Dr. Program Manager—Rx Program: real symptoms or transitory discomfort? - Program Management - Brief Article

Program Manager, March, 2002 by Daniel Knapp

Program Managers--as do medical doctors--see symptoms of problems every day And as with medical doctors, "Dr. Program Manager" must understand symptoms and take quick action before the disease threatens the patient. Medical doctors seldom encounter new diseases; neither do Program Managers.

You just learned from your prime contractor that it cannot furnish data from one of its subcontractors--data you both needed and expected to leverage as reusable information. The contractor's prognosis: bad news for schedule and cost. Further, your prime contractor's Program Manager paints a dark picture about the company's ability to meet schedule while looking for alternate data sources.

How did this happen? It came straight out of the blue--right? Not likely.

Early Warnings

Acquisition programs develop maladies that interfere with their happy and healthy lives. As with living creatures, acquisition programs exhibit early symptoms of their sickness that Dr. Program Manager may observe and treat before these symptoms evolve into life-threatening diseases.

This article will explore eight symptoms of acquisition program ills and prescribe treatments that you, the Program Manager, might administer. Far from a negative view of the business of acquisition program management, this article proposes the predictability of program illnesses and shows that their treatments come from medication already resident in the Program Manager's toolbox.

Programs from birth to death display predictable symptoms from which we foretell future sickness. For the Program Manager, as with the medical doctor, our jobs focus on the 5 percent of the program that does not go right. The good news: as with doctors, we seldom see new sicknesses.

Frequently Encountered Acquisition Program Illnesses

People and programs display predictability. We know what to do when we see the symptoms. However, the essential question is twofold: which symptoms will emerge and in what order will they appear?

1

WEAKNESS IN PROPOSAL FOLLOW-THROUGH

In your Request for Proposal (REP) and the ensuing proposal, you probably anticipated reuse of certain software and data from preceding programs. This reuse reduced your program risk, cost, and schedule estimates. After contract award, you may find that the government did not purchase reuse rights to the anticipated software and data. The first symptom of this sickness will come, as described in the opening vignette, when the contractor asks for government assistance in obtaining data that it planned to acquire on its own.

At first examination, you expect the contractor to do what he or she needs to do to obtain the software or data. On further examination, you realize the contractor bid (at government urging) with full expectation of data or software reuse.

Cure: Nothing comes easy or free. Look into an Associate Contractor Agreement (ACA) between the contractor owning software or data rights and the contractor needing the software or data. The sooner you put the ACA in place, the sooner data will flow. An ACA will facilitate later data requirements as well as current requirements.

2

RASH OF ATTACKS UPON YOUR PROGRAM FUNDING

True enough, all programs experience close funding scrutiny. Solid Program Manager effort can protect your funding under normal conditions. Once you project a schedule slip or cost overrun, you exit normal conditions.

In the Defense Systems Management College's Program Management Course, we learned that no program had ever recovered once it deviated 15 percent from its Cost/Schedule Status Report (C/SSR) Baseline. Regardless of the contractor's good intentions and verbiage, you will probably suffer the same fate.

Good program metrics such as C/SSR, coupled with careful schedule monitoring, can pinpoint program slips and cost overruns. The only question is, when will you begin to take action?

This rash can quickly turn into a cancer. As with a cancer, the first inclination is to deny; the second to assume it will cure itself. After we exit the third stage-anger--we begin to share the information with others who need to know. Only then can we enter the fourth stage--dealing with the problem.

3

Loss OF A KEY BODY PART

Your team consists of solid performers. Some of these solid performers will leave the program, usually at the worst possible time. Don Shula, in Everyone's a Coach, discusses his experience with the Baltimore Colts when the starting and backup quarterbacks went down. During the playoffs, he had to go with his starting halfback as quarterback. In other words, he adapted to what the halfback could do--not what he would have done with a real quarterback. Likewise, anticipate the loss of key team members in your program and how you will fill the positions. Build your contingency plan by using a replacement's strengths and adjusting the roles of other team members to fill the void.

While you may not lose your most vital team member--if such a person exists--you must plan on losing one or more team members. Plan for it--and deal with it. Your first action, however, is to instill in newcomers the overall program vision, and in the process, help them discover and achieve their own personal vision.