Thursday, May 21, 2009

Effective Presentations


Sorry for the lack of posting, but the other day, while changing the light bulb in the bathroom, I fell and hit my head on the toilet. However, when I came to I had a vision. A vision of how one might construct the ideal order for a final presentation for a customer sales pitch of a combat sytem. Allow me to relay it here because in any other venue people would most assuredly not care at all.

First, I think if I were standing on the stage the audience would want to know who I was, so I'd start off by telling them about my company and any past performance that related to our offering. In my dream I was surrounded by a team of equally talented players, but for some reason they each looked like a member of the 7 dwarves. Nevertheless, that team deserved an org chart, so I'd show that information knowing that soon the audience would want me to get to the technical solution.

I would then tell them about the conops and the system. Of course, systems don't just appear out of nowhere, so I'd elaborate with my systems engineering approach. In my dream it looked like a figure-8-mobius-stripped-v-chart that spiraled back such that the design phase intersected at a point of singularity from which the space-time continuum erupted. Your results may vary.

Then I would elaborate on the systems engineering approach. I'm a bit hazy on that part, and when I asked one of my dwarves what parts of the system engineering process I should present he replied, "How hard did you hit your head? You've been doing this for the past 6 weeks at the cost of health, wealth, and friendships. If it isn't glaringly apparent which are the key aspects of your design by now, and how to organize it, then I'll eat my own floppy hat."

I hope he chokes on his hat.

Then a string of subsystem visions passed through dripping with key features and benifits along with design decisions that solidified our design as the only viable solution.

Of course, the likelihood of a combat system just coming together is about as likely as a proposal coming together when the predominant answer to a question is, "design decision." However, miracles do happen, and in this case the "miracle" is the program management approach. So my vision concluding with a hefty does of management processes, risks, schedule and cost.

Finally, just as the proposal summary slide (in the form of a tasteful quad chart) faded from view I awoke and went to Gaetanos. It's amazing the bad decisions one will make in the wake of a concussion.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Save Fluffandstuff!


We came across another leak from DTDC. This one gives us great insight into the strengths of a least one competitor and dispels quite a few myths about their ability to execute.

Thank you, Mr. F. Jeeze, whever you are!

Monday, May 11, 2009

Integrate THIS!

This week I came a cross a bit more detail regarding the downfall of SynerComm, last year's dethroned winner of the BMDCS contract. 

If you recall the company's President and CEO, S. G. Pennyapple, promised us that SynerComm's program management approach, low cost systems engineering design and technical performance provides the DTDC the best possible offering for BMDCS success. 

What they didn't count on with their newfangled ERP system? Software integration and test. They should AT LEAST have had their software components interfacing with each other by IOA. Even a simple, "Hello, world!" from Radar to Mission Software would have sufficed. However, they decided to go in Guns-A-Blazin into their FOA integrating it all on the spot. Needless to say calamity broke loose. A high-ranking DTDC official had his chest hair singed from his body by an errant laser slew. Another key decision maker was forced to go WEEKS without a trip to the gym  as he worked overtime to justify to Congress why they should continue to fund the disasterous effort. 

His ultimate justification borne of late nights and undeserved protein shakes? The next BMDCS will come with an air-tight Software Integration and Test plan. Hopefully one of these contractors pays attention to whatever the SOW says about this topic. If they fail again to come up with a solid schedule, sound build plan, and terrific lab facilities, you can be sure we see BMDCS on the block again next year.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Ground Control to Major Flaw

Far more reliable than the one provided by DTDC
Root cause analysis is a fun game. Essentially something goes wrong and you keep asking why until you get to the bottom of the pile. Unfortunately, root cause at the Department of the DTC will overflow one's stack before you get where you want to go. Why do so many of their programs fail?

Well, one likely cause is their constant parade of misinformation to the contractors. Take their joint command as one example. My source at the DTDC told me that despite all the confusion all a BMDCS needs is 1U of space in their rack for a DTDC communication system. Apparently it has the same power, space, and weight requirements of a Dell Poweredge Server 1950 III. How it communicates with Joint Command is a mystery to me and no clearer that what exactly is joint command. Is it in the sky? Is it on the moon? Is it on a time traveling island? I don't know!

Jigga-Watt?
Another example is their whole set of enclosure studies that Serling talked about. They also ran some disinformation saying that the enclosures included batteries. Well, once again we find that the power supply of the enclosure draws from an external power source (most likely the BMDCS generator). We all know a power supply is necessary to support power hungry servers with voltage and frequency regulation, important bypass systems and power factor corrections (for use with small generators). The enclosure power supplies protect against surges, spikes, lightning, poor frequency and voltage conditions. Of course, all that rests upon the contractors realizing that if their enclosure doesn't come with a power supply then they need to buy one. They'll catch on...eventually.

Constructive Conflict

No doubt some of you out there are facing the challenge of decision-making in a group setting. Ever hear the phrase "A camel is a horse designed by committee"? I can only imagine the time wasted by contractors that can't figure out how to convey a trade study. No doubt many wasted hours during a proposal process are a direct result of shoddy, laborious, and time-consuming decision-making spinning in circles as you sort past egos, biases and paradigms to figure out which answer is least worst. 

We here at DTDC Watchdog have employed a rather elegant solution to the problem which I feel  obligated to share with you on this rainy hump day. 



Remember...

Sunday, May 3, 2009

BMDCS in a Box

A fellow watcher that goes by the name "Serling" sent us this note on the BMDCS enclosures.

"The DTDC has done it again. Have they even heard of competition? They are apparently mandating the use of one of three companies for procurement of the computing hardware’s enclosure. Who are these companies you ask? One is one of those huge expensive machines that makes $1000 hammers, one has only been in business for 2 years and the other has never even made military enclosures. What sort of a choice is that?

Half of the enclosures don’t include power, and more than half aren’t even qualified to military standards. Who even knows what sort of lead time these things have. There’s a chance that none of the enclosures even meet the needs of the BMDCS; is there even an option to use any of those companies’ other enclosures?

I shouldn’t be surprised by this move by the DTDC, making something more complicated than it needs to be. Here’s (probably uselessly) hoping that the final product not only meets technical requirements but, for the sake of our armed forces using this product, it isn’t held up by cost, schedule, and risk."
Enclosures sound like a small detail, and insignificant compared to the larger pieces of the BMDCS puzzle. However the enclosure houses the mission software, also known as the brains of the operation. Computer hardware exposed to the elements is not long for operation. Cut off the head and the body follows!