My Dad used to be in the office equipment business. By the late 1990s, he spent most of his time as a consultant to dealerships. When large network-enabled laser printers started replacing office photocopiers around that time, the salespeople found themselves dealing with the IT staff, whose job it was to make these new toys work with the business’s existing computer infrastructure. So what did he teach the dealer sales forces to do? As much as possible, bypass the IT staff and talk directly to the boss. While the rationale was dressed up in euphemisms, what it came down to was the boss, who usually didn’t understand (or like) IT, was easier to spin a line to. It caused a lot of grief for the technicians who had to actually make these solutions work, but it sold a hell of a lot of very expensive laser printers.
Boeing’s Super Hornet fighter plane product line is even more expensive and poorly understood by non-experts than laser printers, but according to this long article, the sales tactics were essentially the same. Andrew Peacock, in his role as Boeing Australia chairman, smoothed the way for the Boeing sales team to talk directly to defence Minister Brendan Nelson. According to the article, the Boeing sales team convinced Nelson, against the long-standing advice from the RAAF that no such interim fighter was necessary, that the Super Hornet was the ideal aircraft to fill the “capability gap” if the JSF was delayed.
How?
“They targeted Nelson and probably fairly quickly read into his personality, appealing to his vanity and desire to be seen as someone who is in charge. A decision maker,” says a well-placed Government source.
The decision was then rushed through cabinet without following the usual defence procurement procedure, possibly with the aid of a slide show to cabinet directly put together by Boeing. The lack of process was to the astonishment of various well-placed defence sources and, possibly, Ken Henry, who apparently noted in a speech recently (though not specifically in respect of the Super Hornet purchase) “Just keep in mind how exposed you might be if and when the whole thing turns pear-shaped and the world learns that you have flouted the post-Kinnaird procurement guidelines,”.
The thing that makes this particularly farcical is that if a capability gap exists, its origins allegedly lie in Howard’s decision to commit to the Joint Strike Fighter back in 2002, after being sweet-talked by the salespeople at Lockheed Martin while on a visit to the United States, bypassing – you guessed it – the defence bureauracy’s evaluation process.
I reckon Brendan Nelson and John Howard probably have the biggest and shiniest laser printers you’ve ever seen in their offices, too.
Frightening given the staggering amounts of dough invoved.
Nelson reminds me of John Dawkins. Doesn’t care if he gets it right – just wants to make a splash.
I sense an election theme building. The government is becoming careless with tax payer’s money because its been in power too long.
Its a shame parliament is not sitting. Imagine Rudd and Co going hard on this in question time for a week or two. There lots of avenues they could pursue. The government wouldn’t know which angle Labor would pick next.
Spot on Robert. It’s being increasingly realised in business, that both from first principles and painful empirical experience, that purchasing decisions by the “business/pollies/bosses” are a recipe for getting inadequate capability, cost blowouts, delays, or commonly all three.
It’s worth noting that the “standard” architecture reference models (including the Australian Government Architecture reference models are fairly explicit that the business types should have NOTHING to do with purchasing/technology decisions. It doesn’t matter what is being purchased from vendors, pencils, jets, or IT kit.
In the jet controversy, politicians and senior strategists should merely say what capabilities they need, military procurement experts prepare a portfolio of kit, timelines and costings and get it signed off. Pollies should have NO say in what options the procurement experts put on the table, merely demand a couple of choices.
In both the US Federal Enterprise Architecture, and the Australian Government Architecture, the “Business Reference Model” (what the business or agency actually does for clients) is one or two insulating layers away from the “Technical Reference Model” which determines what a purchased item must support. In between is the “service component reference model” which the business/agency uses to get its job done, and is supported by the technology.
For example, a service component might be a logistics system or an accounting system. The business type should only worry if this is efficient enough to support their work – who cares if it is only paper and pencil? The technologist’s job is to supply tools that are effective – both for the job and the budget.
In other words, the business/minister/boss should only determine functional requirements, relating them to the work they do. The techies get the stuff, and get their backsides booted if their toys don’t meet requirements defined in the “Performance Reference Model”
The “pretty picture” for the Australian Government Architecture is here, and the US model is here, although I think the US DoD picture on p12 of this is better.
It’s worth noting that whereas the US pollies and senior public servants were able to provide a list of the things they did for citizens in the “Business Reference Model” but their Australian counterparts weren’t, as discussed by Club Troppo in Broadband can wait after an article by myself originally aspublished AGA proves government doesn’t know what it does. This is scandalous. If the pollies don’t know what they think they do, how can they justify any expenditure as they can’t link it to a particular set of benefits?
And Howard wants the biggest glowingest hottest nuclear reactor in your suburb by the same process for all of the same reasons. What a dunce.
You mean this is the plane that goes “Ping”.
Bill: as I’ve noted before, the Australian government isn’t going to be building nuclear power stations itself.
If it were, and if it were to buy them using the same process by which they’ve bought the Super Hornets, count me first in line to oppose them.
Ken: actually, we should have considered leasing the damn things like the machine that goes “ping!”; at least that way we wouldn’t be left with useless obsolete fighter planes in 2018 or so.
What a disgusting story. Nelson is worse than deadwood, he’s dieback.