Contract Management

<<Q/On a project like Collins, would people on the ground have been desperately trying to bring problems to management attention ?

A/ by Easter Bunny/ Deming believed that. (W. Edwards Deming).

A sign might appear on a cubicle saying "If you cancel the pre-agreed 2-year period of DT&E of software and simulators you won’t finish the project any faster".

Supplier reps and customer reps might occasionally be in the integration lab. So supplier reps might be heard discussing a problem with their in-house "configuration control". They say they have a rogue "configuration control" person who recruits temporary staff and then sacks them after a month when they issue incorrect "configuration control" data. The discussions is meant to be overheard by the customer rep who hopefully has enough clout to remedy things. But won’t the rogue "configuration control" person have likely already sullied the customer rep’s reputation ?

Customer reps meet at supplier’s headquarters. Chief of testing at supplier’s headquarters formerly worked at customer’s organization and is trusted by the customer’s reps. The chief of testing says "It’ll never work", referring to the method of set-to-work and test being proposed, supposedly by supplier and/or customer. The chief of testing has no purchase over what is happening, Nor do the customer reps. There is some catbert or dogbert pulling the strings.

Customer reps meet at supplier’s headquarters. Supplier’s headquarters is well stocked with trade magazines. A trade magazine (say January 1993) relates how USA Navy and a supplier are sueing and counter-sueing for $ 500 – $1000 million because customer agreed to a variation in a schedule, or asked the supplier to go ahead with something known to be unfeasible, thereby voiding the contract. Curiously, customer’s headquarter’s doesn’t seem to be well stocked with this sort of information – customer’s organization for whatever reason seems to have been allowed to run down.

Customer rep and supplier rep happen to talk on phone. (Original phone call about something unrelated). Supplier rep mentions how good it would be if customer reps would come to supplier’s headquarters, as everyone is seeking the best way ahead.

Customer rep is quizzed by supplier rep about one of the customer people, "Person X". Implication that "Person X" is an imbecile in a key position.

A/ by Shariput… / I think people are "lie detector" machines.

If a person is lying, some parameter may be going haywire.

The effect will be that there is obvious untrustworthiness.

Others hopefully notice this and offer to assist.

A/ by Waikiki Kahuna /
There’d be a mountain of evidence that people on the ground have been desperately trying to bring problems to management attention.

So there’s also be a mountain of evidence of cover-up.

A/ by witnessp… / There’d be a mountain of evidence of misbehavior.

A/ by Socrates… /Staff harrassed for attempting to bring problems to management attention.

A/ by counters…/Civilians try to "stand over" service people.
(Phony charts, showing a equivalence between service and civilian position, appear on partitions)

A/ by sherlock… /It starts to feel like the massacre in Mindanao.

A/ by supergra… /
We are living in desperate times
these are desperate times my dear
there’s no way out of here
there’s no way out my dear
i’ve been holding back all my tears
just so the pressure don’t show
like a time bomb ticking away
i might blow up some day

Don’t push me, don’t shove
you better watch what you do

Chorus:

When my back’s to the wall
i might do anything at all
when my back’s to the wall
i might take any chance at all
when my back’s to the wall
i might do anything

You’ve got the upper hand
well i’ve got nothing to lose
when i’m trapped in a corner like this
i might light a fuse
there’s no way out of here
there’s no way out my dear

Don’t push me, don’t shove
you better watch what you do

Chorus:

When my back’s to the wall
i might do anything at all
when my back’s to the wall
i might take any chance at all
when my back’s to the wall
i might do anything, anything

Don’t push me too far
you better run for your life

Chorus:

When my back’s to the wall
i might do anything at all
when my back’s to the wall
i might take any chance at all
when my back’s to the wall
i might do anything at all
when my back’s to the wall
i might do anything at all

I’ve got nothing to lose
i might light a fuse
i’ve got nothing to lose
i might light a fuse
Yeah, yeah……
Look it out
Don’t come any closer

(Divinyls Back To The Wall)

A/ by The Path I Choose /
Sticks out that a usurper had taken over. Mystery is why.

A/ by workplace psychopath / Don’t ask me how a phony came to be installed on the project.
A phony would run things according to their own, presumably phony, "standard operating proecures".

A/ by michel foucault /
No surprises th
A/ by michel foucault /
No surprises there, if a phony is running the project, if the project is being run in a phony fashion.

A/ by paladin
Reviews, tests, that might raise questions about what the supposed project poobah is doing, won’t be run, will mysteriously be cancelled.

A/ by Jojo207
The main problem seems to be the existence, well, not existence, but "existence on the project", of the project poobah. So it’s gonna be somewhat difficult to bring that fact to the project poobah’s attention.

A/ by whistleb… / Won’t some projects posses a "special poobah" whose existence on the project is causing a giant problem, AND who targets other people claiming that the other person’s existence on the project is causing a problem ? Was Collins project such a project ? Wouldn’t it be difficult to bring this fact to the special poobah’s attention ? "I say that the person you are seeking is yourself". (Tyresias, in "Oedipus Tyrannus" by Sophocles, ca. 429 BC)
A/ by Googy Egg / Would a project possessing a special poobah be a disaster zone ? Sounds like 2012.

When a project turns into a disaster zone, do people run around saying "I wasn’t the special poobah.
You were the special poobah Or perhaps Kenny Poo was the special poobah".>>

Poobah is a word derived from Colonial India meaning "senior bureaucrat," so I suppose the answer to your question, if you mean arrogant or arrant, could be yes.

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