GoCo NoGo?
Tecumseh - ""DE&S +" Plus What ?" ........
Plus - A bit of slap and spin + a bit of time + a partial flotation + a "chosen one" and worr'aveyergot ? Stealth GoCo ?
It's Manandboy's "... reinvention of ..."
SoS has said as much already - statement - penultimate paragraph -
".... That will allow MOD, at a future date, to re-test the market’s appetite for continuing the DE&S evolution into a GoCo, and ...."
Of course it will be proclaimed a win-win. Enough money will appear to have been made in the short term, to pay for trebles all round. There could even be a prize competition for the new name.
Anything more imaginative than "DESQo" anyone ?
Plus - A bit of slap and spin + a bit of time + a partial flotation + a "chosen one" and worr'aveyergot ? Stealth GoCo ?
It's Manandboy's "... reinvention of ..."
SoS has said as much already - statement - penultimate paragraph -
".... That will allow MOD, at a future date, to re-test the market’s appetite for continuing the DE&S evolution into a GoCo, and ...."
Of course it will be proclaimed a win-win. Enough money will appear to have been made in the short term, to pay for trebles all round. There could even be a prize competition for the new name.
Anything more imaginative than "DESQo" anyone ?
Thread Starter
JFZ90,
Fair point. However, if I'm honest, I'm still a fan of Gray. Ultimately it was he, in his original report, who pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes. I had some involvement in this area and saw the appalling head-in-the-sand attitude to the unaffordable bow-wave of committed expenditure by all at the top.
Gray wasn't a genius to see it - we all knew about it, But at least he brought it to a head with a report that did not whitewash the issue.
Fair point. However, if I'm honest, I'm still a fan of Gray. Ultimately it was he, in his original report, who pointed out that the Emperor had no clothes. I had some involvement in this area and saw the appalling head-in-the-sand attitude to the unaffordable bow-wave of committed expenditure by all at the top.
Gray wasn't a genius to see it - we all knew about it, But at least he brought it to a head with a report that did not whitewash the issue.
This was nearly entirely created outside of DE&S in town, running ever more insane options - against a dewindling treasury budget that failed to provide enough money for the committed programme - to try and avoid cancelling the sacred cows until right to the end. Finally, the bow-wave was solved by binning Nimrod, delaying the carriers and lots of other measures - which was always known to be the only alternative answer to providing sufficient funds to what has been ordered, it is so obvious.
I remember back in 2003 discussing whether Nimrod or another Cat A was going to be cancelled to solve the bow-wave. That's how long the wave was running, and at the end of the day it was the politicians who decided that they wanted to ride out the wave, not tackle it.
The banking crisis finally made riding the wave impossible, although it could be argued that a braver more long term thinking government could have found a way to just about squeeze nimrod under the radar into service. They decided not to. It was only about money. At the end of the day any programme has no choice to become overheated if you take enough money away
Grays Go Co idea is a fundamentally unworkable one in my view. I've never seen a credible explanation as to how you'd control it given the complexity and breadth of the portfolio.
Comparisons with AWE are invalid - their requirement set is absolutely trivial and simple in comparison.
Posted on December 10, 2013 by Jon Thompson (PUS)
You will by now have seen either the speculation about the future of the Materiel Strategy and DE&S or the actual announcement by the Secretary of State. I thought I would set out the events of the last few weeks and why we came to the conclusion we did.
In the Gray report 2009 three main reasons were set out for the challenges we faced in delivering the equipment programme. One of those was the ability of DE&S to deliver the programme of work. We looked at various ways in which we could give DE&S the capacity and capability it needed to deliver and, after considerable options analysis in 2010 and 2011, we considered a comparison of DE&S Plus (how we might improve DE&S within the civil service) against a privately run GoCo were the options to run.
In July the formal market process for the GoCo started with the issue of the ITN. One of the three bidding consortia, led by KBR, withdrew in the first week leaving consortia led by CH2M Hill (Portfield) and Bechtel (MAP) to continue in the process. On 14 November, the day before initial bids were due, the Portfield consortium informed us they would not be submitting a bid and, subsequently, we received only one bid, from the Bechtel led consortia, MAP. The reasons for Portfield’s withdrawal are formally confidential but it is worth saying that the reasons for their withdrawal were also registered by Bechtel as issues to be resolved in the second stage of bidding – which would have lasted until the Spring of 2014.
Over the last three weeks we have been considering what we should do, proceed on with MAP, consider DE&S Plus, or a variation on those. Senior DE&S and corporate colleagues have been very heavily involved in this decision, setting aside huge amounts of time and working through the night on legal and financial options. I’d like to thank them for that as it has been an intense period. We were all agreed on two fundamental things, firstly that we needed to give DE&S some freedoms and flexibilities from the working practices of the broader civil service and secondly that to increase the capacity and capability of DE&S we needed the help of the private sector. The reality is that we need to inject new information systems, working practices and skills that we can’t grow or recruit ourselves at the scale we need to in a very competitive market and, therefore, we have to go out and buy in what we need.
There was also universal agreement that we needed to move DE&S at arms length from the MoD. That provides several positives – a hard boundary to charge the commands for services delivered for example. It provides a means of increasing corporate governance in DE&S, an independent Chairman and non-executives, an Additional Accounting Officer and separate Accounts. Finally it provides a means by which we might seek pay freedoms from HM Treasury to try and address some of the skills gaps we face.
In the end I recommended to the Secretary of State that we stop the GoCo competition and create an arms length body as the vehicle to improve DE&S. That will start in April 2014. We looked at every shade of arms length body and identified that various options we all considered should be available weren’t. It wasn’t until we got into the deep centre of HM Treasury that we concluded that a Trading Fund was not possible as it required changes to Treasury primary legislation and would take many months to change.
So, in the end, an arms length body, with appropriate corporate governance, HR freedoms, a hard boundary with the commands and with an injection of business partners was the choice we made. New HM Treasury rules allow us to bespoke the body however we consider would best suit defence. It will have the benefit of being at arms length from the Department, but still within the civil service family. Funds will be made available to the DE&S Board to recruit partners to help implement appropriate IT systems (like Earned Value Management), improve working practices in P3M, boost the finance function and help with the HR function. Further details of that will be made in due course.
I hope that helps to explain!
Jon
Comment: A classic study in avoiding the issues. He's obviously no idea who works in DE&S, unless he's advocating civilianising all Service jobs! (Not a bad thing in certain areas). And EVM is not an IT system. I remember one major company being handed an EVM contract on a Cat A Army programme and grinning from ear to ear as it didn't actually require them to deliver anything. And they promptly proved it. The "industry manager" in the IPT was so intent on using EVM he completely lost sight of what the requirement was, or that it needed delivering to time, cost and performance. The ISD has been and gone years ago.
Next step will be interesting. DE&S has been ground down over the last few years while awaiting this decision, and we see the resultant inexperience on a daily basis.
You will by now have seen either the speculation about the future of the Materiel Strategy and DE&S or the actual announcement by the Secretary of State. I thought I would set out the events of the last few weeks and why we came to the conclusion we did.
In the Gray report 2009 three main reasons were set out for the challenges we faced in delivering the equipment programme. One of those was the ability of DE&S to deliver the programme of work. We looked at various ways in which we could give DE&S the capacity and capability it needed to deliver and, after considerable options analysis in 2010 and 2011, we considered a comparison of DE&S Plus (how we might improve DE&S within the civil service) against a privately run GoCo were the options to run.
In July the formal market process for the GoCo started with the issue of the ITN. One of the three bidding consortia, led by KBR, withdrew in the first week leaving consortia led by CH2M Hill (Portfield) and Bechtel (MAP) to continue in the process. On 14 November, the day before initial bids were due, the Portfield consortium informed us they would not be submitting a bid and, subsequently, we received only one bid, from the Bechtel led consortia, MAP. The reasons for Portfield’s withdrawal are formally confidential but it is worth saying that the reasons for their withdrawal were also registered by Bechtel as issues to be resolved in the second stage of bidding – which would have lasted until the Spring of 2014.
Over the last three weeks we have been considering what we should do, proceed on with MAP, consider DE&S Plus, or a variation on those. Senior DE&S and corporate colleagues have been very heavily involved in this decision, setting aside huge amounts of time and working through the night on legal and financial options. I’d like to thank them for that as it has been an intense period. We were all agreed on two fundamental things, firstly that we needed to give DE&S some freedoms and flexibilities from the working practices of the broader civil service and secondly that to increase the capacity and capability of DE&S we needed the help of the private sector. The reality is that we need to inject new information systems, working practices and skills that we can’t grow or recruit ourselves at the scale we need to in a very competitive market and, therefore, we have to go out and buy in what we need.
There was also universal agreement that we needed to move DE&S at arms length from the MoD. That provides several positives – a hard boundary to charge the commands for services delivered for example. It provides a means of increasing corporate governance in DE&S, an independent Chairman and non-executives, an Additional Accounting Officer and separate Accounts. Finally it provides a means by which we might seek pay freedoms from HM Treasury to try and address some of the skills gaps we face.
In the end I recommended to the Secretary of State that we stop the GoCo competition and create an arms length body as the vehicle to improve DE&S. That will start in April 2014. We looked at every shade of arms length body and identified that various options we all considered should be available weren’t. It wasn’t until we got into the deep centre of HM Treasury that we concluded that a Trading Fund was not possible as it required changes to Treasury primary legislation and would take many months to change.
So, in the end, an arms length body, with appropriate corporate governance, HR freedoms, a hard boundary with the commands and with an injection of business partners was the choice we made. New HM Treasury rules allow us to bespoke the body however we consider would best suit defence. It will have the benefit of being at arms length from the Department, but still within the civil service family. Funds will be made available to the DE&S Board to recruit partners to help implement appropriate IT systems (like Earned Value Management), improve working practices in P3M, boost the finance function and help with the HR function. Further details of that will be made in due course.
I hope that helps to explain!
Jon
Comment: A classic study in avoiding the issues. He's obviously no idea who works in DE&S, unless he's advocating civilianising all Service jobs! (Not a bad thing in certain areas). And EVM is not an IT system. I remember one major company being handed an EVM contract on a Cat A Army programme and grinning from ear to ear as it didn't actually require them to deliver anything. And they promptly proved it. The "industry manager" in the IPT was so intent on using EVM he completely lost sight of what the requirement was, or that it needed delivering to time, cost and performance. The ISD has been and gone years ago.
Next step will be interesting. DE&S has been ground down over the last few years while awaiting this decision, and we see the resultant inexperience on a daily basis.
Grays Go Co idea is a fundamentally unworkable one in my view. I've never seen a credible explanation as to how you'd control it given the complexity and breadth of the portfolio.
Something like this needs small steps, or incremental implementation. Gray tried for the big bang, as he clearly didn’t understand his brief. And neither, crucially, did those who briefed him.
I’ve mentioned before that Gray announced the model he would use 2 years ago (Radio 4 on 27.12.11) – “Co-ordinating Authorities” (CA). But within weeks MoD denied he’d said this, despite it still being on the BBC website. Why?
What are “co-ordinating authorities”? The only mention in any mandated MoD standard relates to Post Design Services, in the context of appointing a single contractor to assume responsibility for the integration of individual systems so that, together, they remain functionally safe. (See Tornado/Patriot shootdown of 2003. There wasn’t a CA so no individual was responsible for integration and functional safety). The CA is then, obviously, responsible for the Safety Case. The lead engineer at the CA is THE key appointment. Note; an MoD appointment, not just someone who works for the company. He must be vetted and approved by MoD as he is granted financial delegation to commit MoD funding without recourse to MoD.
Before this system was rundown, without replacement, by RAF Chief Engineer Alcock in June 1993, there were many CAs. Sensible project managers ignored him and continued to invoke the mandated Def Stan (applicable to Air, Land and Sea, not just aircraft). New entrants, now the majority, were never taught this and failure to implement is now the norm. This is why some aircraft and equipment remained safer longer than others.
In 2001 this Def Stan was applied to a major Army programme, encompassing nearly 200 systems – the single biggest implementation ever attempted under one contract. That contract is still viable today, although DE&S can’t explain or get their heads round why it invokes a cancelled Def Stan!
But applying the process to one small programme of 200 systems is definitely not the same as applying it to all of DE&S’s procurement work. For a start, the aforementioned company, despite being a major player in Defence, had to be led by the hand through every step as they, too, had lost expertise once Alcock said he didn’t want aircraft or equipment to be functionally safe. Also, MoD had to employ a lot of external consultants, mostly ex-civilians (I’ve never come across more than a handful of servicemen who understand this; and why would they).
However, as a basic model it is absolutely fine. A CA type contract covers the entire acquisition cycle from Concept to Disposal, which is presumably what Gray wanted the GOCO contractor to do. It is a fundamental truism that any project manager who cut his teeth on PDS/CAS type work has an infinitely greater chance of delivering to time, cost and performance. But here’s the problem. MoD no longer train staff in the pre-requisite disciplines. Today, how many with this training work in DE&S? I’m tempted to say none, but it may be a handful. So, who set the exam question for GOCO bidders in response to Gray’s declared preference for CAs? In the above statement PUS goes on about people working through the night. You can work 24/7/52 for years on end, but if you don’t have the basic training you’ll get nowhere.
tuc:-
Cause and effect in one! These smooth talking Mandarins could talk the hind leg off a donkey, what they certainly will never do is to name the names of those guilty of reducing UK Defence to this parlous state. Someone has to. Someone has to bite the bullet and reveal the corruption and incompetence that continues to be covered up at the highest levels.
Rearranging the deckchairs, inventing new acronyms, or reusing old ones with no idea about what they really mean is simply wasting more money and risking more lives. It has to stop!
..they, too, had lost expertise once Alcock said he didn’t want aircraft or equipment to be functionally safe.... MoD no longer train staff in the pre-requisite disciplines. Today, how many with this training work in DE&S? I’m tempted to say none, but it may be a handful.
Rearranging the deckchairs, inventing new acronyms, or reusing old ones with no idea about what they really mean is simply wasting more money and risking more lives. It has to stop!
Helol
Yes. There is nothing in there that hasn't already been released (except of course the mistakes he makes about DE&S, which are understandable as he isn't employed to know about MoD, and neither are those who brief him). In fact, he withholds the reasons why the consortium pulled out, yet it was published in the press at the time.
Yes. There is nothing in there that hasn't already been released (except of course the mistakes he makes about DE&S, which are understandable as he isn't employed to know about MoD, and neither are those who brief him). In fact, he withholds the reasons why the consortium pulled out, yet it was published in the press at the time.
Thread Starter
Can you say what the example CA was in the Army Tuc?
What did the governance look like? Did it still have an IPT? How big? Where did the RMs sit?
EDIT - I think you're referring to FIST etc. Memory is a bit hazy but wasn't the IPT pretty big? I'm guessing Thales took the CA/integrator role with lots of subs/partners.
Speaking in 2011, is this related to bringing the CA back in house....
Soldier Modernisation | Volume 8 | UK DE&S
What did the governance look like? Did it still have an IPT? How big? Where did the RMs sit?
EDIT - I think you're referring to FIST etc. Memory is a bit hazy but wasn't the IPT pretty big? I'm guessing Thales took the CA/integrator role with lots of subs/partners.
Speaking in 2011, is this related to bringing the CA back in house....
Asked whether FIST had changed, Bruton concluded, “We have looked at what we are trying to achieve through FIST. Actually we think that it is better to have the integrator in house.
Last edited by JFZ90; 16th Dec 2013 at 20:31.
What I find amusing is the assumption that the private sector manages projects better than Government - market forces etc.
Working in the private sector, I've seen some astonishing fvck ups.
One example, a decision made in just 5 weeks to spend over half a billion dollars on an acquisition that has proved to be utterly parlous.
Big companies can be just as incompetent, wasteful and bone-headed stupid as Governments - in some cases, even more so.
Working in the private sector, I've seen some astonishing fvck ups.
One example, a decision made in just 5 weeks to spend over half a billion dollars on an acquisition that has proved to be utterly parlous.
Big companies can be just as incompetent, wasteful and bone-headed stupid as Governments - in some cases, even more so.
There are two quite interesting UK Defence-related Blogs out there, both of which have commented on this and both of whom are pro-DE&S, balancing out negativity from other places. Both may be seen to be as controversial as those other places, though!
Thin Pinstriped Line
(That link doesn't work, due to this site's strange policy of not allowing links to blogsp*t URLs. Try 'http://thinpinstripedline.b l o g s p o t.co.uk/2013/12/its-no-go-for-go-co-thoughts-on-de.html' without the spaces if you want to read the whole thing)
Think Defence
Thin Pinstriped Line
(That link doesn't work, due to this site's strange policy of not allowing links to blogsp*t URLs. Try 'http://thinpinstripedline.b l o g s p o t.co.uk/2013/12/its-no-go-for-go-co-thoughts-on-de.html' without the spaces if you want to read the whole thing)
Originally Posted by Thin Pinstriped Line
As with many things in the MOD, the UK perhaps doesn't realise how good a service it gets from them, and while it is very easy to knock the DE&S, it is worth taking a moment to think about what its workforce has done in the last 10 years or so. Compared to almost any other nations procurement system (let alone nations deployed on wartime operations), you then realise that despite huge media complaints, the DE&S is a rather fine organisation indeed. One hopes that the future structures proposed for it help make it even better still, and if the new system enables it to deliver at arms length to avoid planning round challenges, and enables it to recruit and retain high quality people for the long term then that is to be strongly encouraged.
Originally Posted by Think Defence
There is of course always room for improvement, better processes and better people, we would be idiots if we thought an organisation like DE&S cannot be improved. Having spent just under £20m on the GoCo process, or 2 years running costs for Largs Bay or 20 Foxhound vehicles, lets hope we get some value from it, or as Phil Hammond said, invaluable insight.
However, the real heavy hitters when it comes to procurement cockups are not the people at the end of the M4.
They are mere amateurs compared to those in the Palace of Westminster or churned out by Sandhurst, Cranwell and Dartmouth.
Perhaps MoD reform should start there.
However, the real heavy hitters when it comes to procurement cockups are not the people at the end of the M4.
They are mere amateurs compared to those in the Palace of Westminster or churned out by Sandhurst, Cranwell and Dartmouth.
Perhaps MoD reform should start there.
JFZ90
Thanks for that link. Reading it, I initially dated it to late 2001. Then he mentioned a 2010 UOR in the past tense and I realised he was presenting very old policies and ideas as recent brainwaves. At the bottom it reveals it was a presentation from 2011. Someone is big on self aggrandisement. It indicates a lack of continuity in DE&S and DEC.
Take the power problem. All that he mentions was recognised long before the main BOWMAN contract was let in 2003 (e.g. raised by Director Infantry in 1999) and mitigation put in hand. It is over 8 years since MoD issued the ITT to solve this, but what he doesn’t say is that one bidder replied to say the MoD specification was so obsolete it would be uneconomical to re-open the production facility! Instead of a 2 year R&D contract to produce a low-spec prototype (again), they offered a full production model to a far better spec, available NOW (2005). Despite this, MoD Commercial let an R&D contract on the favoured contractor (who he mentions, and who was responsible for exploding BOWMAN batteries and injuries to troops) to deliver a prototype in 2 years; but then failed to deliver. To assist their bid, the company was given access to internal MoD reports which provided the answers to bid questions, but were denied other bidders. The resultant waste was astronomical.
He says control of the Soldier System “is being placed in the hands of.......”, omitting to say that the name of the initiative merely changed. It was already in the hands of the same people since 2001, with test cases and dummy runs complete in January 2002! Although not power, as that was deemed to be provided by various other IPTs, two of which were later amalgamated.
When he says bring the integrator “in-house”, he doesn’t actually mean MoD does all the work itself. (At least, I hope not). The physical act of integration, which is what (I hope) he’s talking about, is one small part of the process. MoD hasn’t the capability or the resources to carry out all CA roles, and has never aspired to. Again, he is presenting as a new idea the structure that was endorsed at 3 Star level in 2001. The programme paid for a handful of Army posts (perhaps uniquely; I can’t recall any other programme that had to pay for serving personnel) to manage the Reference models he talks about. Yet again, he mentions this as if it is a new idea, but it (Reference Models, etc) is actually mandated policy. It facilitates the Trial and Proof Installations. The “in-house” aspect was a logical move, in this particular domain, because the necessary facilities already existed and it would be a waste duplicating them at the CA. In fact, the CA were located at the MoD premises, another unique aspect.
This gross disingenuousness, presenting mandated policy and long established initiatives as new ideas, is entirely typical. However, in 2011 it may have been a “relaunch”, perhaps because the few who were trained to manage it were no longer in MoD. At least he had the sense not to copy the presentation to the 2001 conference, which was WAY ahead of his 2011 one! Even so, there must have been a few puzzled foreign countries, given they had copied and implemented our 2001 proposals. For goodness sake, the Commandant of ITDU at Warminster, and a key player, drew on this initiative for his 2004/5 MSc thesis! Had the author read that, or even some basic Def Stans which any aircraft engineer in DE&S should know by heart, his presentation would be very different. There is a distinct lack of Corporate Knowledge here.
What would you call a big team? The entire process was developed by one person in his spare time, although in time the team would, as you suggest, expand. I think the important point in the GOCO context is that such a model (adopted by Gray remember) does not replace DE&S, as inferred by the media and many in MoD. It recognises many key roles are already carried out by industry, and GOCO would “only” need to slightly expand these roles into other parts of the acquisition cycle. On a small scale programme this is possible and manageable, but extremely difficult on a pan-DE&S scale. If only because MoD oversight and management is required and very few are taught these basics. A key question in thiso GOCO bid is not about who bid, but who didn't bid, and why.
Your key question relates to Requirement Managers. This is the main difficulty the consortium that withdrew had with the GOCO bid (according to press statements). The problem MoD have is that their rules (they have never been rescinded) require the RqM to be an engineer, as his main authority is manifested in the exercise of engineering judgement. Over the years this has become rare. There are many non-engineer RqMs, which is fine in many domains, but I don’t think they realise that much of their job is probably done by engineering Civil Servants; or not at all. For example, technical scrutiny and materiel and financial provision; the lack of which explains many procurement disasters, and almost all wasted money. So, in the example you quote, if he was not an engineer he would have great difficulty with technical integration and physical/functional safety. I don’t think they had any role to speak of in this Army initiative; it was entirely a routine CS engineering activity, with expertise recruited from Air Systems (as the Army didn’t “do” systems integration). The CS post was chopped in 2003, job done; which merely emphasises what I say. To be fair to the author, it may explain why his presentation is so short on fact, and reinvents too many very expensive wheels. I hate to say it, but a couple of key consultants would probably have saved MoD an awful lot of money. And reduced casualties (which, after all, was the main aim of the programme).
Thanks for that link. Reading it, I initially dated it to late 2001. Then he mentioned a 2010 UOR in the past tense and I realised he was presenting very old policies and ideas as recent brainwaves. At the bottom it reveals it was a presentation from 2011. Someone is big on self aggrandisement. It indicates a lack of continuity in DE&S and DEC.
Take the power problem. All that he mentions was recognised long before the main BOWMAN contract was let in 2003 (e.g. raised by Director Infantry in 1999) and mitigation put in hand. It is over 8 years since MoD issued the ITT to solve this, but what he doesn’t say is that one bidder replied to say the MoD specification was so obsolete it would be uneconomical to re-open the production facility! Instead of a 2 year R&D contract to produce a low-spec prototype (again), they offered a full production model to a far better spec, available NOW (2005). Despite this, MoD Commercial let an R&D contract on the favoured contractor (who he mentions, and who was responsible for exploding BOWMAN batteries and injuries to troops) to deliver a prototype in 2 years; but then failed to deliver. To assist their bid, the company was given access to internal MoD reports which provided the answers to bid questions, but were denied other bidders. The resultant waste was astronomical.
He says control of the Soldier System “is being placed in the hands of.......”, omitting to say that the name of the initiative merely changed. It was already in the hands of the same people since 2001, with test cases and dummy runs complete in January 2002! Although not power, as that was deemed to be provided by various other IPTs, two of which were later amalgamated.
When he says bring the integrator “in-house”, he doesn’t actually mean MoD does all the work itself. (At least, I hope not). The physical act of integration, which is what (I hope) he’s talking about, is one small part of the process. MoD hasn’t the capability or the resources to carry out all CA roles, and has never aspired to. Again, he is presenting as a new idea the structure that was endorsed at 3 Star level in 2001. The programme paid for a handful of Army posts (perhaps uniquely; I can’t recall any other programme that had to pay for serving personnel) to manage the Reference models he talks about. Yet again, he mentions this as if it is a new idea, but it (Reference Models, etc) is actually mandated policy. It facilitates the Trial and Proof Installations. The “in-house” aspect was a logical move, in this particular domain, because the necessary facilities already existed and it would be a waste duplicating them at the CA. In fact, the CA were located at the MoD premises, another unique aspect.
This gross disingenuousness, presenting mandated policy and long established initiatives as new ideas, is entirely typical. However, in 2011 it may have been a “relaunch”, perhaps because the few who were trained to manage it were no longer in MoD. At least he had the sense not to copy the presentation to the 2001 conference, which was WAY ahead of his 2011 one! Even so, there must have been a few puzzled foreign countries, given they had copied and implemented our 2001 proposals. For goodness sake, the Commandant of ITDU at Warminster, and a key player, drew on this initiative for his 2004/5 MSc thesis! Had the author read that, or even some basic Def Stans which any aircraft engineer in DE&S should know by heart, his presentation would be very different. There is a distinct lack of Corporate Knowledge here.
What would you call a big team? The entire process was developed by one person in his spare time, although in time the team would, as you suggest, expand. I think the important point in the GOCO context is that such a model (adopted by Gray remember) does not replace DE&S, as inferred by the media and many in MoD. It recognises many key roles are already carried out by industry, and GOCO would “only” need to slightly expand these roles into other parts of the acquisition cycle. On a small scale programme this is possible and manageable, but extremely difficult on a pan-DE&S scale. If only because MoD oversight and management is required and very few are taught these basics. A key question in thiso GOCO bid is not about who bid, but who didn't bid, and why.
Your key question relates to Requirement Managers. This is the main difficulty the consortium that withdrew had with the GOCO bid (according to press statements). The problem MoD have is that their rules (they have never been rescinded) require the RqM to be an engineer, as his main authority is manifested in the exercise of engineering judgement. Over the years this has become rare. There are many non-engineer RqMs, which is fine in many domains, but I don’t think they realise that much of their job is probably done by engineering Civil Servants; or not at all. For example, technical scrutiny and materiel and financial provision; the lack of which explains many procurement disasters, and almost all wasted money. So, in the example you quote, if he was not an engineer he would have great difficulty with technical integration and physical/functional safety. I don’t think they had any role to speak of in this Army initiative; it was entirely a routine CS engineering activity, with expertise recruited from Air Systems (as the Army didn’t “do” systems integration). The CS post was chopped in 2003, job done; which merely emphasises what I say. To be fair to the author, it may explain why his presentation is so short on fact, and reinvents too many very expensive wheels. I hate to say it, but a couple of key consultants would probably have saved MoD an awful lot of money. And reduced casualties (which, after all, was the main aim of the programme).
Last edited by tucumseh; 17th Dec 2013 at 14:03.
