Restraint and Failure

One of the key points to the FIST value concept is the idea of restraint. We believe restraint is absolutely essential for any project leader who values completing an effort quickly with the maximum amount of goodness. Lucky for us, this recent article in WIRED magazine highlights just how important restraint really is.

How Success Killed Duke Nukem

On a related note, it's fantastic to see a major publication acknowledging the value of failure (WIRED's Jan issue is all about failure). We often talk about the importance of failure and how the FIST values increase your chance of an optimal failure - were much is learned and little lost. I highly recommend the issue.

What Is Good?

Apparently my theme this week has something to do with measuring progress (I didn't plan to have a theme - it just sorta happened). While previous posts have mostly focused on the measurement part, let's take a look at the "progress" part today.

Specifically, I'd like to talk about priorities and values. What attributes do we consider desirable for our projects? What are our measures of merit? What indicators give us reassurance that we've got a good program?

Regular readers of this blog know I think it's "important and good" for a program to be Fast, Inexpensive, Simple and Tiny. I apply these values to every part of the program, from the requirements documents and system architectures to the organizational structure and operational processes. My research indicates that the FIST values not only support programmatic success (i.e. delivering on time), but also operational success (i.e. performing well in the field).

The funny thing about values is they are often assumed, not discussed. I seldom see explicit statements about a project's values, but there are plenty of indicators that show what the project leaders really think are important.

Look at any number of recently cancelled projects, and I think you'll find that nobody thought it was particularly important for the thing to be developed quickly or inexpensively, or for it to be simple. Rather, complexity is often treated as a sign of sophistication. Big budgets are a sign that the system is important. Take a long time to build it? Great! That means you're clearly doing a good job and exercising due diligence.

Here's the thing: when we aren't deliberate with our values, when we don't examine and discuss them, we run the risk of being guided by values that are counterproductive and ineffective. I'm not saying that FIST is the only value set that works - I'm just saying we should be purposeful with our values, and should be aware of the way they shape our decisions and behavior.

Adapting Rapidly

Steven Metz writes in his article Small Wars: From Low Intensity Conflict to Irregular Challenges (chapter 16 of Rethinking the Principles of War, Naval Institute Press):

"[A]n array of factors has characterized success for counterinsurgents and counterterorists in the modern era [one of which is]: Adapt at least as rapidly as and more effectively than the enemy. "

How is it possible to act this swiftly using the current DoD Weapon System Acquisition process? Maybe it's just me, but the current system seems too cumbersome, with all the processes and procedures and statutory regulations that must be followed, to achieve the speed necessary to rapidly adapt. I have an idea! What if we focused on being Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, and Tiny? I remember seeing that somewhere.....

Windtunnel?

I recently came across the idea of an "acquisition wind tunnel" that would allow us to test our organizations and projects, to see how streamlined and efficient they are.

I like that imagery... I think. At the same time, I wonder if some of the points of friction and resistance might not be some of the more interesting and productive parts of the project. I guess it depends on how we define friction.

It occurs to me that one person's friction is another person's traction. Similarly, one person's momentum is another person's inertia. So, in this hypothetical wind tunnel, we'd have to be specific about how we distinguish between negative friction and positive traction. And the tricky thing is, the line between friction and traction is probably pretty fuzzy (and it probably moves).

This wind tunnel concept no doubt could be implemented under a Theory of Constraints sort of framework. No doubt the Lean crowd would find that this idea resonates with them. And frankly that makes me hesitant about the whole thing.

At the same time, I do like the idea of setting up some well-defined streams of "wind" that we could point at a project, organization, etc, to assess its flight worthiness. A FIST-based wind tunnel could have real value in identifying opportunities to unleash the creative power of constraints and restraint.

Values

I haven't talked about the topic of values in a while, and after some lively discussions with B. Smitty, I figured I'd spend a little time on the topic again, because assumptions about values are at the heart of most of the problems in project leadership (and a lot of the disagreements too).

The values I have in mind are "the things we think are important." In engineering speak, values are measures of merit. They are the signs of sophistication and other desirable attributes (and the context I have in mind is organizations, technologies and processes). This stuff matters because our values shape our objectives, and at the end of the day, values are the yardstick we use to assess whether good things have happened or not.

In my FIST-related writings, I talk about values as the answer to the question "What is important and good?" and I often describe FIST as a values-based approach. It basically says "It is important and good to be Fast, Inexpensive, Simple and Tiny." There are other value sets out there, and mostly they go unstated, unexamined, unconsidered and untested. That's a HUGE problem.

See, if we value complexity (either explicitly or unconsciously), we'll make the system more complicated and think we've done something good - even if it's not actually any better. You see this a lot in PowerPoint presentations - people who think they are effective communicators because they included every word, every comma, every data point and every possible nuance of every diagram in their 800-chart presentation (for their 15 minute time slot). You also see this in over-engineered systems, chock-full of a million good ideas. I'm going to suggest these are examples of values out of whack. Overvaluing complexity drives unproductive behavior.

Similarly, if we think spending a lot of money guarantees quality, we'll feel reassured by a high price tag, even if a smaller price might have delivered better results, better quality. Same thing with time - if we value the slow-and-steady approach, the fact that it took 20 years to deliver a system gives us a warm feeling, even if such expenditures were unnecessary.

So, the questions are: what values drive your project? What values contribute to positive outcomes, and improved operational effectiveness? And to come full circle to the afore-mentioned discussion, when people praise the F-22 as "the most capable aircraft" in our inventory, what are they really praising? What values are driving that assessment? What basis is there for those values?

Frankly, this question doesn't come up often enough in program management circles, which is a bummer because I think it's at the core of the whole discipline.

The One Thing

If there was one thing I could accomplish professionally, one contribution to the corpus of program management practice and theory, it would be to dispell the Myth of Inevitability.

What is this myth, you ask? It's the idea that high tech system development projects (weapons, spacecraft, commercial products, etc) inevitably take a long time, cost a lot and are complex. The myth is expressed in phrases like "better, faster, cheaper - pick two." A corollary to this myth is the idea that adding time and money to the project improves the outcome, as if the problem with our failed system development efforts was that our schedule was too short and our budget too small.

No kidding -that's what they said when the 18 year, $7B (billion-with-a-b) Comanche helicopter was cancelled. They needed more money. They needed more time. Yeah, that would have helped. Right. A similar chorus rises from any number of failed high tech projects. My assessment is that they had too much time & money, not too little. And at the core, they believed that the costs and delays were inevitable, simply an inherent part of this kind of work. It's a tragic belief and a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's also not grounded in reality.

The truth is, there is nothing inherent in military technology (for example) that requires it to cost so much, take so long or be so complex. Yes, systems like the F-22 took a long time and cost a lot. But there's a difference between "it took a long time" and "it takes a long time." We could have done it better (both programmatically and operationally). If we set up our values correctly, if we cherish our constraints and pursue intelligent simplicity, we don't have to spend billions and decades. We can do it for millions and in years (or thousands in months). The F-117, the SR-71, NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission and the Pathfinder Mars mission are all examples of high-tech projects built on a FIST (Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny) foundation.

Despite the evidence of a significant portfolio of FISTy projects (documented in my master's degree thesis), the Myth of Inevitability insists that things like this have to be complicated and expensive. Believers in the myth see no alternative to bureaucracies, technologies and processes that are complex, expensive and slow.

Their failure to see through the myth reflects ignorance of the past and a lack of imagination. There are alternatives. Download a free copy of The FIST Handbook for more details on the principles, activities and examples of how to use constraints to foster creativity and deliver systems that are simultaneously faster, better and cheaper.

New Wars, New Friend

A hearty Rogue Welcome to blogger Mike Burlson, who writes the New Wars blog! His blog is, as Gabe would say, awesome. Be sure to check it out.

Burlson's vision for the future Navy lines up very closely with my own imaginings of a future AF. Specifically, he's saying we should move away from small fleets of big, expensive, complex systems, and towards larger fleets of systems that are, to coin a phrase, fast-inexpensive-simple-tiny. Here's a short excerpt:

We contend here at New Wars that modern computer technology added to guided missiles has doomed the heavily armored, over-priced weaponry of the Cold War/WW 2 eras. With this in mind we could safely cut such complicated arms as the manned fighter, the heavy tank, and large surface warships. Their replacements would be unmanned aerial vehicles, light armored cars, plus submarines and light patrol ships.

Amen, brother!

Capabilities

Let's say I can hold my breath for two minutes. That would be an impressive capability.

However, being able to hold my breath that long would not make me a more capable writer or engineer - the two main areas of professional expression I'm currently engaged in. I would not include "can hold breath for 2 minutes" in a resume looking for an engineering or writing job -it's just not relevant to those tasks.

So, when I hear people say that the F-22 Raptor is "the most capable aircraft ever," I have to object and ask what they mean by "most capable."

When I assess a system's capability, I'm looking at its ability to contribute to the fight. Since 2001, any system that doesn't provide capabilities we need in Iraq or Afghanistan is, by my definition, not very capable. And that's precisely the case with the Raptor. It first went operational in 2005, and it has yet to fly a combat mission in either war. It's not bringing anything (a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g) to the fight. In what sense is it, therefore, the "most capable" jet around?

To put it plainly, the F-22 does things we don't currently need to do. We may need to do them someday, although I think that's not as likely as some people do. But it is a demonstrable fact that we don't need these capabilities today... or any time soon. The SECDEF himself said the Raptor is "irrelevant" to the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. To my mind, that makes it one of the least capable aircraft in the inventory (and that's not even factoring in its maintenance issues, low availability rates, etc). Combine that with the $65B we've spent on the thing and you can see why we've decided to not buy any more of them.

So yeah, it can hold its breath for a long time, but that capability doesn't line up with the near- or mid-term needs. What we need are aircraft that are capable of accomplishing the mission. The Raptor clearly is not. I'm not saying we should scrap the whole fleet. I'm just saying we should stop trying to paint it as the "most capable" system we've got.

Catching Up With BRITE

One of the first projects I really had an impact on was a little imagery dissemination project for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency called BRITE (originally Broadcast-Request Imagery Technology Experiment... I think they changed the E to something else later). It was a small system designed to provide overhead imagery to forward deployed SpecOps guys who had very limited bandwidth and were highly mobile.

The BRITE project was one of the keys to developing my FIST approach to technology development. We had a very small team - in fact, I was the only government guy working on the project (and I was a junior Captain). On the contractor side, we just had a handful of people, and most of them were only assigned to the project part time, as I recall. The budget was quite small, the deployment schedule was short (this was 2001 - 2002). The system was designed to operate in austere conditions and it worked like magic.

That experience had an enormous impact on my thinking and my perspective on what can be done with small teams of talented people, working on tight budgets and tight schedules. It also hammered home the importance of simplicity - organizationally, technically and procedurally.

So, just for fun I googled it and came up with a great story about using BRITE to support the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief effort. It's nice to see that my little project still had legs after I'd moved on to other things.

Congress Redux

One other comment while we're talking about Congress.

Representatives and Senators are elected to represent and protect the interests of their constituencies. That's their job, and we should not complain and object when they do what they were elected to do. The problems in military acquisitions are not Congress' fault.

See, when we deliberately spread out development of a project across 44 states and several hundred congressional districts, we are making a cynical move that's designed to ensure the project can't be cancelled. We can't then turn around and object that those doggone people in Congress are forcing us to do something. If we built smaller, more focused projects, we'd get a lot less Congressional involvement.

Similarly, when we launch a hugely expensive project, it is entirely appropriate for Congress to insist on performing oversight. It's a lot of money, and they owe it to their constituencies to make sure it's spent appropriately. If we spent less money, we'd get less Congressional involvement.

The FIST approach is a good way to reduce intrusive oversight without denying legislators the right and ability to perform their legitimate, constitutionally appointed roles.

The Realm of the Possible

In a recent discussion about improving defense acquisitions, someone suggesting things would be better if we could get rid of Congress. Everyone laughed at this humerous suggestion, and one particularly literal-minded person said "Oh, that's too big of a change, it can't be done, let's move on..."

Well, hold on.

Maybe there's a way to "eliminate" Congress from the project without disbanding one third of our constitutionally-established government.

See, the problem isn't Congress' existence. The problem is that sometimes Congress provides, as Shrek so delightfully put it, "the opposite of help." So, what if we could minimize this anti-help?

It turns out, we can. The FIST (Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny) approach does exactly that.

A FISTy project has a small budget, which attracts less interest and oversight from our congressional leadership. A short schedule provides fewer chronological opportunitites for, let's call it involvement (instead of meddling). A small team and simple organization doesn't get spread across multiple congressional districts and states, and voila, that means fewer legislators with a dog in the fight.

These decreases are all appropriate and above-board. It's not a matter of shutting Congress out, but rather of keeping the project sufficiently small that it doesn't require their, ahem, help.

Presentation Skills Are Critical

The ability to stand up in front of a group of people and communicate effectively is a critical professional skill for program managers and other project leaders. It's particularly necessary for military engineers, defense contractors, and leaders in general. I can't say strongly enough how important this is as a matter of professional competence.

For better or worse, PowerPoint is the tool of choice for making presentations. When anyone gives a presentation with dense, complicated, unreadable, illegible and otherwise horrible-horrible-horrible presentation charts, they are demonstrating sheer professional incompetence.

In case you can't tell, I get kinda worked up about this.

For all the time we spend giving and receiving briefings, it's inconceivable to me that honing one's presentation technique is not treated as an important discipline and a core element of professional development. I've even seen professional educators, who brag about their ability to facilitate discussions and interact with audiences, use powerpoint charts that are frankly embarrassingly bad.

This stuff isn't hard. Sure, it's a little bit more work than doing it badly, but once you get the hang of it, it's not bad. Go check out Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen blog for some great examples of how to do it right.

Change

I like to say that FIST isn't a new way to do acquisitions. It's just how we do acquisitions when we do it well.

But frankly, I'm not convinced my current attempt to drive FISTy change into the system is going to succeed. I am very aware that the probability of success is low. Five or ten years from now, there's a pretty good chance the defense acquisition community is going to look very much like it does right now.

Having said that, the environment does seem more change-friendly than it ever has before. Our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are a big part of that, along with the new administration, changes in the economy and advances in technology - particularly UAV's. This combination of operational, political, economic and technical factors is sort of a perfect storm and gives me hope that significant, meaningful change is possible. If the FIST approach ever had a chance at widespread adoption, it's in the current climate.

Our troops overseas are increasingly emphasizing the importance of rapid access to systems that are simple and effective. They have less tolerance for the complexity and delays of previous years. The president ran on a platform of change, and military leaders from the SECDEF on down are reimagining the way we do business. The economy is forcing people to think really hard before spending money. And along come these UAV's, which offer relatively inexpensive and simple ways to accomplish missions that used to require much more time, money and effort.

So will FIST take off? I don't know. I certainly hope so. All I know is that I've got to try to make a difference, even if the odds are against me, 'cause these are the best odds I'm ever likely to see.

Not Easily Imitated

Ever since I wrote the nightmare fiction story Acquisition As Deterrent, I've been a little bit haunted by the thought that it might be true. In fact, when the idea first hit me, it came down on my head like a ton of bricks and sorta bummed me out.

What if the reason for all the complexity, cost and delay in military technology projects is to prevent the rest of the world from imitating us?

Well, that still might be the case, but if so, it's a bad reason. The thing is, the FIST approach is not easily imitated, because the US has such direct access to a wide range of mature, advanced technology, compliments of our various military laboratories, etc.

So, the hostile dude in some other part of the world who wants to use the FIST approach is starting off with a significant disadvantage, in terms of the pieces and parts available to use. Yeah, the barriers to accessing and adopting technology are lowering, but we've still got a significant advantage.

And then there's the whole personnel part, the training, talent, education, courage and creativity of the people who actually develop and use these systems. That's pretty hard to imitate.

FIST Video!

Yesterday's post was the short version of the FIST (Fast, Inexpensive, Simple, Tiny) approach to system development.

Today, I've got a short post with a link to a long video. Yes, this is the much anticipated Rogue-a-palooza aka Rogue Fest 2009 aka the briefing that Gabe and I did at the Defense Acquisition University back in July.

I confess I haven't actually watched the whole thing yet, but my mom and dad did and they said I did real good. They also said the video includes the Q&A at the end of the presentaiton - I wasn't sure if that part would be included, but it was. That's cool.

So, if you've got an hour or so to kill, and you want to see me and Gabe jump around like monkeys and tell stories about why FIST is so good, click the link.

The Cult of FIST

One of the main rebuttals to our FIST concept is that it is incapable of producing the kinds of capabilities seen in weapon systems like the F-22 or an aircraft carrier. The argument is that these kinds of capabilities can only be produced by programs that are methodical, deliberate, systematic and massive. We often hear that FIST programs are cute and may be fine to fill stop gaps, but aren't sufficient to do the heavy lifting of developing and fielding "real" weapon systems.

But that's our point exactly. Weapon systems with tons of capabilities and features are overrated, if not useless, in the current state of warfare. We postulate that what the warfighter's really want and need is something that is Good Enough. Turns out defense isn't the only industry where this is true. WIRED just published an amazing article which could easily be our manifesto for FIST, The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine. An excerpt:

Military aircraft are experiencing their own version of the MP3 effect.

Why, if manned planes are so superior, is the Predator saturating the combat market?
[Their] ability to maintain a constant presence in the air. That's because the drones are relatively cheap to build, can fly for more than 20 hours straight, and don't require pilots who need sleep, food, and bathroom breaks (and who might die if the plane is shot down).

Piloted aircraft are still valuable......but because the Predator can linger, it has enabled a new type of strategy—remotely guided surgical strikes with fewer troops and armaments. It's a lesson that surprised the Air Force and other services, Mathewson says, but one that has been learned definitively.

It's Not Inevitable

OK, let me summarize the whole FIST thing as concisely as possible. It really comes down to this:

"There is nothing inherent in military technology that requries it to cost so much, take so long, or be so complex."

There, I wrote it down for everybody on the Interwebs to see, and it feels good.

The more I read, the more I do, the more I hear people's stories, the more convinced I am that complexity is not inevitable. We do it to ourselves, technologically and organizationally and procedurally... but we dont' have to. Similarly, these huge cost overruns and schedule delays are not inevitable. Until we believe that - I mean REALLY believe it - we're going to keep getting the results we've been getting.

Incidentally, this applies to NASA's space projects as much as the DoD's systems... and no doubt to commercial & industrial projects as well.

Team Rogue in the Danger Room

For those who haven't heard yet, Wired magazine's Danger Room blog did a very nice post about Team Rogue and our FIST approach to acquisitions.

They even sort of made it sound like the SECDEF is an advocate of the FIST approach. OK, it didn't sort of sound like that... it totally sounded like that. What else does the phrase "high level advocate" mean?

Anyway, it's fun to see our ideas getting this kind of visibility.

FIST Handbook - Updated

Team Rogue and I put together an updated version of the FIST Handbook (pun intended - sorry!), which collects the best of our articles from Defense AT&L.

Unfortunately, the file format has some incompatabilities with Lulu, so the version you can download on RoguePress is out of date. The new version is 12Mb, and rather than try to email it, I stuck it on Rapid Share. You can download your own very version right here.

Enjoy!

SOCOM Truths

A former classmate of mine is about to deploy with the Spec Ops guys, and he just sent me an excerpt from a briefing about SOCOM acquisitions. It contained the following truths:

FAST Requires MORE DISCIPLINE
RISK Must Be Managed NOT AVOIDED
FASTER Does Not Have To Increase COST/RISK
COMPETITION Can Be Done QUICKLY
UNCONVENTIONAL THINKING Is An ENABLER
CREDIBILITY Enables FREEDOM OF ACTION

I've always said that SOCOM is one of the shining stars in the defense acquisition community. Their track record of delivering on time, on schedule, AND being operationally effective is quite impressive. Embracing FISTy truths like these probably has a lot to do with that.