development.

[Entropy]

Thanks for the link. I think.

Did you happen to read the fine print on that flow chart? If not, here it is (emphasis added):

This chart is a classroom aid for Defense Acquisition University students. It provides a notional illustration of interfaces among three major decision support systems used to develop, produce and field a weapon system for national defense. Defense acquisition is a complex process with many more activities than shown here and many concurrent activities that cannot be displayed on a two-dimensional chart. Supporting information is on back of this chart. For more information, see the Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Knowledge Sharing System (http://akss.dau.mil).

So that's the "simple" version!

[Valin]

Thanks for the link. I think.

The thing that really irks me is that those yo-yos in Congress, the institution who is responsible for much of this -- acknowledging that services do tend to drive out the really sharp techies who can translate things for those senior but unversed (and that I certainly wouldn't want to be an acquisition guy...) -- will get on their high horse in a fraction of a second over any kerfluffle in the process they created...

The terrible thing is that it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

And what about this suprises you?