Unfortunately the summaries in the Nimrod case are a familiar story, and seem to be bubbled up again every time there is a major accident. The public wants answers on why these deaths occurred - and a fix it so it never happens again. The public does not want to hear about profits or benefits or stats or KPIs, only reasons for the tragedy and who to blame if it is due. The reasons are common- staff turnover, lack of expertise, dumb paperwork exercises, process for process sake, rules and more rules, continuous change for improvement. Recommendations are largely the same: Simplify+empower the responsible, use principles more than rules, keep experienced and knowledgeable people+add leadership+support the workers+build a listen-and act-culture. The reality is that most modern businesses oppose a return to these good principles in a relentless drive by their shareholders, boards and CEOs for profit. And governments are forcing more business practices into the public services. Recommendations like these ones cost money, so cut them! Churn keeps wages low, seek continued cost cuts, short term gains and agility is good! Bollocks.
Many of these criticisms made of systemic failures in the RAF and MOD can be mirrored with our own ADF bureaucracy, especially in the "business processes of DMO, and the continual "bureacracy-building" processes. The Howard Government's legacy procurement process is a classic example that means it now takes 7-10 years to replace a simple training aircraft, created the Seasprite debacle of $1Billion wastage, just to name a couple. I understand that DMO now has more people involved than Army Land Command, so there are more pen pushers than gun toters to save governments from embarrassment with their piles of paper. Senior ADF leaders have often been disempowered to make real change, so there is a lack of leadership and lots of ass covering pending the next promotion. Similarly CASA is being driven by the lawyers where tomes of regulations make everything better. The operators and leaders are overridden by the rule-makers and spin-prophets to protect their ministers. Eventually the paper processes become so convoluted that the humans cant work within.
This report suggests that a bureaucratic explosion occurs, and that a return to "old fashioned" principles and simplicity will save us all. I certainly dream of that day.
Last edited by Roller Merlin; 4th Nov 2009 at 13:38.