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2010-02-23 Economy
New pay, personnel system dumped as a 'disaster'
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Posted by Fred 2010-02-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ]  Top

#1 Secretary Gates clearly wasn't a fan of the title or program, which at its peak employed 600 military, federal civilians and private contractors who tried to use off-the-shelf technology to meld up to 90 automated systems that continue to run across DoD.

Design a system to meld '90' separate systems would be a nightmare of configuration management. Given that control over the 90 would not be in the integrators hands, that means they would have to constantly alter and change their system at the whim of 90 other owners. We have enough joy and happiness with every Microborgsoft update that creeps into our O/S without knowing its impact on third party software. An integrated system should be designed and implemented top down for configuration management purposes. Not going to happen within the separate fiefs of DoD anytime soon.
Posted by Procopius2k 2010-02-23 07:49||   2010-02-23 07:49|| Front Page Top

#2 Could one design, build, test, and field a global satellite GPS system for spring loaded mouse traps? Yes of course, but why would you? For the same reason Snake oil Federal Contract automators and empire building DoD acquisition contract managers pursue other meaningless, parasitic projects. Millions frivolously pissed away by DoD on combat modeling and simulations (M&S) is only one example. Sounds all technical, difficult to understand, but probably very necessary. Sorry, it's just another costly digital disaster like the one listed herein, too big and too invested to fail.
Posted by Besoeker 2010-02-23 08:50||   2010-02-23 08:50|| Front Page Top

#3 About 5 years ago I was the tech lead on a team which sought to incoporate a number of disparate military systems starting with NAVAIR in Pawtunxent, MD. In that role, which started with a systems audit, I got to see the kinds of issues that exist.

I worked for a private software house, SAP, that has the ability, product and resources to have pulled this off. What SAP, or anyone else, does not have is the ability to fight through the millions of turf wars that are in play within and amongst the various commands.

Technically it's a challenge but eminently doable...politically? not so much.

For those of you not attuned to the wonders of IS let me use one, somewhat, related example. Again as the tech lead for an SAP project; this time at a Fortune 500 manufacturer with military ties. We had to, among other things, combine 6 existing accounts receivable systems into 1. Unfortunately there were also 6 different and incompatible parts systems. Marketing had one name for a widget, engineering had another, sales another and the various manufacturing operations had their own. I went back to that company 4 times over the subsequent years and it took them 7 years to get through this particular issue. Imagine what the military could do.

As a line in the magazine Fortune put it in 1993..."The best thing about SAP is that it's an integrated system; the worst thing about SAP is that it's an integrated system."
Posted by AlanC 2010-02-23 08:52||   2010-02-23 08:52|| Front Page Top

#4 We have enough joy and happiness with every Microborgsoft update that creeps into our O/S without knowing its impact on third party software.

Tell me about it, NONE of my library of games will play on 64 bit systems (Win7) and the only "Fix is to eliminate Win 7 and reinstall Win XP 32bit. YUK

I'm currently debating refurbishing my old box (Crashed hard drive) Just for gaming.

Posted by Redneck Jim 2010-02-23 13:01||   2010-02-23 13:01|| Front Page Top

#5 RJ try VMware...
Posted by  abu do you love  2010-02-23 18:32||   2010-02-23 18:32|| Front Page Top

#6 Fascinating insider look, AlanC. Thank you!
Posted by trailing wife 2010-02-23 19:23||   2010-02-23 19:23|| Front Page Top

#7 AlanC - my employer - a large So Cal local gubbamint, has implemented SAP this last year (you prolly know which one). Our timecard inputs are a disaster. Implementation was done prematurely, at best.
Posted by Frank G 2010-02-23 20:18||   2010-02-23 20:18|| Front Page Top

#8 SAP is a cumbersome and demanding beast, but it does work.
Posted by Glenmore 2010-02-23 22:59||   2010-02-23 22:59|| Front Page Top

#9 Glenmore has it right. It does work but its "niche" is rather overwhelming since it tries to enable the centralization and standardization of virtually all of the IS concerns of a business. The underlying software is really impressive.

BTW anyone in the market for a semi-voluntarily retired IS type with 30 years in the business from software engineering through project mgmt?

I accepted an early retirement last year as the alternative was an 18 month 5 day a week committment in Mexico City. After 15 years on the road and no kids left at home I wanted to stay local and the crash killed virtually all business east of Nevada. Unfortunately it also took a real chunk out of the retirement fund so I've got a couple of years to fill in.
Posted by AlanC 2010-02-23 23:09||   2010-02-23 23:09|| Front Page Top

#10 Glenmore and AlanC. I don't mean to disparage SAP, nor it's need. We had vintage Auditing programs that couldn't communicate to funding software, nor labor charges, nor hard costs. Something was needed! SAP was the choice and my only knowledgeable complaints are that it was forced prematurely, did not address Dept-specific needs and was inflexible. That doesn't mean it wasn't needed. Just inflicted poorly
Posted by Frank G 2010-02-23 23:09||   2010-02-23 23:09|| Front Page Top

#11 Frank, no problem at all. The biggest problem with SAP (outside of some managers ;^) has always been with the implementation. I can give you long lists of partial successes and failures of all types. They had one thing in common...bad implementation management.

Everything from one manager trying to drive his vision over other managers to greedy consulting houses trying to build the never ending project to managers who wanted to implement the latest thing just because.

It all came down to one thing, lack of a clear vision of the goal coupled with a lack of clear leadership.
Posted by AlanC 2010-02-24 00:01||   2010-02-24 00:01|| Front Page Top

00:07 Last Breath Farm Resident
00:01 AlanC
23:51 Last Breath Farm Resident
23:29 eltoroverde
23:23 Shieldwolf
23:15 remoteman
23:09 Frank G
23:09 AlanC
22:59 Glenmore
22:51 Glenmore
22:41 rammer
22:32 Free Radical
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