Re: Rathergate investigation/report.
Quite a number of years ago, I was called upon to perform a post-implementation audit of a fairly major software development project. I spent about two weeks, interviewed many folks, took copious notes, and evaluated such things as end-user satisfaction, costs, personnel issues, schedule compliance, adequacy of the original specs, changes required during the project, etc. I submitted a draft report to the department director that I thought was balanced and fair.
The project manager managed to get access to the draft, and put pressure on the director. The end result was that the report as issued downplayed or eliminated nearly all the negatives and was therefore, from a standpoint of providing any "lessons learned" for future projects, to be essentially worthless.
I bring this up because it is so easy to visualize the enormous internal pressures on the "independent" 2-man investigating team. Just imagine the thousands of man-hours being spent in meetings and discussions in cBS halls and byways to try and get the final report sanitized so that it is not too damning of the organization and the responsible parties. |
