Introduction
This story is about risk at the enterprise program/project level. Design is based on primarily requirements and assumptions. Meeting requirements is usually achievable if they are complete and clear. Soft or poorly written requirements are the source of cost and schedule growth for many projects. Assumptions made during the analysis or design phase if wrong are also a source of poor project performance. This story is one example of a bad assumption. Continue reading
This story is about risk at the enterprise program/project level. It is an example of centering your design around a high-tech solution to a problem when a low risk proven technology would have more than sufficed. Technical expertise ego got in the way of a practical low-cost approach resulting in unplanned schedule and cost growth. Continue reading
This risk story involves a major subcontract that went awry impacting the program and one of my company’s growth goals. The goal was to become the sole provider to the Navy for a mine killing system comprising two major components. One is an underwater kill vehicle and the second one is a launcher (from a helicopter). To accomplish this goal, we landed a contract with the Navy to design, build and perform tests of a small quantity of units (called first article units). Continue reading
This risk story includes risk at the enterprise level, the program/project level, and the product level. From the enterprise level risk, it was a little naïve on my company’s part to think they could go from zero not having manufactured any sonobuoys previously) to full up production the first time around without investing the time and finances to go up the learning curve prior to making the bid. From the program/product level risk viewpoint, the baseline plan did not include sufficient component and subassembly trial builds and testing before finalizing the concept, preliminary design and final design. Continue reading
Background
A defense company I worked for wanted to get into the Sonobuoy business. At the time, one company dominated the market and usually received the largest share of the Navy contract. A couple of other suppliers got the balance of the production quantity to keep it a competitive business.
My company developed a win strategy based on a ¼ scale prototype and purposely under bidding the competition. It worked. They won the largest piece of the production contract. Continue reading