Looking back on a 40-plus-year association with the military (27 years on active duty) and a 50-plus-year career in management, including my time in the Pentagon, and then reading the farewell writings of Under Secretary Frank Kendall, I reluctantly came to the same conclusions I reached years ago:
• Many of the Department of Defense’s acquisition problems come from Congress and can frustrate the best efforts of the most conscientious program managers.
• The same practices and procedures that characterize the successful management of acquisition programs can lead unapologetically to a decision to cancel those same programs.
• Technical and programmatic problems, sooner or later, have legal and ethical implications.
• Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
In 1982, as a young commander in the Pentagon—and to that point having squandered my Navy career at sea—I tried to kill a bloated program for several mine countermeasures systems. The programs were devoid of meaningful milestones; the contracts devoid of meaningful sanctions; and the visions devoid of reality. The delivered products would not have performed as required, and sailors relying on them to enter minefields would have been further endangered. The only indicators trending upward were costs and completion dates.
OP-03 (Surface Warfare) wanted to cancel the programs. Funds were tight, and we had many smaller, more cost-effective, bread-and-butter programs that could have used those funds. We needed actual warfighter benefits—playing-field levelers that we could both predict and measure.
The prime contractors, who had coincidently established facilities in the home state of a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained to him. Predictably, the senator directed that we put the funding back. Funding for the sensible but unglamorous programs was not his concern.
In 2006, as a military analyst for the Center for Naval Analyses, I evaluated a program intended to develop sensors for detecting chemical and biological agents and to deploy those sensors in strategic ports of embarkation/debarkation, such as Kuwait. The program was a great “401k” for contractors, systems commands, and “scientists” of all types, but it would endanger the lives of the soldiers, sailors, and Marines at the scene. Field testing results were deceptive, and contractors tried lowering the bar to skew test results in their favor.
My decision briefing to my bosses ended with a bullet: “We have an ethical imperative to withdraw our support from the program.” I had never thought to use that term before. My bosses agreed, and we helped to drive a stake into the heart of a shameless, wasteful, and potentially hazardous program, not to mention preserving our own reputation.
The table below describes the work-a-day preoccupations of program managers and staffs. Since (theoretically at least) our laws reflect our ethical beliefs, you can adhere to both or violate both simultaneously. Note the bottom row. The program is SAT if all parties recognize an ethical imperative and foster it; UNSAT if they do not.
Consider “ethics” as a systematic reflection of rules and issues—the way in which people act and the rules that form the basis of these actions. Most of us endeavor to do what we believe are the right things to do. To drive safely for the benefit of pedestrians is ethical; to drive safely because it is the law is to fear a penalty or a punishment. Ethics come from within a person’s moral sense and desire to preserve his/her self-respect. Legal requirements come from without.
An ethics-centered program has an organizational “character” and strategy, taking seriously not only its mission but also its ethical responsibility. When program managers uncover legal problems, they create, de facto, an ethical imperative to take corrective action. Accordingly, it is virtually impossible to have only a legal problem or only an ethical problem.
The courage to cancel can only follow the decision to cancel. The decision to cancel is the result of asking questions such as these and getting the wrong answers:
• Is the program on track (sound metrics, milestones realistic/met)?
• Is the contractor qualified and motivated or did it just book the business?
• Have all legal and ethical obligations been met?
• Does the program vision reflect reality?
• Is there excess influence from stakeholders and higher authorities?
• Does the threat of protest or lawsuit permeate program operations?
• Is program risk excessive and/or unmitigated?
Troubled programs do not get that way overnight. The signs are there, and they become more visible with each missed milestone. Program managers and staffs know how to identify, quantify, and document problems. They should be supported when they recommend cancellation.
The soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine is a program manager’s primary stakeholder—not the congressman or the contractor. If you have justification for a decision to cancel, you must have the courage to cancel as well. Take courage, and good luck.
