You've Got Some 'splainin' To Do!

pintrest

The overwhelming majority of sustainers with some level of expertise have a boss that they must go explain things to from time to time.

If you approach this task the wrong way, it becomes very unpleasant very fast.

The natural human tendency is to take offense when questioned and take umbrage when the questions increase. This does not serve you or your boss.

Just know, any good decision-maker will flood you with questions.

Why?

We observe the system we sustain so that we can have enough knowledge to predict, lead time away, what fixes we might need to start working on now. Typically, there is never certainty. We see indications. We see see symptoms. What is really happening behind all of it is seldom straightforward.

Is it a well-understood material degradation that can be predicted to continue as time goes on? If so, will it remain at this rate or speed up or slow down? Are we completely missing the root cause of the symptom? Are there experiments we can perform to increase certainty? How long will that take?

We never have all the facts needed for the decision-maker to confidently choose. In addition, in the vast majority of cases, your decision-maker must explain their choices to their bosses, so they are even more focused on finding those gaps that their boss might hit them with. 

Here are a few simple things to keep in mind when explaining to make it, if not pleasant, at least less unpleasant. Who knows? Perhaps, even fun.

1) Anticipate what most people might ask you. In fact, anticipate long enough ahead that you can root out the answers or have a plan for an experiment that will root out the answers. If possible, run that experiment ahead of time.

2) You are getting paid to collect your wits and share them. So do so in the best way you can. Show up prepared with notes. Have props or graphs if they will help.

3) Don't just start talking. Your boss has a million things going. Remind everyone what you are there to talk about. Set the stage by providing context.

4) Know what you need to say and establish a practical flow to say it. But don't be a slave to your planned speech. First and foremost listen to the flood of questions. Find a way to respond to them while getting your point across. (When up against a really tough explaining task, I always enlist others to stand by with additional expertise and I assign a note-taker.) 

5) If using charts, always have one chart that you can speak to in order to make your critical points. It might be the only chart you have a chance to show! 

6) If given actions to go do, summarize them at the end to make sure you got them right. Ask for help if needed. Be specific. Be reasonable.

Do all this well, and you will someday be the boss. 

And you will find yourself still in the same role explaining things to your boss. 

Introduction to Chapter 5: Assess Effectiveness

(An excerpt from the upcoming book: Fundamentals of Complex System Sustainment)

It’s amazing what you can see by looking.

  

In order to be prepared for your risk meeting, as discussed in the previous chapter, some amount of system observation must have occurred. In other words, the “O” of O-I-F.

Experts know that observation carries with it the potential to misunderstand or misinterpret. Preconceived notions of what the shadows on Plato’s cave wall[1] should mean could get in the way of understanding the truth behind the estimates. That is, after all readiness metrics are estimated for all parts of the weapon system, the system is still likely not fully understood.

For example, when a guidance engineer takes all the data from a test flight, one of the first steps is to make the best guess as to the actual trajectory. Even the most accurate global positioning data has enough error in time and position to affect any subsequent analysis. If the analyst doesn’t even know for sure where the missile was, how can any kind of accurate assessment of the missile accuracy be made? How can potential creeping accuracy degradations be found? This is accomplished by understanding potential observation errors and characterizing them to provide estimates of confidence in the observations. Small errors in observation can be tolerated. Larger errors call for more efforts.

This risk that the system remains incompletely understood is also mitigated by double-checking between different kinds of observations. This is a kind of “active observing”. If a set of factory battery tests predict 50% reliability for 10-year-old batteries, yet 9 missiles have flown with 10-year-old batteries with no failures, perhaps the factory tests need some improvements.

What should be obvious in all this is that good observations depend heavily upon excellent configuration tracking. How can you really know what your system is doing if you might have some errant component, perhaps an early production lot of gyroscopes, that consistently creates problems? Yet you don’t recognize the problem is limited to only those few gyros.

Yet another complexity must be laid upon the system sustainment function of “observing”. Your risk meeting participants will rightfully wonder if your observation has spotted a trend. Does the risk describe an emerging failure mode that will exponentially degrade the system over the next few years? Although widely regarded as impossible, the future must be predicted with some certainty.

Unchecked, all this becomes ridiculously expensive.

It was mentioned how serious a business it is to extract sustainment funding from decision-makers. This is appropriate, of course, as these top executives must be good guardians, typically of someone else’s wealth. So assessment must be efficacious, but it also must avoid using too much scarce funding.

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[1] See Plato’s Theory of Forms

Risk Integrator

(Another excerpt from the upcoming book)

This specialized process (sustainment risk management) needs a midwife to help give birth to healthy risk statements.

As an aid to holding risk meetings, forms will be needed that help the risk identifier to not forget key information. As in many walks of life, it is helpful to split the work between two experts. One expert knows as much as possible about the risk being identified and the other knows, and has significant experience, in communicating that risk to the team and its managers. The latter is the “risk integrator”.

Typically, “risk integrator” can be an additional duty for a member of the team. That person need not be a senior engineer with vast experience of the system, as long as they have the ability to draw that knowledge out of the expert and understand it.[1]

A few techniques will help the risk integrator and the team.

• ·      Keep a list of concerns that are not quite risks yet. The team becomes more open in sharing concerns if they know they don’t have to immediately declare them risks, and the risk integrator has a to-do list to help keep track
• ·      Keep personal (not-to-be-shared[2]) metrics on how well your team identifies risks, how quickly they come up with mitigation plans after identifying risks, and how often concerns become risks.
• ·      Review the entire list often, not just during the organization’s annual or semi-annual review, ask questions, go to technical discussions and take note of concerns that might become risks.

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[1] This is an ideal additional duty for an up and coming younger member who needs exposure to the managers who will make the decision to promote them someday.

[2] If you have a great relationship with your boss, this kind of information can be shared and discussed with the understanding that it is not widely shared.

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.