Sed: "...the reliance on outside vendors instead of developing
qualified in-house teams and talent"
Yes.
For all the various experiences cited in this thread, that is the most
critical lesson to learn. As I've said, the Saturn V was the biggest
most distributed most expensive technology project of the time.
400,000 people worked on it for eight years. It flew first time and
every time. Despite it's internal design flaws that had to be fixed
to minimize risks, it NEVER FAILED.
And that was a surprise. To everyone.
At the core was a team of civil servants who specified it, designed it
AND managed its fabrication and fielding. This team had been together
developing these systems for three decades: German Rocket Scientists.
The Von Braun Team.
Put your post-period revisionist revulsion of who they were and what
they had done in their careers away, forget the fanciful Right Stuff
movie, and accept that at the core of this very successful government
engineering project was a cohesive, well-practiced, well-educated and
very focused team of engineers.
They never said Failure Is Not An Option. Failure is always an
option. They said "We Are Not In The Business of Making Shoes" and
pasted signs in every office saying "Zero Defects. Waste Anything But
Time." No member of the team was so insignificant by background or
position that if they stood up in the meeting and said "We have a
problem" the problem wasn't worked. The Arthur Rudolph meetings were
legendary for how long they would work a problem (at one point a note
was found on the lawn in front of 4200 that read "HELP ME! I AM
TRAPPED IN AN ARTHUR RUDOLPH MEETING!"). If an on-orbit team was in
trouble, they rolled semi trailers up to the building with cots and no
one went home until the situation was remedied.
Forget the astronaut heroes. In the beginning they really were spam
in a can. Did they contribute to the safety of the system?
Initially, no. They were test pilots and being the macho cats they
tend to be, they accepted the risks. Until a crew burned on the pad.
Until their friends died because the Apollo capsule design teams in
California got sloppy. The two major failures of the program occurred
because of the contractor teams and both in the capsule systems.
But the Saturn V? Would it have failed? Yes. Statistically
speaking, had we kept flying Saturn Vs, over time someone would have
made a goof, something would have slipped by, a part would have made
it past the quality control people just as the oxygen tank on the
Apollo 13 manned flight system did. Yes. And spectacularly. But
historically, it never did. This is why having the astronauts as
part of the design team did matter: when you have to look into the
faces of people you might kill if you don't pay attention, you get
serious.
The German Rocket Scientists were not in the business of making shoes.
Web designers are. And that is why they failed. Because in their
minds, it didn't matter. Their team didn't matter. Their tools
mattered. Their jobs mattered. Their careers mattered. The feet
that have to wear their shoes didn't.
Forget heroics, losers and winners, elites and privilege. If you want
to succeed, Mr. President, Mr. CEO, Mr. Investor, look at the Team.
THAT is IT. Not Agile. Not MarkLogic. Not Java. Not XML. It is
the Team that makes the difference between a success that is barely
noticed because it worked, and having to apologize on TV every day for
months.
If you insist on being shoemakers, walk a mile in their shoes.
