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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (10296)	2/4/2002 6:43:35 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

The guys who bid it for the company probably couldn't spell "software" correctly. That doesn't rule out software engineers <s> They estimated 3 software engineers for 1 1/2 years. Would you believe 40+ for 3 years and still counting? In other words, the closer you get the pile of horse manure gets larger. You might just have a world record for underestimating a software development. I've seen a number of jobs underestimated by a factor of 2 or 3, but you've got yourself a 20+ banger. Gov't: We can't afford to finish this contract. We can't get more money from Congress Translation: We've had to go before our management and their management and demonstrate that we, the project office, are grossly imcompetent in managing a program, specifying the requirements, estimating the cost, or even know what it is that we want. For some reason, unknown to us, we were able to give a plausible [remotely possible] case that we were competent. Do you know what will happen to us if we go back and ask for more money? I'd rather have all my teeth pulled out with a pair of pliers and no anesthesia. The solution so far agreed to: Instead of a pony [what the government wanted]. You've both found a very large pile of horse manure. With no pony in sight. You and the government have agreed that each of you will "eat" all that horse manure, pretending that when you're done, there will be a pony there. But you have every reason to suspect that there will be yet another pile of horse manure [Would you believe 40+ for 3 years and still counting?] that someone [unknown at this time] will have to eat. It also seems likely that the resultant pony, if there is one, will be a mutant, that no one will want. This is not good. Also, it is likely that your client organization has a metric for contractor performance wrt: overruns. This metric is typically distributed/briefed without explanation. So you are willingly establishing a metric that says you overrun your contract[s] by a factor of 20. You will not be afforded any opportunity to defend yourself. Your client organization may [or may not, at their option] distribute this metric to other government organizations. This is not good. The thought of never hearing from the customer again if the company reneged undoubtedly fed into that decision. I'm sure it did. But it's probably more the fear of it, then it is a reality. This is not a point of "principal"; in all likelihood, your company is exposing itself to a violation of the FAR. Which means? The situation you describes stinks of potential accounting irregularities. All work hours performed in support of this contract must be recorded [FAR requirement] and charged to the contract. How are the hours recorded that the government will not be billed for? The FAR also prohibits a contractor from performing work for the government at no cost. There are some sleezy things that happen in the government that find away around this regulation, but they are pretty rare. For example, Rome Air Development Center had a program going where a contractor would provide an employee for on site support for a period of one year for the cost of $1. [one stinking dollar]. The real benefit to the contractor was to get "tickets" and establish a marketing spy within the organization. Everyone knew that, including RADC. But RADC got a staff year of work for a buck. You have certainly more knowledge about what's going on then I do, but it does sound as if you and the government have agreed on a lose-lose strategy. In the end you'll both be pissed and regret that you ever chose this path. You [your company] should have developed a win-win strategy. Easy to say. But at some point you had the opportunity [and may still have] to approach the government and say: look, you didn't understand exactly what you wanted and were unable to clearly specify what you wanted. That's unfortunate, but it happens. Big deal. Consequently, we didn't understand what you wanted and bid incorrectly [grossly underestimated the effort]. You didn't know enough to spot our underestimation. And you were overly optimistic that we could do the job for the contracted amount. That's unfortunate, but it happens. After all that we've both gone through, it still isn't absolutely clear what the remaining level of effort is; we think we do, but the confidence level is not high. Good management also includes the skill of knowing when to cut your losses. This looks to be one of those times. We, the contractor, propose that the effort be de-scoped; a reduced effort, that focuses purely on figuring out what it is that you want and specifying the requirements clearly. If you, the government would like a follow on effort from us to complete the development, that's ok. If you, the government would like to pursue a competitive procurement and exlude us from the competition, that's ok too. But the point is to get the requirements well understood and well documented. From the contractor perspective, you salvage your reputation and limit any potential financial losses. In fact, you look pretty noble for reducing your revenue stream for the benefit of the government. From the government program manager's perspective, he/she can look like a conscientious, fiscally responsible manager that had the wisdom of turning stinky horse manure into well matured fertilizer. That's a win-win strategy. And the tax payer wins to boot. Perhaps it's too late for that approach, but it was there. jttmab