was the olympic delivery authority ever asked to save 100s of millions of early cash and slip the programme to 2014? no
No, because it delivered to time cost and quality. The reason MOD is 'asked' to slip things is frequently slippages from its own programmes causing problems in programmes elsewhere. Drop the ball in one part of the MOD and the rest have to reschedule. Repeated reworks of requirements from OR people delay equipment delivery programmes. MOD causes most, but not all of its own delays - not external factors.
and on big programmes, isn't the delay often down to baes or other big contractor? they have all the skills, no?
While there certainly circumstances while this is so, my personal experience is that the delays start right at the beginning with MOD adequately defining the requirements and things snowball from there. Earlier posters who claim have run MOD programmes to time and cost will almost certainly confirm they they didn't keep changing the requirement or interpretation, every week. remember that every time you suggest a contractor is poor, you have to ask the question as to how they the contractor is always successful with other clients who know their own minds?
The answer to the rest is pretty simple to do - write down what you want and stfu until its delivered. In my experience, 99.9% of problems come from the user not actually making clear what they want.
Anyone suggesting that 10k people, units, users or whatever should each have an input into anything, is asking for failure from day1.