THE WELCH COMPANY
440 Davis Court #1602
San Francisco, CA 94111-2496
415 781 5700
rodwelch@pacbell.net
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 03:00:40 -0800
03 00050 61 04022401
Mr. Garold L. Johnson
Modeling and Simulation
Boeing
5301 Bolsa Ave.
Huntington Beach, CA 92647-2099
..
Subject:
Presentation on Com Metrics at SRI
Dear Gary,
Per our telecon, review of
Jack's letter,
on February 21,
suggesting that you
prepare a paper
and/or perhaps
give a
talk at SRI
on the Com
Metrics work you did last year at Boeing, sounds like a good
opportunity. It fits your research on February 25 to spruce up a
presentation that illustrates SDS support for fundamentals. Did
you get a chance to see the
comments on your ideas,
reported the
next day on February 16?
.. Notice the review lists
other resources
that might support a
professional presentation on Com Metrics.
Since you are short of time, here is a draft of a letter for
consideration in responding to Jack's letter which he sent to
you...
..
Dear Jack,
Rod has asked me to respond to
your letter
on Jan 21,
discussing a possible
presentation at SRI.
We had been
talking about how the effort everyone made last year to try SDS
on the project would make a
good "story"
on the ups and downs of introducing new technology, based on the
annual report of progress in the record for Jan 2.
Really appreciate being considered to speak at SRI.
.. Couple of points to keep in mind...
The general
story
using SDS at Boeing on the FCS project
last year is fairly set out in Rod's record on Jan 2.
.. Rod used the occasion of my call to review the year, and this
provides a basis for talking points in a presentation. Didn't
realize we had done so much. From the eye of the storm,
everything seems calm, because you are spinning as fast as
everything else.
..
Unfortunately, since Jan 2, when
things looked great,
history may have passed us by on your idea to hear about SDS and
Com Metrics. On Jan 16, I
stopped using SDS
after some
questions were raised by Boeing corporate resulting from a small
breach of confidentiality when I accidentally published to the
Internet an SDS record
back in April. Don't know if that can be
solved, so in one sense, the pilot test might be seen as a failure, if
it turns out we could not develop sufficient buy-in to withstand
cultural inertia
once it got headed in our direction, based
on analysis dated Feb 3.
I am working on it, and there are
some official
action items to get SDS approved for use
on the project
but, Rod points out that experience shows the longer
we go without "delivering the goods" that empower people to get things
done correctly, on time and within budget, the
favorable feedback that
has occurred, up until now, will
quickly fade from
memory,
as situational awareness (also, limited span of attention)
becomes dominated by new crises.
People fall back into comfortable habits working on
familiar things in familiar ways, as
Covey and
Grove point out. So,
giving fair warning that you may be buying a pig-in-a-poke,
because the credibility angle seems to have receded again.
..
Since I don't have SDS anymore, I am a lot busier trying to meet
increased
demands for organizational memory,
as a result of everybody
finally starting to "get it," after getting SDS records for a year.
Using conventional tools like this email, and other Microsoft programs
means there is not as much time to get things done. So, bottom line,
I cannot promise I will have
time anytime soon
to spend on preparing a
professional talk, nor to pull away for a visit to SRI.
..
Additionally, this is a classified project, and so that may present
obstacles. I will ask my boss -- maybe the gods will think this is
something we should do, and in that case we are off to the races -- a
gig at SRI would be an interesting project. Will try to get back to
you in a few days on this.
.. Since the project is classified, my SDS records are not
available for general review, to answer
your question
about "blogging" on the Internet. (note -- that is what got us in
trouble) If SRI can somehow wrangle a
position that a presentation on Communication Metrics
would be furthering the work of the project, then
the records might be released. I have a vague recollection that
Rod or Pat Lincoln, when I talked to him some months back,
indicate that SRI has a small part of the project, so there is
always a possibility the records could be provided to SRI for
study.
..
I talked to Rod about
your idea for me to give the talk,
and he is okay with that. Rod has had health issues recently, and so
likely is not available. Go ahead and communicate directly with
me on this, and send Rod a copy so he gets the gist of how things
are going.
..
In our discussion, Rod mentioned having thumbed through some
of the old files after getting your letter. That background
suggests there are actually
two (2) presentations
that should be
considered. One is on learning and using SDS for the
eight (8) steps of Com Metrics
to prepare and send out the record to everybody. I've got this list
posted on the wall here in my office; so, if
the chance arises, I would like to
make a presentation on using SDS for
"intelligence" that supports command and control of the work,
which fits our deliverable for
C4ISR. My group's responsibility for modeling and
simulation would provide an opportunity to
follow up on
Cliff Joslyn's (LANL)
presentation at SRI on July 27, 2000.
.. A second presentation might be considered on
how people handle getting SDS records,
i.e., what's it like being a consumer of "intelligence"?
It would be great if our
chief computer architect
could come and explain transitioning
from initial shock to acceptance, then expecting to get SDS
records, and later insisting on getting more. Another good
candidate is one of our customer reps.
Nancy is a Lt
Col, and has a Ph.D. in something like computer science or
management, not sure which, but she is very sharp and seemed to
catch on quickly that SDS packs a bigger wallop than getting
traditional meeting minutes. Additionally, if possible, my boss' boss,
Bruce, who hired me, would be effective to present the
impact on corporate culture, when Communication Metrics is
introduced. Bruce gave a talk last August that
essentially cried out for SDS support to manage
lessons learned.
Don't know if any of this can come to pass, but it makes sense
for understanding the "story" of SDS on the project.
..
Rod mentioned there are a lot of
other people
who might be considered to speak on SDS, if I am not available, or to
complement my perspective on the User side, with input from
consumers of, what Rod calls, "intelligence" on the job (not sure
I'm comfortable with that phrase, but I know what he means, and
there is no doubt that a dramatic change of some kind - mostly
positive, but some negative in the beginning - occurs in people
from routinely getting SDS records).
..
Anyway, Rod mentioned a number of people, including your name as
someone who could give a good account of SDS, including ideas for
improvements. Pat Lincoln is another name, along with Morris Jones,
who has worked with Rod for 20 years. I have talked to Morris once or
twice and done some email, and also talked to Pat and they both seem
like good choices to give a presentation on SDS from a consumer side.