Bulldozer00's Blog

Based on observation and personal experience, here’s my assessment of how the system nominally executes:

1. A customer issues a Request For Proposal (RFP) or a Request For Quote (RFQ) for a product that meets a perceived need.
2. The competitors respond with a proposal that contains a solution, a price, and a schedule.
3. An organization wins (kudos and high-fives all around)!
4. A program team is formed in the winning organization.
5. The program team inherits the proposal schedule.
6. The proposal is communicated to the product development group (PDG).
7. The PDG forms a product development process (PDP) team.
8. The PDP team analyzes the proposal and constructs a PDP schedule.
9. The PDP team executes the PDP.
10. The PDP team performance doesn’t *match* its own schedule OR the original proposal schedule – sometimes by a large amount.
11. The customer, the organization, the program team, and the PDP team suffer the consequences.
12. Go to step one for the next effort.

The figure below illustrates the nominal system operation, where M = Milestone.

Sometimes, but not always, the developer organization “forgets” the original proposal schedule and, via the magic of cognitive dissonance, praises the PDP team at the end of the effort for being on schedule and under budget. Sometimes, even the customer conveniently “forgets” original proposal schedule, but the customer’s financial sponsor usually doesn’t.

Do you agree with the assessment of the system’s nominal operation? If you agree with it, then consider these follow on questions:

For each of the participants in the system, where do you think the suffering starts?

Do all participants suffer equally? If not, which participant do you think suffers the most?

Is anyone at fault, or are the unintended consequences a byproduct of the system’s behavior?

What management techniques can be employed to drive “the measure of underperformance” to zero, or ideally, to a negative value?

Are there some management techniques that, if applied, will cause greater underperformance?

If you don’t agree with the assessment, then please tell me why, and what your experience has been.

Do you think the cognitive dissonance scenario exists?

If so, have you experienced the cognitive dissonance scenario?

In the cognitive dissonance scenario, even though the outcome is falsely deemed a rousing success, do you think there is any suffering by one or more participant groups during execution?