Looking back on a 50-plus-year career in management (27 years of which were spent on active duty), I am forced reluctantly to conclude that:
- Many US DoD acquisition problems still come from Congress, as they did for me in 1982, and can still thwart the best efforts of the most conscientious program managers;
- The same practices and procedures that characterize the successful management of acquisition programs can (and should) unapologetically support a decision to cancel those programs when appropriate;
- Technical and programmatic problems, sooner or later, pose legal and ethical problems; and
- On the bright side, programs which pose, extend, or only partially mitigate a hazard and cannot otherwise be corrected, can be cancelled if a robust case is made.
In 1982, as a young commander in the Pentagon and (until that point) having squandered my Navy career at sea, I tried to kill an overly bloated program for a mine countermeasures system. The schedule was devoid of meaningful milestones; the contract devoid of meaningful penalties; and the vision devoid of meaningful reality. The delivered product would not have performed as required and sailors relying on it would have been endangered. The only indicators trending upward were the cost and the completion date.
OPNAV wanted to kill it. Funds were tight, and we had lots of smaller, more cost-effective, “bread and butter” programs to fund instead. We wanted to put the funds to better use and realize benefits that we could both predict and measure. The prime contractor, who coincidently had established a facility in the home state of a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained to the senator. Predictably, the senator directed that we put back the funding. Sustaining sensible but unglamorous programs was not his concern.
When Admiral James D. Watkins was tapped to return to Washington as Chief of Naval Operations, he brought back with him then–Vice Admiral Lee Baggett Jr. to become OP-095, the Director of Naval Warfare. Watkins’ guidance to Baggett for taking over this contentious and often antagonistic Navy branch was, “Make it work or make it go away.” No surprise, Baggett made it work, but Watkins’ guidance had a profound influence not only on an important branch of the Navy staff but also on an unimportant young commander in the Pentagon’s trenches.
“Make it work or make it go away!” What wiser guidance could ever be given, and what more welcomed guidance could ever be received?
The Courage to Cancel
The courage to cancel can only follow the decision to cancel, and the decision to cancel is the result of asking questions like these and getting the wrong answers:
- Is the program on track (sound metrics, milestones realistic/met)?
- Is the contractor qualified and motivated, or did he just book the business?
- Have all the legal and ethical obligations been met?
- Does the program’s “vision” reflect reality?
- Is there an excess of influence from stakeholders and higher authorities?
- Does the threat of protest or lawsuit permeate program operations?
- Is program risk excessive and/or unmitigated?
The courage to cancel starts with the program managers who must plod resolutely up through their chains of command. Regardless of the outcome, program managers will have given it their best shot if they can prove, measurably, that the program should be cancelled.
The Ethical Imperative
Consider ethics as a systematic reflection on rules and issues—the way in which people act and the rules that form the basis of these actions. Most of us endeavour to do what we believe are the right things. To drive safely for the benefit of pedestrians is ethical; to drive safely because it is the law is to fear a legal penalty or punishment. To operate legally is to operate in conformance with all established laws and regulations applicable to the mission of the organization. Laws and regulations are created by governments to protect their citizens.
Organizational ethics (often called corporate responsibility in the private sector) institutionalizes consideration of ethical rules and issues and then creates and controls processes to ensure that organizations perform to established ethical standards. Ethics come from within a person’s moral sense and desire to preserve his/her self-respect. Legal requirements are external. Since (theoretically at least) our laws reflect our ethical beliefs, you can adhere to both or violate both simultaneously.
In 2006, as a military analyst for the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), I worked on a program intended to develop sensors for detecting chemical and biological agents and to deploy those sensors in strategic ports of embarkation/debarkation in the Middle East. Field testing results were deceptive, predictive software unreliable, and contractors tried lowering the bar to skew test results in their favour. The program was literally a “401k” for contractors, systems commands, and “scientists” of all types—and it potentially endangered the lives of in-theatre soldiers, sailors, and marines.
My decision briefing to my bosses at CNA ended with a slide bullet that read: “We have an ethical imperative to withdraw our support from the program.” I had never thought to use that expression before. The bosses agreed, and we helped to drive a stake into the heart of a shameless, wasteful, and potentially dangerous program, not to mention enhancing our own reputation and saving a big chunk of government money.
A DoD program for a major purchase, acquisition, or investment, should reflect comprehensive, structured, and ethics-centred management processes, custom-tailored for each specific contract. An ethics-centred organization within DoD has an organizational character and strategy, taking very seriously not only its mission but also its responsibility to operators, stakeholders, and the nation.
The same program management practices that commend a good program indict a bad one. Faithfully and diligently, program managers scrutinize their processes. In doing so, they (predictably) either reinforce or expose the underpinnings of their programs. When program managers uncover unfixable problems, they create, de facto, an ethical imperative to act.
The ethical imperative, that discomforting reminder to DoD that when lives are at stake, you either make the program work or you make it go away, is both timeless and omnipresent. It is virtually impossible to discover a technical problem without creating an ethical obligation.
About the author: Captain Razzetti is a retired USN surface warfare officer, auditor, management consultant, and military analyst.
Note: This article originally appeared on the USNI Blog. It is republished with permission from the author.