You may have heard about the Peter Principle (every employee tends to rise to his/her level of incompetency) and Putt’s law (the most competent person tends to sink to the bottom while the least talented person rises to the top). You have not heard of the A, B, C Theory because it is mine. I will explain what it is and you decide if there is any merit in it.
What Is It?
My theory applies in particular to the Defense industry and perhaps the Construction industry where a RFP (request for proposal) initiates the bid process hopefully leading to a contract award. It may also apply to other industries as well. The theory is based on the team you are assigned to and the program phase that team executes. For example, perceived rising stars are typically assigned to the A team. B team members usually are experienced and considered good performers but may have a blemish or two on their record and therefore are not viewed as A team quality by management. The C team folks are the new rising stars and those that are considered by management to be average with little promotion possibilities. For the purposes of this article, program phases comprise: proposal; startup and early program execution; middle program execution where most of the progress is made; clean up and program close out. As you will see, how well your performance is perceived by management depends a lot on which phase you work.
How Does It Work?
When a RFP is received for a big important program, the A team is assigned to work the proposal because of course they are the best and have the best chance to win the contract for the company. To accomplish this goal, management pulls A team members off their existing program to join the proposal effort. The A team drives the proposal setting in concrete the technical approach, budget, schedule, risk assessment, and key subcontractors. The A team does an excellent job and wins the contract.
Virtually all programs look very good at the the early program execution phase but as time goes on technical, subcontractor, schedule, and budget issues and problems surface getting management’s attention. A deep dive into these issues usually indicates bad judgment and decisions as well as faulty assumptions made in the proposal were the primary causes of the program performance decay.
But guess what happens? Another big important RFP comes in and the A team is reassigned to the proposal and end up making similar errors, poor judgments, and assumptions as they did on the previous proposal. They escaped the blame for the previous program because they left Dodge just in time. Additionally, the A team does not learn from their mistakes because they never follow a program to the end to understand what went wrong and how to avoid them in the future. These are called “lessons learned”.
The B team takes over for the A team just as the program is heading seriously south. They work hard to fix the problems trying to recover the schedule and budget to the maximum extent practical. Of course management is micro mananaging the program at this point and blaming the B team members for doing a subpar job and wishing the A team was still on the job. Eventually, management begins to appreciate the efforts and progress made by the B team because if the product is specification compliant and the customer is happy, a lot of the sins of the past are forgiven. But the damage has been done because management does not appreciate the disaster the B team inherited from the A team resulting in B team members infrequent elevation to the A team.
The C team is called in to replace the B team because they have been requested to replace the A team on another program due to a new RFP. By the time the C team is on the program, everything looks pretty good and it is a matter of cleaning up loose ends and closing out the program. Excellent performers will be identified by management as rising stars and assigned to the A team bypassing the B team altogether. The perceived average performers will continue to be on the C team.
SUMMARY
Consider yourself lucky if you are assigned to the A team because the opportunity for fast track promotions are high in which case your career growth within the company is excellent. If you are an excellent performer but unlucky to be have been assigned to a B team, your promotion chances are much less and most likely will stunt your career growth. Perceived rising star C team people will have an excellent chance to join the A team and excel in the company as long as they avoid a B team assignment. At some point early on in your career in a company, management categorizes you and you cannot shake it off resulting in many people switching companies to get ahead.
I call this my theory because it was what I observed and experienced while working in a large defense company for an extended period of time.
Bio:
John earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering and MS in Engineering Management from Northeastern University. He has a total of 44 years’ experience, 30 years with DOD Companies. He is a member of PMI (project Management Institute). John has managed numerous firm fixed price and cost plus large high technical development programs worth in excessive of $100M. He has extensive subcontract management experience domestically and foreign. John has held a number of positions over his career including: Director of Programs; Director of Operations; Program Manager; Project Engineer; Engineering Manager; and Design Engineer.His technical design areas of experience include: radar; mobile tactical communication systems; cryogenics; electronic packaging; material handling; antennas; x-ray technology; underwater vehicles; welding; structural analysis; and thermal analysis. He has experience in the following areas: design; manufacturing; test; integration; selloff; subcontract management; contracts; risk and opportunity management; and quality control. John is a certified six sigma specialist, certified level 2 EVM (earned value management) specialist; certified CAM (cost control manager).