Recently in Project/Process Management Category

Microhoo, Forward to the Future

Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer Ray Ozzie talked at a Las Vegas technology conference recently about the company's plans to build a "seamless mesh" computing infrastructure, inclusive of online applications and mobile devices. Microsoft is of course looking to extend its reach and in keeping with this goal aggressively proposes to merge with Yahoo. In public relations efforts focused on its Yahoo offer the company spins out comforting nuggets of merger wisdom. Ozzie told the Financial Times Monday: "'Technology companies, if they dive in and just smash things together for smashing them together's sake, it's reckless, it's just simply reckless.'" ("Microsoft in No Rush to Merge Yahoo Technology.") The message for investors, employers and customers is that Microsoft understands the risks of large mergers.

Meanwhile, as Mr. Ozzie spews sage adages about the heedless smashing together of things, Microsoft contends with product fallout from its latest operating system. In "They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know", the New York Times describes Vista's incompatibility problems and quotes three top executives who make disparaging on-the-record remarks. Granted they don't sling zingers worthy of Democratic presidential campaign staff, but one Microsoft executive who bought a "Vista Capable" PC, then thrashed through reckoning with its limited functionality told the Times: "I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."

According to the story, many users refuse to upgrade and instead run XP because of Vista's reputation for various issues like: "[t]he graphics chip that couldn't handle Vista's whizzy special effects. The long delays as it loaded. The applications that ran at slower speeds. The printers, scanners and other hardware peripherals, which work dandily with XP, that lacked the necessary software, the drivers, to work well with Vista." All these problems after multiple launch delays. Is Vista a "smashed together" product?

Trash From The Past

If Vista had been launched at another time in history, like after any one of its proceeding operating systems -- MS-DOS, Windows 1.0, 2.0, 286, 386, 3.0, or Windows for Workgroups 3.1 or 3.11, for instance, these users might be duly appreciative. Today's new operating systems are comparatively customer friendly. Mind you today's customers have every right to complain heartily -- but lets get some perspective from the systems of yore.

Once operating systems didn't come bundled on PCs and setting them up took hours. This was often a collaborative group effort, as individuals all over the world, through trials and tribulation, would acquire tricks for easing the process then share their expertise on websites or via newgroups. Here's how one set of instructions for installing Windows for Workgroups 3.11, circa 1995, touted the new operating system from the Redmond company: "WFWG 3.11 is a real product with a real manual and Microsoft support. If there is a problem installing it, then there are many other sources of information available for troubleshooting the problem." Hard to overemphasize the importance of other sources back then.

If you weren't blessed with a CD-Rom, you'd do the installation by floppy, and so for Windows for Workgroups you'd get your pile of installation floppy discs and settle down at your computer for some fun. Four steps in, the guide offered some advice on the part, "add network protocol"

"With a bit of luck, the TCP/IP-32 protocol will be in the list. If not, then it is an "Unlisted or Updated Protocol" which is the first choice. Unfortunately, even if the TCP/IP protocol is listed, WFWG generally doesn't really know where to find it. It may invent a plausible but incorrect directory...No matter what choice is made, be prepared to fill in a dialog box with the letter and directory where the Microsoft TCP/IP distribution directory is found. Once the files are located, WFWG will copy them into the WFWG system and will add the protocol to the list in the Network Drivers and Network Setup panels. Back out by clicking the various OK buttons."

That's how it went, not mind-boggling, but tedious. If the installation was successful it was a great moment, but you'd keep that pile of floppies close at hand because who knew? If soon after you tried to install some software in an order that the operating system found offensive or if the computer for no apparent reason ceased to function in a predictable way, often your only recourse was to "reinstall". Vista is a system with today's problems, as all Microsoft operating systems have had age appropriate glitches for perpetual cutting edge user demanded technologies.

Crash To the Past

Vista problems were accompanied by a less than straight-forward marketing scheme with confusing (some say deceptive) advertising. In order to market Vista to lower end computers, the NYT says, Microsoft changed the label on new PC's. from the definitive "Vista Ready", which it wasn't, to the more wishy-washy "Vista Capable", a dubious distinction that many customers assumed meant "able", but actually meant "unable", and "incapable" of running any version of Vista except the scaled down one called "Home Basic", missing many of Vista's advertised features. There's the catch.

The judge in the lawsuit against Microsoft granted the case class-action status, so the plaintiffs who bought a PC labeled "Windows Vista Capable" could seek compensation for the company's deceptive marketing aimed at increasing demand. Microsoft appealed the class-action status, saying since customers had "different information" they weren't all in the same class, and because, "[c]ontinued proceedings here would cost Microsoft a substantial sum of money for discovery and divert key personnel from full-time tasks." But doesn't Microsoft systematically buck for court proceedings in lieu of nicer, profit-curtailing behavior? What better use of key personnel then?

They DOS Protest Too Much

Sure, some key personnel -- top executives -- spend time complaining to the New York Times about Vista. The paper quoted Microsoft VP Mike Nash saying "I personally got burned", which is interesting because VP's usually don't get "burned" on operating systems they (buy?) at steep employee discounts, especially when they have a stake in the company's rising stock. But still, when your executives go on the record with such admissions it can't be good -- or can it? Since key personnel are unlikely to join the class action suit, maybe their playing the we're all in it together card?

Some key personnel also make soothing sounds about the future and Microhoo, and some more stay busy shaking off the past and a chaffed EU, which seethes over MS refusals to share code and play nice. Last month the EU fined Microsoft 1.3 billion Euros for interoperability issues. The company has 3 months to pay off the fine which increases daily as the value of the dollar sinks.

Some complained that the fine was staggering, but to keep this in perspective -- Microsoft is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. No company likes piles of cash to whither away but this relatively small fine is also an important piece of the business model, balanced by profits rendered from the same strategies that peeved the EU. Yes, Microsoft has promised to be less secretive and more open in the future but it will no doubt will appeal the decision.

The company may express yearning to be free on the internet and in mobile devices, but its bread and butter is embedded in its desktop products -- its software, its browser and its operating system -- mainframe as that may seem. Steve Balmer commented that the fines were for past issues now behind the company. But the company's profit is in proprietary systems and maintaining market share by shutting down competition. So what to expect? Naturally, Microsoft will continue to conduct business "competitively", as usual.It will build impressive backwards compatible software and strategize about how to squeeze profit out of some of Yahoo's services. To do this still more "key personnel" will be the large teams of razor-teethed lawyers, ready, no doubt, for many court bouts. Brussel's just initiated two new antitrust investigations against the Microsoft.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had a disaster on it's hands in 2005, with all the reporters asking Michael Brown sweat-inducing quesions that he could not answer during Hurricane Katrina. Despite purchasing a new Nordstrom shirt for the occasion and rolling up his sleeves to simulate working, Michael Brown and FEMA became the butt of criticism and lampoon for their blundering mendacity.

During the hurricane clean-up, FEMA tried to prevent the news media from reporting on the New Orleans body recovery, but this tactic was prevented by a lawsuit brought by CNN. Therefore, when disastrous fires struck California this year, FEMA had prepared, figuring out another way around the pesky reporters.

The agency called a news conference about the California fires on Tuesday 15 minutes before the event, and also gave out an 800 number so that reporters could call in (but not ask questions). Then, reportedly because not enough reporters showed up, FEMA staff asked the questions and FEMA staff answered the questions. These questions were supposedly not premeditated: "What type of commodities are you pledging to California?" Detail questions like -- "What's the difference between an "emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration?" could have been plucked from the a FEMA bureaucrats entry examination.

The fake FEMA questioners asked: "Are you happy with FEMA's response, so far?" FEMA's answer? "I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far. This is a FEMA and a federal government that's leaning forward, not waiting to react."

FEMA, having learned from from the Hurricane Katrina debacle that news conferences demand intense disaster preparedness, are so "forward leaning" that they'd prefer not to even have reporters at their news conferences.

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Acronym Required previously wrote about FEMA here, and during and after Hurricane Katrina, here and here and here, and here.

Voting Machines Hackable

Electronic voting machines are famous for their susceptibility to hacking, as shown by several groups, including Ed Felten and his team at Princeton, who write the Freedom to Tinker blog. The group has repeatedly shown various problems with electronic voting machines. Last fall they published a widely read paper on multiple problems with the Diebold Accuvote-TS, which they also demonstrated in this short video posted at Google.

Last week, following more research on voting machine fallibilities, California's Secretary of State Bowen decertified several voting machines in use in the state and imposed new conditions on the machines based on the findings.

There has been some mixed press about Bowen's move. Most of the press seems positive, however a few reporters focused on the "high costs" of implementing the system. Of course "cost" arguments always cause public hesitation but in the end catch up with us.

Bridges Fallible

"Bridge Disaster Could Mean Gas - Tax Hike", the New York Times warns today, noting that the catastrophe "could tip the scales in favor of billions of dollars in higher gasoline taxes for repairs coast to coast". It probably sent shivers down the backs of politicians and citizens alike, from coast to coast.

Of course, inspectors had warned about the structural integrity of the Minnesota bridge for years. But fortunately the warnings were quieted by an outside bridge review in 2001, under Mr. Elwyn Tinklenberg, former Governor Jesse Ventura's transportation commissioner. Current Governor Tim Pawlenty and the transportation commissioner Helen Molnau, (known as "Ma"), say they "relied on experts" to certify the bridge. They have steadfastly resisted tax increases that would have paid for road improvement.

As levees sink and pipes burst, U.S. infrastructure grades fall to C's and D's. Environmental waste clean up "costs", as does implementation of carbon regulation or taking the bus. Education costs are exorbitant too.

And Democracy's Costs So Malleable

But interestingly driving an SUV -- this site we previously linked to guesstimates that about 30% of the cars in NYC are SUVs -- doesn't "cost" too much even though gas is $3.00-4.00 per gallon. Almost any city budget can accommodate a new baseball stadium, lobbying groups spare no cost in attaining 30 second spots promoting their measures, and politicians spare no cost at getting elected.

But it seems like venturing down a dark path to suggest that a certifiably honest and accurate voting system costs too much. Doesn't this cheapen our vote, or even suggest perhaps, with twisted logic, that our votes can be bought?

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Acronym Required posts regularly on government spending dilemmas, especially with regard to the federal role in oversight (for instance with health issues), and less frequently public infrastructure.

We recently noticed the new Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) site for kids. We don't know when the kids site launched, but how could anyone consider preparing for or managing a disaster without "Herman, the spokescrab"?

The bright yellow site, I would say, is geared towards kids 2-25. Activities range from downloadable songs and coloring pages, to a "Hidden Treasures Activity", on the kids ready.gov site. There's Julia and Robbie: The Disaster Twins stories, and if you're ambitious, a "FEMA Careers for Kids Site".

The Kids Activity Survival Kit provides a list of items to pack in a disaster such as crayons, a "keep safe" box with "items that make you feel special", a puzzle, books, pictures of "the family and pet". and action figures:

"small people figures and play vehicles that you can use to play out what is happening during your disaster -- such as ambulance, fire truck, helicopter, dump truck, police car, small boats."

Maybe you can make life preservers for them and float them down the river. No, hopefully your action reenactment will play out what is actually happening during "your disaster". Action figures can be handy in a disaster.

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Acronym Required previously wrote about FEMA after Hurricane Katrina, here and here and here, and last February, here.

The Wall Street Journal published a front page story today about Justen Deal, who last year confronted Kaiser Permanente management about a 4 billion dollar IT project he thought had gone awry, and a projected 7 billion dollar budget deficit at Kaiser. In "How an E-mail Jolted a Big HMO", (temporary link) the Wall Street Journal noted, "flicking away whistle-blowers isn't as easy as it once was".

Acronym Required wrote an account of the story, "Healthcare IT: The Perfect Storm", last November. Why this story bubbled up on the front page of WSJ now, (albeit in their middle, soft news, people focused column ), when there's not exactly a dearth of seemingly critical world news, we don't know. Local papers have pretty much spurned the story. The IT aspects have been mentioned sporadically in healthcare blogs, the IT media, and the LA Times. This is an interesting business case not only in terms of dealing with internal IT implementation strategy and PR, but also for corporate human resource teams, who in this case, perhaps anachronistically, underestimated his kamikaze-like persistence.

DHS Management Woes

A survey of federal employees in 36 federal agencies recently found that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a massive department with over a hundred thousand employees, was at the bottom of the rankings:

• 36th on job satisfaction.
• 35th on leadership and knowledge management.
• 36th on results-oriented performance culture.
• 33rd on talent management.

Just last week news outlets reported that various concerned parties criticized the agency on its borders program, its treatment of asylum seekers, and its management of contracts.

The agency's troubles aren't new. In 2003, the General Accountability Office (GAO) put DHS on its "high-risk" list as the agency faced significant management challenges in its mission to combine 22 existing agencies into one. The designation indicates potential for failure with catastrophic consequences. In 2005, the GAO kept the DHS in the "high-risk" category, because the agency had not made significant progress in several key areas such as financial accounting, information technology, and meeting goals previously highlighted by the GAO. This year the GAO put DHS on its "high-risk" list yet again because the agency failed to make the requisite progress.

In his address to the House Homeland Security committee last week, David Walker noted: "The current financial condition in the United States is worse than is widely understood and is not sustainable." However the security threats the US faces demand that DHS "operate as efficiently an effectively as possible in carrying out their missions." The GAO criticizes DHS leadership for many things including lack of transparency and slow progress meeting objectives. During his first outing to the new Congress last week, Secretary Michael Chertoff, a former judge, responded to questions and criticism about the DHS. He defended the the agency's progress, saying in his opening remarks:

"the Department of Defense took 40 years to get configured properly and the first secretary of defense committed suicide."

We're not sure whether someone should call a helpline on his behalf or whether, more likely, his statement was part of a defensive tactic to sooth his potentially hostile audience. Another official DHS official reported to a congressional committee looking at reports that DHS wasted millions of dollars:

"It is still the case that the department is just a collection of disparate, dysfunctional agencies," Ervin said. "There is yet to be an integrated, cohesive whole."

Then when ABC news interviewed a spokesman for Homeland Security about its dissatisfied employees, the spokesperson blamed the media and its focus on FEMA for the "low morale".

The official comments, if relayed even partially accurately by these sources, indicate that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to muddy the waters around its management responsibilities and evade culpability for its awful track record. We'll just pass that buck along, thank you very much, they seem to say.

FEMA -- Once Lame and Now Lame Again

DHS officials cast a wide net all the way to the media to find someone to blame. It's a familiar ploy, however its unpersuasive. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was one twenty-two departments rolled into the DHS when it was formed in 2003. FEMA received very well deserved criticism during and after Hurricane Katrina, but the media doesn't control or manage FEMA, FEMA and DHS do.

Many of the agencies rolled into DHS were no doubt "dysfunctional" before the reorg. But to unmuddy the waters a bit, we should point out that contrary to assertions, FEMA, for one, was not always dysfunctional. Acronym Required wrote several articles about the agency's performance during and after Hurricane Katrina and took a look at the history of the discombobulated organization.

In "FEMA-Turkey Farm Redux?", we reported that FEMA was once the laughing stock of government. In the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in 1989, when George H.W. Bush presided over government, Senator Hollins once commented that the FEMA staff was "as sorry a bunch of bureaucratic jackasses as I've worked with in my life". Through the early 1990's the agency continued to be known by unkind labels such as "a turkey farm", and "a political dumping ground". Four-fifths of FEMA's employees were dissatisfied according to one survey.

But FEMA turned itself around during the Clinton administration under James E. Witt. Many people were taken aback by the suddenly effective agency, including Senator Feinstein, who practically gushed: "I really think FEMA is a new agency...it is the difference between day and night".

FEMA is once again dysfunctional, now that its been subsumed by the Department of Homeland Security. The MBA President's administration formed the dysfunctional DHS, and the dysfunction prevails despite intense post Hurricane Katrina FEMA scrutiny and reorganization. We all know that the challenges of public management can be stupendous, but can the US afford to condone continual failure in such a critical organization?

Management in Never Never Land

Is Chertoff suggesting that forty years is a management turnaround timeline suitable for the 21st century? Although he may be well on his way to meeting this goal, it doesn't seem as though the Department of Homeland Security is stepping up to the type accountability demanded by effective businesses or government. Not to mention, the image of responsibility shirking doesn't become the Administration of the MBA president.

According to the President's government management plan we have a new type of government now, one run more like a business. The administration announced the new management plan back in the summer of 2001 and fleshed it out in the document "The President's Management Agenda", released in 2002. At the top was a quote attributed to Governor George W. Bush. Government always "begins" things, he said and, "declare[s] grand new programs..." But this isn't the way it should be.

".....What matters in the end is completion. Performance. Results. Not just making promises, but making good on promises. In my Administration, that will be the standard from the farthest regional office of government to the highest office of the land."

Bush wanted to revamp a government full of "underperforming agencies..[that] rarely face consequences for persistent failure". His agenda pledged a new era where "high performance will become a way of life." Under the sub-heading "Manageable Government", the President's promised to "focus on results", and to "impose consequences" on lackluster performing agencies.

"Underperforming agencies are sometimes given incentives to improve, but rarely face consequences for persistent failure. This all-carrot-no-stick approach is unlikely to elicit improvement from troubled organizations"

But in a recent 240 word summary of progress called "What are our management practices like today? (1/30/07)" published on "Results.gov", DHS, the agency well known for its catastrophe bumbling and financial incompetence, escaped mention. Results.org is dedicated to tracking the administration's government management goals. The performance summary mentions two agencies that apparently have "the greatest ability to be effective", and six others "who did what they said they would do this past quarter". High standards indeed, but DHS wasn't among these agencies.

Optimistically, Results.org points out that "most agencies continue to make good progress on the Faith-Based, Real Property and Improper Initiatives...". Perhaps the agency performed these amorphous goals superlatively? Because the President visited DHS this week and said that he was "proud" of the work they had done on terrorism. OK, there's the carrot, but where's the "stick", and who is accountable for these "grand plans" for government reorganization?

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Acronym Required previously commented on FEMA and GAO in the Project & Process Management part of the site.

Preparedness

Katrina prompted little reaction from FEMA, but a overwhelmingly reaction from media and citizens. Perhaps FEMA's inaction made us realize the error of our assumptions about government planning at the local, state, county and national levels. If we were once complacent, we're reminded to pay attention and demand that agencies prepare for disaster. As well, we can't be unprepared ourselves.

But before we talk about that, there's one red herring that needs to be dispelled first, prompted by those odious officials who berate citizens for "insisting on living in disaster prone areas". These after the fact know-it-alls use disasters to parade out on their high horses, and crazy as it seems, this always gains traction with the media. The officious adminstrators can understandably never be found before the disaster. They're never spotted standing at the city hailing warnings to citizens as they move in, shop, do business, or go to work and bolster the region's economy. Yet when disaster strikes, there they are, lecturing hapless survivors about their choice of domicile.

Despite the hypocrisy, or perhaps because of it, citizens need to know the risks in their town and state and demand disaster preparedness. Where are the local dams, levees and fault lines? Have you stored extra batteries and gallons of water, noted fire-escapes, and collected valuable papers? Local resources such as chapters of the American Red Cross offer information and courses for family disaster preparedness.

If we are expected to be prepared, and indeed our lives depend upon it, we need leadership too. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina there's clamoring for "experienced disaster management" leaders. But do we know what a capable leader is? Some disasters happen once a century. One person or community's disaster leadership might be capable to handle a Category 2 hurricane, another's might collapse in a 6.3 earthquake, while another leader may fall apart when the toilet overflows.

To this end, FEMA has a cache of information on its website. The site (now being updated) has basic preparedness module descriptions on this disaster page. FEMA's independent study site has 50-60 multi-part training units ranging from "National Dam Safety Program", to "Metropolitan Medical Response System"(MMRS), "Animals in Disaster" and "Government Response to a Disaster Declaration" (The diagram below, though a tad psychedelic, is from this unit -- note the full circle solution)

The "Community Hurricane Preparedness" modules, and these on this site are aimed at professionals -- units like "Leadership and Influence".

Management

"Introduction to Incident Command System" (ICS), which gives disaster coordination guidelines for every event possible event - fires, tornadoes, floods, ice storms, infectious disease outbreaks, Super Bowls and parades.

"[ICS]was developed in the 1970's following a series of catastrophic fires in California's urban interface. Property damage ran into the millions, and many people died or were injured...Surprisingly, studies found that response problems were far more likely to result from inadequate management then from any other single reason. Weaknesses were often due to: Lack of accountability...poor communication...inefficient uses of available communcations systems...[no]systematic planning process..."

One project management perfect storm during Hurricane Katrina was interagency coordination, a management problem that was recognized decades ago before the Hurricane brought it to the fore. Thirty years after ICS was formed, communication in disaster preparedness and mitigation continues to fail, with numbing, mind-boggling regularity. But there's a training module to handle that too.

"Effective Communications" has "Success Tips for Media Interviews", which suggests ideas to "help you stay in control of the interview process". The advice includes "avoid speculation", remember to "speak in 'sound bites'", and "avoid wearing stripes, 'busy' patterns, and red." You should "never repeat inaccurate or damaging information spoken within a reporter's question". It doesn't address how to avoid spewing inaccuracies yourself, except to advise calling after the interview to correct the record.

Some say Brown and FEMA's response is symbolic of this administration or this century. Others say that bureaucracies are always inept. However government agencies can be effective, and as Acronym Required's earlier article, FEMA: Turkey Farm Redux. FEMA was at point, an effective agency. As for us, we can prepare, we do vote, do chose our leaders, our employees, and our politicians. Moreover, we should analyze our political choices with more care.

There is little time to dally. Hurricane Ophelia whirls menacingly off the coast of the Carolinas.

The head of the Katrina disaster and FEMA was sent packing back to the capital yesterday when the administration acknowledged that perhaps he wasn't doing such a "heckuva job" after all. The realization seemed to come with the same alacrity as the Undersecretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response came to grips with the strife of the stranded survivors. Despite the righteous indignation about the resumes and unpreparedness of the top FEMA officials, the level of indignation is somewhat curious.

These are the same FEMA people who have responded to disasters since 2003. Brown reported in a speech this year that in 2004, "FEMA responded to 65 major disasters and seven emergencies in 46 states and/or U.S. territories". He also led FEMA through multiple disasters in 2003. The loudest complaints before Katrina were about how FEMA gave out too much money in Florida to undeserving homeowners who weren't effected at all by a hurricane.

In some cases the criticism was a complete afterthought. The Denver Post wrote an editorial on December 4, 2003 titled "Good Pick For FEMA Successor", that noted that Brown had the experience to lead the agency:

"He will coordinate response to any new terrorist attack...As FEMA's deputy director, Brown helped guide that agency's response to the Sept. 11 attacks, so he would bring firsthand experience to the heart-wrenching task...But he must also attend to FEMA's historic mission: helping communities respond to, and recover from, natural disasters...Brown has experience here, too, since he supervised FEMA's response to the massive Western wildfires last summer. He also held various local and state offices in tornado-plagued Oklahoma, so he understands how nature's rampages can devastate communities."

The paper only revealed the more dicey side of Brown's resume following hurricane Katrina. Is such hindsight useful?

FEMA and HDS deserve the wrath of the public. But one agency's failure does not absolve anyone else, culpability is not a 'zero sum game' and therefore it does not detract from the stunningly feeble federal response to point out that there were some flaws with the city and state responses too. Governor Blanco's administration no doubt deserves some heat for Louisiana's response, as does the city.

The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday about the New Orlean's communication infrastructure collapse during the storm; "At Center of Crisis, City Officials Faced Struggle to Keep in Touch". New Orleans' "command center" fell apart when the back-up generator ran out of diesel and land lines didn't work, and for the first two days the city disaster team was totally "in the dark". Cell phones were spotty at best, which was when staff leaned precipitously out of one particular balcony on one particular top floor of the Hyatt hotel where the team was holed up.

It only got worse when the levees broke. The mayor's group fought off potential looters and found themselves reduced to looting themselves as they ended up in the same boat as those they were charged with protecting:

"forced to rely on ingenuity [internet phone] and extreme methods, including breaking in to an Office Depot [to acquire electronics, servers, etc] --as the chief of police stood watch."

Today the fallout from the storm is personally devasting and civilly disruptive. The legal systems in New Orleans are scattered. The storm washed out lawyers, judges, plaintiffs, defendants and records. Our correct perception of sophisticated banking networks holds that ever clever software technology precisely maximizes the banks profits while minimizing its risks in day to day transactions. However the local banks are now reduced to verifying customers via their employees' memories. Employees dole out cash to recognizable customers.

A good part of our traumatized response is our fearful knowledge that many of us will face a similiar disaster ourselves, in a San Francisco earthquake, a Missouri earthquake, a hurricane, a volcano, tornado or other tumultuous calamity. The faces on TV are close-up this time. Close, and not in a far away place where we are unlikely to vacation- the Andaman islands or Sri Lanka. Nearby, in one of very our own favorite cities, even if we've only been there for a convention. The Wall Street Journal article about the mayor's team's struggles tells us that "of 70 major cities in the U.S., the new Orleans municipal Web site was ranked dead last [in 2002] in a quality survey". This is silly of course. All the other cities might have superior websites but that does not reassure us of our fate - website quality does not predict disaster preparedness.

While the federal reaction to Katrina was inept, Brown's removal serves merely as a totem of our collective despair about the untimely critical incapacitation of our technology, communications, and management systems alike. The outraged response to the government bungling of Hurricane Katrina aid is similiar to the public furor and special election two years ago on the west coast where Californians, exasperated with state administrative quagmires, jettisoned Governor Gray and replaced him with Governor Schwarzenegger. That costly public response did not resolve California's problems, nor will Brown's banishment resolve our inability to manage stupendous disaster. It is psychologically reasonable that in the face of such a disaster we respond vehemently by blaming one person or agency but we should also consider broader actions.

The blatheringly inept response of government, combined with the state's and city's misjudgements should not blind us to our own participation. We vote, chose our leaders, our employees, and our politicians - the "public servants". Each public employee is an important one. We write editorials, we approve the agendas. We should remind ourselves now that those who we chose for their "loyalty", whose habit is to tell us what we want to hear, will not necessarily be most capable of thinking on their own when crises sweep away their cues.

Senator Ernst F. Hollings (D-S.C.) once described FEMA's staff as "as sorry a bunch of bureaucratic jackasses as I've worked with in my life". It was September 1989, in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, which struck the Carolinas during George HW Bush's administration. FEMA had apparently taken ten days to respond.

Three years later, Hugo survivors had a sense of deja-vu as they watched FEMA's response to Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami-Dade county the morning of August 24, 1992. FEMA is now the butt of criticism in the wake of Katrina, and remarkably, despite the differences in the scopes of the disasters, once again there are similiarities between the Federal response to Hurricane Andrew which George HW. Bush (Sr). presided over, and the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina by the younger George Bush thirteen years later.

In 1992, mere hours before Andrew hit, Michele Baker, Miami-Dade's chief hurricane coordinator at the time, "took panicked calls from elderly residents", who weren't physically capable of evacuating. Baker had to respond by informing them that no one could help them. (The Seattle-Times,May 28, 2000)

Thousands of people were stranded without food or water and finally, following three days long days with no federal response, Dade county emergency management director Kate Hale lost her patience in a nationally televised news conference: "Where in the hell is the cavalry on this one...They keep saying we're going to get supplies. For God's sake, where are they?" (St. Petersburg Times, August 28, 1992)

"WE NEED HELP," a front-page Miami Herald headline implored August 28th. Stranded homeless survivors scrawled signs begging the president to do something and some took up arms to protect themselves. The Washington Post reported that food and water delivery was stalled:

"Roadblocks set up to stop looters continued to hamper delivery of emergency food supplies. Truckers with emergency food aid were forced to wait for police escorts after reports that some drivers had been shot and beaten by thugs. State troopers...began stopping all trucks entering the state, demanding that the drivers show that they and their cargo had been officially requested" (August 28, 1992)

FEMA didn't move supplies to Florida ahead of time because no official disaster had been declared wrote the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; "While thousands of southern Floridians remained without adequate food or shelter, state and federal officials bickered...people waited in line: for food stamps, for mail, for Red Cross vouchers...[for] the Federal Emergency Management Agency." (September 1, 1992)

Pressured in a re-election year, Bush Sr. postponed his Kennebunkport vacation and repeatedly toured the area, offering sympathy to citizens and TV cameras. He insisted angrily that his concern was not politically motivated and that it was no time for "finger pointing" and assigning blame.

Congress was vitriolic in its criticism of FEMA's hurricane response. The FEMA leader, Wallace E. Stickney, was a protege of former White House chief of staff John H. Sununu, and he was roundly criticized for his inabilities. Some thought that the military was the only agency that was capable of taking over disaster response. Chauffered cars and long lunches were routine and an audit showed stunningly that a majority of FEMA's budget was still dedicated to preparing for nuclear war response. People lobbied to have the agency disbanded altogether. A House Appropriations Committee issued a report in 1992 that apparently said about FEMA:

"is widely viewed as a political dumping ground, 'a turkey farm'...where large numbers of positions exist that can be conveniently and quietly filled by political appointment." (Washington Post)

So is FEMA the same entrenched bureaucratic agency unchanged except for the name of the hurricane, the name of the leader and the decade? FEMA director Michael Brown - "Brownie" to his homies, has the been the recipient of sharp criticism for his lack of diplomacy skills and his stated ignorance of the facts of the ground. The media, politicians, and citizens alike percieve ineptitude and have reveled in verbal flogging of the FEMA leader, as FEMA slowly and haltingly responds to the Katrina disaster. No self respecting journalist has failed to hammer home the fact that Brown's previous post was with an equine association - IAHA. Even that position proved challenging apparently ("he was not a horse guy").

No, this is a 'same but different' FEMA. Bush Sr. lost the electon and Clinton was elected. Polls showed that vast numbers of FEMA employees at the time wanted to leave- four-fifths of the employees polled in a survey thought FEMA was badly managed. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said: "I feel sorry for whomever heads this agency. The way it is structured, FEMA's role is to fail...I don't think FEMA can be a paper-pushing agency and a rapid response force at the same time." (Washington Post, January 28, 1993).

However despite the qualms, the Clinton administration named James E. Witt to lead FEMA. Witt was an Arkansas native, a "country boy" with *merely* a high school diploma. Skeptics doubted his ability to lead such a large organization and questioned whether a "local official" with only four years of state-level emergency management experience and no college education could be effective. According to the Washington Post, Leo Bosner, FEMA union president at the time retorted: "Look at Stickney. He had tons of government experience and all kinds of college degrees, but he was a disaster." (April 1, 1993)

The old FEMA was completely revamped under Witt. Stickney was ousted but not before he held an award ceremony where he gave medals and cash awards to staff, aides, a firehouse in his hometown, and to Marilyn Quayle - because she had worked "in a dirty T-shirt and dungarees", during Hurricane Andrew (Washington Post Feb 17, 1993). Under Witt, the new agency had a place in the Cabinet and the ear of the administration.

Witt recieved kudos from congress, from local officials and citizens alike for his leadership in the agency's turn-around. He oversaw federal relief efforts for hundreds of disasters - including the $ 5.5 billion Northridge, Calif., earthquake and the 1993 Midwest floods. A FEMA official said to the Christian Science Monitor (April 6, 1998): "After Witt, I don't think you'll see any other FEMA director come in who doesn't already have an emergency response background,". The Washington Post reported glowingly August 23, 1998 in; "It Took a County Judge to Bail Out FEMA; James Lee Witt's Arkansas Experience Reshaped Agency and Its Approach to Disaster": "Today, state officials who deal directly with the agency are virtually unanimous in their praise for the agency." Lee Helms, director of the Emergency Management Agency for Alabama, which had recently been through devastating tornadoes told the paper:

"I think there has been a total restoration of FEMA...Witt has cut out the red tape; there's much less bureaucratic nonsense and much more responsiveness to the state's needs. As we say in the South, he's got a head full of sense."

Jane Bullock, Witt's chief of staff who had worked at FEMA since 1980 when the agency was established under Carter, also praised Witt's accomplishments in the Post article. Not only were people not embarrassed to work for FEMA she said, but "we will never be the FEMA we were before".

Not so fast cowboy. In 1994, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), in putting forth a proposal to legislate changes in the agency, praised Witt, but said she was worried that if Witt left:

"that response to major disasters will fall apart...We may go right back to political hacks who don't know the difference between responding to a flood versus an earthquake."

Senator Feinstein came to the defense of the organization, saying, "I really think FEMA is a new agency...it is the difference between day and night". (Washington Post).

Flash forward ten years to today. George Bush Jr. has been in office and FEMA has been folded into DHS, subject to multiple changes and re-sizing. Katrina is a monstrosity of a disaster, but so would be another terrorist attack or an earthquake in San Francisco or numerous other unforseen crises. Trouble has been brewing for the agency for a while but perhaps in the aftermath of Katrina people truly suspect that the old FEMA, the "turkey farm" banquished by Witt, has risen again? FEMA again needs triage.

There is a lot of discussion about improved processes these days, including everything from enterprise project management, development methodologies like ITIL and RUP, project portfolio management. A colleague complained once: "They are talking about creating a complicated, time consuming process involving spreadsheets and GANTT charts that could all be done on the back of a cocktail napkin." This reminds one of some of the discussion in the chapter called "A Culture Of Discipline" in Jim Collins' book Good To Great:

...the purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline -- a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place. Most companies build their bureaucratic rules to manage the small percentage of wrong people on the bus, which in turn drives away the right people on the bus, which then increases the percentage of wrong people on the bus, which increases the need for more bureaucracy to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline, which further drives the right people away, and so forth. [p. 121]

When weighing whether to lean towards a greater level of process or stressing the amount of discipline and competence, Bob Lewis has some insight in his Advice Line weblog, in which he compares a "practice" versus a "process":

'In a practice, the "well defined steps" constitute more of a toolkit to be used by the practitioner; in a process the steps are more rigidly followed. In a practice, the intelligence remains almost entirely with the practitioner; designers move as much intelligence as possible into processes.

If you like, bowling is more of a process, baseball is more of a practice.

Which works better and in what circumstances? My opinion, unsupported by any research I'm aware of but richly supported by my personal experience, is that business redesign and application support (integration, development, enhancement and maintenance) are more effectively managed as practices. IT operations (networks, production control and so forth) are more effectively managed as processes.'

Sometimes within the context of higher ed administrative computing organizations, I've seen this corroborated. For example, the infrastructure folks heavily favor processes like maintaining fully resourced Microsoft Project plans, whereas, for an applications development team, I'd much rather establish a lightweight management infrastructure that has work decisions delegated to the lowest levels possible, with developers taking ownership of their project committments, using something like a sharepoint for documenting status and providing accountability.

Lewis's distinction between process and practice makes a lot of sense to me -- while an applications development team might work fine with the accountability framework described above, a group that is managing a 24x7 data center, will find that it makes a lot more sense to spend their creative energy developing replicable processes, not depending on good creative people to remember when they should make different types of backups or patch the servers.

As in most things, both distinctions are also a matter of degree -- some amount of process is almost always necessary and some greater amount is always too much. Process is not the cure for all ills: the overhead of process takes a bite out of an institutions' total available resources. The correct use of process is analagous to the correct use of models in software development -- as Martin Fowler noted: Models are not right or wrong; they are more or less useful." With responsibility for the lives of human beings hurtling through outer space at hundreds of miles an hour it's only logical that NASA's software assurance process is much more rigorous than the requirements for something like a university class enrollment system.

A large government or corporate organization will face tension between distributed, departmental needs and the needs of the central organization. This is one of the central themes explored in Peter Weill and Jeanne Ross's excellent book, IT Governance. They wrote about one approach to foster two-way communication (as well as to help get buy-in), when faced with such tension:

"Business/IT Relationship Managers Local business units and functions can find centrally coordinated mandates onerous or confusing. Business/IT relationship managers play an important role in communicating mandates and their implications and supporting the needs of business unit managers while helping them see benefits rather than inconveniences. Effective relationship managers must be true hybrids – equally comfortable discussing business issues, such as effective market segmentation, and technical issues, such as the best design of a distributed database to collect market segment information. When they succeed, relationship managers make any governance archetype more effective."

We will consider some other areas of this book in upcoming posts, as well.

This excerpt from the Technology Alignment section (a good read) of the California Performance Review discusses the impact of California's lack of project portfolio management:

According to Thom Rubel of the META Group, "The institutionalization of portfolio management responsibility can begin to build relationships across the government enterprise that effectively bring budget and finance offices and IT organizations into better understanding and consensus on strategic IT investments during fluctuating budget cycles. Creating portfolio management awareness within government can begin to build the bridge of understanding between IT and budget organizations and program agencies to more effectively and strategically invest in executive branch and legislative public-policy priorities."[36]
Despite its value to the state, there are currently no statewide policies, guidelines or evidence of adoption of best practices for technology portfolio management practices. For the most part, policy-makers are still not thinking of technology projects as a portfolio of investments for achieving a shared vision for how the state should serve the people, as pointed out by the Little Hoover Commission in 2000.[37]

From the recommendations in a GAO report (pdf) (html abstract) released 7/7/2004 titled COMPUTER-BASED PATIENT RECORDS: VA and DOD Efforts to Exchange Health Data Could Benefit from Improved Planning and Project Management:

• create and implement a comprehensive and coordinated project management plan for the electronic interface that defines the technical and managerial processes necessary to satisfy project requirements and includes (1) the authority and responsibility of each organizational unit; (2) a work breakdown structure for all of the tasks to be performed in developing, testing, and implementing the software, along with schedules associated with the tasks; and (3) a security policy.

[via David Fletcher's Government and Technology Weblog]

Bob Lewis wrote today on how IT people can work toimprove inefficient business processes:

My best suggestion is to start, not by identifying the processes themselves, but by identifying likely champions and sponsors of process improvement.
...
So your first step is identifying middle managers or executives who stand to benefit personally from process improvement. Make them your best friends. Chat with them. Schmooze with them. Talk over how you think the use of IT can support their areas, ask whether they're interested, and ask their advice on how to get something started.

The crucial networking step involves asking advice from potential sponsors on how to proceed. An additional point here is also that you will be more likely to succeed not only because you are paying attention to the sales process -- but you are also eliciting information (and requirements) from these potential sponsors, which will put you in a better position to re-engineer the processes with a functional sponsor in a way that will truly work. Networking gives you a double-payoff.