Your Monthly Sustainment Risk Meeting

"IF the number of VHF radio field testers falls below 30, THEN sorties will start to become unavailable."


Your monthly sustainment risk meeting can be boring to managers and terrifying to the new team member. It is the most likely to not reap immediate tangible rewards. Thus, there is a great temptation each month to cancel or delay it.

Don't. 

It is the team's regular chance to get their emerging concerns in front of top management. However terrifying, it is everyone's chance to discuss what needs to happen next and in the future to mitigate or eliminate risks. It is the top managers' chance to direct and influence the day to day priorities of their teams. 

Even if the meeting turns out to be short because there is nothing to discuss, that tells the managers something too. And it is probably not that there is nothing to discuss.

Most importantly, it is a monthly re-indoctrination of the entire team to the warfighter's priorities.

At the meeting, the front seats need to be occupied by the decision-makers. This includes the heads of each department. 

Each department will take turns proposing new risks or changes and updates to old risks. The critical pieces of a well-written risk statement are:

a) A very short but descriptive title to make it easy to discuss such as, "VHF radio field tester shortage". The title needs to be unique so that it does not get confused with other risk statements. It must be in the form of an if-then statement. This can be confusing or even overlooked until the meeting. Press to create the if-then statement. If it is missing, your team probably does not fully understand the risk. Try to include a single word that describes the impact to the warfighter such as "available".

b) A numbered summary of mitigation steps such as 1) Repeat 2015 survey of testers. 2) Increase tester production at the repair depot. 3) Replace all testers by 2020. 

c) A matrix describing the consequences, likelihood, and timing of the impacts. Remember, if the impacts are already occurring, it is not a risk to be planned for. It is a current problem to be addressed immediately. 

Hold the meeting. Keep the sustainment process working.

The Sustainment Risk Process and the Sustainment Risk Meeting

Continuing my blog posts based on my words at my presentation at SciTech 2016, this is chart 10, "The Sustainment Risk Process".

A good risk management process will efficiently transform your assessment observations into short, mid, and long range plans for dealing with expected degradations to the warfighter's mission. If an effective process is not in place, the sustainment organization simply waits for potential issues to become reality, declare a crisis, and panic. A far better approach is to create and on-going assessment program that feeds your sustainment risk process.

A key element of the sustainment risk process is that every risk is associated with actual sustainment. This is not the place to deal with business risks or program risks. There should be forums for those. This is not that forum. If you try, they will dilute the focus on the warfighter's mission. 

Each sustainment risk must be associated with a key readiness factor for the warfighter. What does the risk, as stated, put "at risk"? Is it the availability of the weapon system for when the warfighter needs it? Is it the reliability of the weapon system for when the warfighter employs it? Is it the survivability in a hostile environment? Is it accuracy, persistence, range? Whatever it is, tag the risk with it, so that the discussions at the monthly risk meetings will be fruitful. (A future post will expand on what is discussed at a monthly risk meetings.)

What if you can't find a "readiness factor" to tag? This means you either do not have a risk appropriate to a sustainment risk board, or you have not completely understood and defined the warfighter's mission and weapon system. Either topic is appropriate to the risk meeting and should get discussed. If it can be settled at the meeting, do so. If not, assign an action item or set it as an agenda item for a follow on meeting. 

It cannot be over-emphasized how important frequent, dedicated meetings are to the risk process. It keeps the entire sustainment management machine working in top order. It indoctrinates the team to continue to be sensitive to the warfighter's mission -- the whole reason the team exists.

One final point must be made about the risk process and the risk meeting. It is in management's best interest to see statements of risk as soon as possible. Any criticism to a presenter or their organization that they have "brought a problem without bringing a solution" is counter to this need. Do not criticize the lack of a risk mitigation plan during a risk management meeting. A valid criticism of an older risk that still has no associated risk mitigation plan is a good topic for a management staff meeting of the top boss and the boss' "direct reports" or staff.  

Closed Loop Failure Analysis (CLFA)

Closed Loop Failure Analysis (CLFA) is MIL-HDBK-2155 FRACAS employed at a repair depot. It seeks to "close the loop" between the failure noted and the repair made. In its most basic form, it does this by asking the question in the top left of the graphic above. 

An affordable repair depot works to increase throughput while keeping costs down. Diagnosis is performed to the extent needed to ensure a repair. Large depots can contain many shops that perform their work somewhat independently of each other. A subsystem might be delivered to the depot and have a component removed and replaced and the subsystem is tested and sent out again. Meanwhile, the component may have a part removed and replaced and then the component is tested and placed on a shelf as a good spare. 

This remove and replace strategy is a good one for speed, throughput, and affordable repair. It has the potential to allow failed parts or components to remain in service and for emerging failure modes (those not thought of during design) to remain undetected. 

Good and great sustainment organizations will enter into agreements with their depots to ensure repairs are traced back to failures and sufficient diagnostics are performed to ensure emerging failure modes are found. Even if the program starts with 100% screening, it can quickly eliminate from scrutiny those failure modes and repairs that are well known or become well known after CLFA has functioned for a few years. 

A mature CLFA program will not limit its investigations to only weapon system operational failures. Subsystems and components can and do fail in the depot and elsewhere, revealing important weapon system assessment data. A mature CLFA program will also take the findings of its failure review board and use them to improve its own depot processes and equipment. 

CLFA demands good processes and a good information management system to handle the large amounts of data generated and analyzed. 

Affordable Assessment

This post continues the description of my presentation at the SciTech Conference in San Diego on 5 January 2016.

One point I made when this chart went up was that every sustainment organization must be able to observe the weapon system to be able to tell if the organization is maintaining the capabilities baseline. That is, is the sustainment team keeping the warfighter happy? Is the weapon system reliable? Available? Effective in its mission?

To be able to continuously monitor the entire weapon system could quickly become unaffordable. But there are a few tricks to keep costs down.

Number 1, use the data that is automatically created every day. An obvious piece of data most sustainment organizations look at is sortie rates, for instance. Are you finding all useful data? 

Number 2, your repair depot (or more likely depots) is incentivized to fix your weapon system quickly and affordably. But you need them to also tell you how it is doing. Do not hesitate to enter into a contract with them to get data for money. There will be much more coming on this topic under the title: "Closed Loop Failure Analysis".

Number 3, now that you've found and used all the less expensive data, it is time to set up programs to get the rest. What are your weapon system's failure modes? How will it wear out? Are there parts that will age out? Some of this information comes from design data, other comes from use, maintenance, and repair data -- if you are paying attention. A surveillance program can be built around this data in order to track degradation and predict future issues.

Number 3+, there will always be the need for special tests. These will deal with gaps in your knowledge that start to become apparent as all the other data is analyzed. Many sustainment organizations divide their weapon systems into parts to ensure full and thorough coverage. For instance, one sub-organization may cover the power plan while another sustains all the software. How this is divided is important to ensure nothing "falls between the cracks" of organizational responsibilities. More on that later under the title: "Integrated Product Teams".

Without a thorough assessment program, the organization is blind. If it is not affordable, required cutbacks will reduce your organization's vision. 

Affordable, Effective Tech

As promised in earlier posts, I continue to expand on the charts posted from my presentation on 5 January at the SciTech Conference in San Diego.

Managing your tech tools is one of 3 critical processes to ensure a smooth running sustainment organization. The other two are people and the process that manage your processes. 

Information management using technical tools too often results in a few massive projects to solve all problems at once with the ONE, FINAL, data system that DOES EVERYTHING. Managers and other leaders quickly see how a proliferation of small spreadsheets creates an inefficient organization and a pool of contradictory information as the spreadsheets are maintained independently.

But the solution is not one massive project to create "one ring to rule them all". This usually leads to wasted resources. 

Creating all requirements up front works pretty good when building bridges. With real property, it has. over the years, become very straightforward to come up with the right list of requirements with lead time to build a bridge that will serve for decades with minor maintenance.

Coming up with requirement for software projects this way is extremely difficult.  Software projects that try to create tools for organizations are especially doomed because the organization cannot possibly know its requirements early and they change often.

Information systems are built to improve the ability of the organization to function. If successful, the organizational data requirements change because the organization and its processes change in response to the new tools. And then, these changing organization data requirements require changes to the information systems again. 

It is a never-ending cycle that begs for control from a dedicated team of users and a savvy manager.

It is best to start our small and build. Many very successful data systems start as Excel Spreadsheets used by a single person or small team. Then the manager or supervisor works with the team to slowly expand and build the tools in synch with changing processes within the team and organization. 

Success requires an insightful leader and a focus on the team and organizational processes. This will reveal over time what the information system should look like. 

By keeping the development and maintenance of the information system in-house, response times decrease and costs can be lower. 

People

As promised in the previous blog, the next few blogs will expand on the charts from my presentation at SciTech 2016 on 5 January in San Diego. 

Although this chart appears towards the end of the presentation, this is a good chart to start with since it seemed to invoke the most response, and the most positive response, from the audience. 

People are motivated by meaningful work. And it is important that the leadership continuously reminds them that their work and their contribution to that work is important. Laying down a culture of supporting the warfighter may start with managers and leaders, but will spread to the point that team members will remind each other of the importance of their work. 

Personal frictions will happen. Tempers will flare. But when these conflicts happen in support of the mission people always find a way to pull together in the end. 

Here is an area I did not have the time to delve into, a corollary statement: people want to feel competent in their work. How can you feel you are making an important contribution to an important goal, if you do not feel you know what you are doing?

In fact, large numbers of people in weapon system sustainment do not feel competent, they feel very uncomfortable. I am referring to those who have just gotten a new position and are still learning their jobs. 

In addition, others who are very, very competent, from great training and years of experience, can still have days were they feel completely overwhelmed. They can wonder if they have been "faking it" all this time.

So, really, anyone can be teetering on the edge of a bad day. If that is the day you choose to point out all of their faults, the result will not be a better team member, the result will be one less engaged person on your team. 

Personal critique, however, is necessary in order to meet the organization's goal of sustaining the weapon system. The trick is to provide it in a positive and helping manner.

Formal classroom training and personal one-on-one coaching are great ways to help your folks feel more competent and engaged. If you are a supervisor or boss, take the time to coach folks in areas that you are more competent in. DON'T JUDGE them personally just because you know the area very well. And don't just offer your assistance. Provide your expertise in the form of one-on-one training, and then follow up to see if they have learned what you have taught. 

If you are not a supervisor or manager and you provide your team members with one-on-one time then you are a leader and will soon be a manager if you wish to be. 

Fundamentals of Weapon System Sustainment

My presentation on weapon system sustainment at the AIAA SciTech 2016 in San Diego went very well. 

Below are the charts. Your browser should let you view them easily by clicking on one and then using arrow keys to see the rest. 

It was a gratifying experience. 

Just as I was about to start, the room filled. Attention was high. Questions afterwards were insightful.  Discussion continued afterwards. 

Much passion was focused on the slide about motivating people. 

It is difficult to understand what was said by simply reading the slides. 

So I will fill in the numerous gaps on subsequent posts.