From: ewright@convex.com (Edward V. Wright)
Subject: Re: Overly "success" oriented program causes failure
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 21:56:33 GMT
Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by a user at CONVEX Computer
              Corp. The opinions expressed are those of the user and
              not necessarily those of CONVEX.

In <1993Jan4.164516.10926@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman) writes:

>Since *your* failure oriented system is totally your own strawman invention
>out of whole cloth, I won't bother to address it further.

My own invention?  Really, Gary, you're being too modest.

Practically all government agencies are failure-seeking systems.
Remember when the US Government said, "Give us a billion dollars
and we'll solve all the problems in American education?"  They
didn't, of course, but that didn't stop them from getting another
billion dollars, and another after that, and more after that.

Government agencies grow -- "succeed" -- by failing to solve
the problem they were set up to solve.  The last thing any
bureaucrat wants is to *really* solve the problem and put
himself out of a job.

Although this behavior originated in the social programs
side of the Federal government, it has now penetrated to
other agencies as well.  It's no surprise that it now takes
20 years to procure a jet fighter -- that means that a military
procurement officer can spend his entire carreer at the Pentagon
and retire in the same program.  Most of that time (and money) is 
not spent in actual development, but in paper studies, 
evaluations, and reviews.

The Space Shuttle was another example of a failure-seeking program.  
The budget grew to just the point where it equalled the number of 
dollars NASA needed to keep all its labs and offices open.  When 
that happened, the goal became to keep the Shuttle development 
program going as long as possible.  Finishing the program would 
have been a disaster.

Of course, the Rogers Commission, headed by a State Department
carreer bureaucrat with no knowledge of engineering or technology,
didn't say that.  Instead, they blamed NASA -- as you blame NASA --
for being too "success oriented" (!) because somewhere along the
line, someone, somewhere actually took a chance to get the thing
to work.



>I gave an example of a "success" oriented program that went sour
>for the typical reason. If you want a megaprogram that came in on
>schedule and on budget despite thousands of engineering change
>orders during development, I'll point you to GM's Saturn line
>of automobiles. 

The Saturn project wasn't success-oriented?  That would sure
come as news to GM!


>That's because the most likely developmental bottlenecks
>were identified in the planning process and allowance made in
>the Pert charts for alternative workaround development time and
>money. 

I've got news for you, Gary.  Those Pert charts that you are
so fond of were invented for (boo, hiss!) success-oriented
Polaris-missile program.  Good engineers always expect problems
to arise during a project.  If possible, they plan for them in
advance.  If not, they handle them when they crop up.  The difference
between you and your personal devil, Dr. Wernher von Braun, is
not that you are a better, more careful engineer, as the success
of Project Apollo and every other von Braun program demonstrates,
but that he had imagination and vision too.