CONTACTS
0201 - Poremba Consulting
020101 - Mr. Michael Poremba; 415 819 9660
SUBJECTS
Columbia Space Shuttle Breaks Apart During Approach to Land Loss of 7
Columbia Space Shuttle Explosion Mike Submits Article Saying Poor Man
Columbia Explodes During Re-entry on Approach to Landing After Comple
Management Failures Reported Lack Documented Surveillance Contract Pe
Contract Requirements for Reporting Production Progress and Performan
Surveillance Shall Avoid Action Inconsistent with Contract Requiremen
Alignment Showing Audit Trail Traceability to Original Sources Docume
Intelligence Proactive Management Only SDS and Com Metrics Support In
Bumbling Small Details Later Cause Major Problems Need Proactive Disc
Document Surveillance Contract Performance Failed
Bumbling Complex Information Communication Need Alignment on Challeng
3613 -
3613 - ..
3614 - Summary/Objective
3615 -
361501 - Follow up ref SDS 26 0000. ref SDS 20 0000.
361502 -
361503 - Received ref DRT 1 0001 from Mike Poremba with an article published by
361504 - the Washington Post today on long standing concerns about poor
361505 - management that may have contributed to loss of the Columbia Space
361506 - Shuttle yesterday on 030201, ref OF 2 0001, as shown in the record
361507 - yesterday. ref SDS 26 0001
361509 - ..
361510 - Last year Mike showed awareness of SDS support for Knowledge
361511 - Management meeting on 020531, and more recently on 021217, ref SDS 24
361512 - 0001 At that time on 021217, Mike expressed interest in seeing SDS
361513 - theory, tools, and practice adopted more widely. ref SDS 24 06ZH
361514 - ref SDS 24 06ZH The letter to Mike on 021222 confirmed understandings
361515 - that Mike would submit a letter with proposals on helping this advance
361516 - occur. ref SDS 25 8G6J
361518 - ..
361519 - Washington Post (WP) reports....
361521 - ..
361522 - The thunderous explosion of Columbia over central Texas yesterday
361523 - was presaged by a drum beat of warnings by government auditors
361524 - and experts who voiced concerns about lapses in oversight and
361525 - deferred safety improvements for NASA's aging fleet of space
361526 - shuttles. ref OF 2 IE4N
361528 - ..
361529 - As recently as last April, the chairman of the Aerospace Safety
361530 - Advisory Panel warned Congress that NASA's management of the
361531 - shuttle program had drawn "the strongest safety concern the panel
361532 - has voiced" in 15 years. "I have never been as worried for space
361533 - shuttle safety as I am right now," said Richard Blomberg, who was
361534 - then chairman of the panel. ref OF 2 IE62
361535 -
361536 - [On 030222 project correspondence following take-off show
361537 - warnings about problems of re-entry. ref SDS 1 0001
361539 - ..
361540 - [On 030222 analysis indicates ice may have damaged shuttle
361541 - during take-off, rather than insulation, and this problem
361542 - was known to require attention during preparations for the
361543 - flight. ref SDS 1 KL6K
361545 - ..
361546 - None of this was supposed to happen. The last lethal shuttle
361547 - disaster, 17 years ago, provoked calls for revolutionary changes
361548 - in the program's management. The agency promised that safety
361549 - would henceforth be put far ahead of all other considerations,
361550 - including budget constraints, the demands of its users and
361551 - political pressures. ref OF 2 IE67
361553 - ..
361554 - WP's reporting aligns with the record on 921021 reviewing failure of
361555 - the Challenger Space Shuttle in 1986, ref SDS 2 4499, led to improving
361556 - NASA management to correct defective procedures. ref SDS 2 4489
361557 - Success relaxes vigilance under Jack Park's report on 010908 that
361558 - laziness encourages bad management, ref SDS 13 YF5O, and Murray
361559 - Altheim's analysis on 020820 calling for people to relax rather than
361560 - worry about accurate communication. These attitudes in combination
361561 - with competition breeds bravado to cut budgets without reducing the
361562 - level of commitment, e.g., fewer dollars means fewer missions.
361563 - Accordingly, unless people increase ability of management to perform,
361564 - failure is inevitable. ref SDS 2 4499
361565 -
361566 - [On 030424 reporting that NASA had difficulty adopting
361567 - improvements to management mandated to avoid problems that
361568 - caused loss of the Challenger in 1986. ref SDS 27 0001
361570 - ..
361571 - The WP story says in particular....
361572 -
361573 - While NASA managers have described their contractor oversight as
361574 - adequate, NASA's Office of Inspector General disagreed. "The
361575 - lack of systematic and well-documented contract surveillance is a
361576 - particular area of concern," the inspector general said in a
361577 - report last June. ref OF 2 IF66
361579 - ..
361580 - NASA's OIG report that contract surveillance is not well-documented
361581 - aligns with review on 020504 showing government regulations calling
361582 - for surveillance cannot be met with existing methods. ref SDS 19 NS6F
361584 - ..
361585 - Review on 020504 shows government regulations require surveillance,
361586 - ref SDS 19 AM5L, but people fail to perform because there is not
361587 - enough time using familiar Microsoft technologies that people like, as
361588 - reported on 001126, ref SDS 11 W18L, and later on 020107. ref SDS 16
361589 - LQ5K
361591 - ..
361592 - On 020504 study shows professional standards for communication
361593 - practices and requirements on good management specified in FAR, ISO,
361594 - Health Care, Covey, Drucker, law, contract notice provisions, and
361595 - 2,000 years of literacy for contemporaneous documentation for
361596 - alignment and feedback to work intelligently, quickly, and accurately
361597 - are ignored in government, business, health care, every sector.
361598 - ref SDS 19 NS6F
361600 - ..
361601 - FAR requires....
361602 -
361603 - (d) ....verifying that the contractor fulfills the contract
361604 - quality requirements. ref SDS 19 IIRT
361606 - ..
361607 - (e) Ensuring that nonconformances are identified, and
361608 - establishing the significance of a nonconformance when
361609 - considering the acceptability of supplies or services which
361610 - do not meet contract requirements. ref SDS 19 WO6V
361612 - ..
361613 - Similar provisions require withholding payment until deficiencies are
361614 - remedied, but this is ignored.
361616 - ..
361617 - Contract management for major procurement is a complex task that
361618 - overwhelms limited span of attention causing critical details to slip
361619 - through the cracks, explained in POIMS. ref OF 5 1113 Traditional
361620 - management using meetings, calls, wordprocessing, email, and forms are
361621 - inadequate, as explained in POIMS. ref OF 4 1850. On 970707
361622 - government studies shows that managing complex projects degrades to
361623 - entropy due to information overload. ref SDS 7 0108
361625 - ..
361626 - SDS expands span of attention by integrating time and information,
361627 - explained in POIMS. ref OF 3 VL5F and ref OF 3 2D4M Linking shows
361628 - alignment that makes verification of contract performance faster and
361629 - easier, noted by Stuart Harrow with Defense Contract Management Agency
361630 - (DCMA) in a letter on 010608. ref SDS 12 RS4J Stuart's finding aligns
361631 - with an earlier report by The US Army Corps of Engineers explaining
361632 - how SDS enables a system of "intelligence" that improves daily
361633 - management. ref DRP 1 6172
361635 - ..
361636 - Progress on transformation to a new way of working intelligently has
361637 - been slow because people like to work on familiar things in familiar
361638 - ways, reported by Andy Grove at Intel, reviewed on 980307. ref SDS 8
361639 - 1657 Since everybody is familiar with Microsoft, so as long as people
361640 - can get by with bad management, there is strong cultural inertia to
361641 - avoid the effort of improving, noted by Morris Jones at Intel on
361642 - 990527. ref SDS 9 074D Disruptive events like an attack on the
361643 - nation that occurred on 010911 due to failed intelligence, ref SDS 14
361644 - YNGH, collapse of earnings and stock prices like at Enron, World Com,
361645 - AT&T, AOL-Time Warner, Cisco, Intel, Ford, etc., as reported on
361646 - 020204, ref SDS 18 0001, and now the explosion of the Columbia Space
361647 - Shuttle can break through in some circles to suggest that the price of
361648 - good management is the only way to avoid the cost of bad management,
361649 - explained in NWO. ref OF 8 0742
361651 - ..
361652 - On 020905 there was progress when a government contract support
361653 - manager discovered that learning to use explicit links only takes a
361654 - few minutes. ref SDS 22 DAPW A week or so later on 020912 Stuart
361655 - noted that SDS has a novel capability for managing context to
361656 - establish alignment, called out by the regulations. ref SDS 23 HH92
361657 -
361658 -
361659 -
361660 -
361661 -
3617 -
SUBJECTS
SDS Change Work Habits Daunting Task in Big Organization Cu ure Resi
Change Life-style SDS Integrated Design Commitment to Use Good Manage
Change Resisted Valley of Death Overcoming Resistance to New Idea Cha
Change Resisted Grove Familiar Things Familiar Ways People Resist Don
Learning Takes More than 20 Min Improve Skills Productivity Earnings
Change Habits Faith New Way Working Takes Commitment to Improve Save
Avoid Change New Way Working Used by Com Manager Deliberates Organiza
4409 -
441001 - ..
441002 - Better Management without Everybody Changing Work Habits
441003 - Little Intelligence Goes a Long Way to Improve Management
441004 - 3-layer Architecture Improves Performance Without Everybody Changing
441005 -
441006 - Mike says in his letter.
441007 -
441008 - 1. Improving communication inside of such large, complex
441009 - organizations seems like a daunting task--changing the work
441010 - habits of so many people. ref DRT 1 NT6F
441012 - ..
441013 - Changing the perception that working intelligently to save time and
441014 - money is a daunting task because belief that everybody has to change
441015 - work habits is a deeply held paradigm. Mike's letter reflects common
441016 - knowledge that changing habits is hard, reported on 921205 reviewing
441017 - Stephen Covey's book. ref SDS 3 4803 As a result, the fact that
441018 - everywhere SDS have been used only one person in the organization
441019 - learned a new way of working and this made others more productive with
441020 - skills and habits they already have, as reported on 020107, ref SDS 17
441021 - 3M6F, is ignored because fear of having to learn to press
441022 - some new buttons prevents people from investigating to discover how
441023 - much time and money is saved by using SDS for Communication Metrics
441024 - with everybody having to learn anything.
441026 - ..
441027 - Experience on 970110 shows people welcome the opportunity to be more
441028 - effective reducing mistakes and saving time and money, when there is
441029 - support to implement Communication Metrics, ref SDS 6 2487, under the
441030 - concept of a 3-layer architecture explained on 020820, ref SDS 21 0001
441031 - Even contractors, who initially oppose Communication Metrics because
441032 - they fear accountability, eventually learn that earnings increase
441033 - faster by working intelligently than by covering up, shown by the
441034 - record on 970107. ref SDS 5 4953
441036 - ..
441037 - As a result, it is not necessary to change everyone's work habits
441038 - because a little intelligence goes a long way in big organizations,
441039 - noted on 011006 discussing a similar question by Gary Johnson.
441040 - ref SDS 15 W56K
441042 - ..
441043 - USACE reported that $Millions were saved with only one person using
441044 - SDS. ROI is 10:1 in big organizations because the opportunity to
441045 - reduce bumbling is endless for saving time and money. ref DRP 2 0001
441046 - Henry Kissinger makes a similar point in his book Diplomacy reviewed
441047 - on 940609. ref SDS 4 4238
441049 - ..
441050 - Mike concludes by asking....
441051 -
441052 - 2. I wonder if you might be able to get some ears inside the
441053 - Administration. ref DRT 1 NT6K
441055 - ..
441056 - This question relates to political access.
441058 - ..
441059 - Right now everybody in the administration is scrambling for cover
441060 - setting up hearings that will propose bigger budgets for acquiring
441061 - more tools of self-destruction that everybody likes because they can
441062 - be learned in 20 minutes, as explained in NWO. ref OF 7 2082
441064 - ..
441065 - There seems to be ample authority on the books to use SDS for
441066 - complying with good management practice, as shown by review on 020504.
441067 - ref SDS 19 0001
441069 - ..
441070 - This is a test paragraph to figure out how to. ref SDS 19 0001 But
441071 - there is not enough time for getting things done.
441072 -
441073 -
441074 -
441075 -
441076 -
441077 -
441078 -
441079 -
441080 -
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4411 -
Distribution. . . . See "CONTACTS"