Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
RE: First you mention schedule, cost, and performance as important variables. Thus criticism of programs that completely blow their schedule and cost goals, and perhaps have their performance goals reduced, even by small margins, are open to criticism on these grounds, correct?
No.
Even IF a program “completely” ‘blows’ schedule and cost performance goals (which BTW I can’t think of any I’ve written about lately that would qualify for that statement) what matters is the balance of the performance against what I stated and what you have either accidentally or selectively omitted the part concerning performance being viewed in balance “to”. Perhaps if I take out the parenthetical breakdown of program risk and add emphasis on a key word (with a corrected typo) :
Whether early or late in a program, what mattered back in the old days was mission need and getting the right balance of program risk AND the commensurate risk to national defense posture in pursuing selected alter[n]atives to satisfy defense needs.
Adverse cost, schedule and even technical performance developments must always be viewed in PERSPECTIVE, i.e. relative to the ability to satisfy a defense need, and the relative cost/benefit of proceeding with a path that was chosen or a change in technical or operational direction. Even on programs such as say, the F-35, where the bulk of real (vs. projected estimates of dubious value) cost and schedule impacts have been driven by CUSTOMER decisions to delay/defer progress for a variety of CUSTOMER preferences (rational or not), including 1) choosing to delay production in the belief (false or not) it gives the program an opportunity to reduce technical risk and 2) to slow down early production to cut total costs in early years though they know it will invariably impact per/unit costs in the out years.
Apr 22, 2012, 1:56:51 AM
Posted to The B-52 Turns 60: What IF? (Part 3)