Olympic-Sized Problems

 

In honor of the Olympics beginning later this month, I would like to turn my readers’ attention towards very large project management problems; or, better stated, with management problems of very large projects. There’s just something about very large projects that, when they go South, they do so in dramatic fashion, like the Hindenburg or the Titanic. Interestingly enough, Titanic had a sister ship named Olympic, which distinguished herself by colliding with two different ships in her career, which is, I suppose, a superior fate to either of her sisters (the third ship in the class, Brittanic, was sunk during World War I after striking a mine). One of the ships she hit wasn’t even moving, being a lightship.

So, in examining the whole the-bigger-they-are-the-harder-they-fall motif, I would like to discuss the National Ignition Facility, or NIF. As I state in my just-released must-have book, Game Theory in Management; Modelling Business Decisions and their Consequences (http://www.gowerpublishing.com/isbn/9781409442417 ),

The NIF was a project designed to help researchers answer questions surrounding nuclear fusion. The concept was to surround a pellet of a hydrogen isotope with 192 high-powered lasers that could deliver sufficient energy to the target quickly enough to induce nuclear fusion, the same type of reaction that the Sun uses. The project was spearheaded by a scientist, who swore to Senate Appropriations Committee staffers that if Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was selected to build the project, he would make sure it stayed on budget. Unfortunately, cascading risk events rendered that promise impossible to keep. Work began in 1997 with an estimated budget of $1.1 billion. The final price was nearly quadruple that amount. The Wikipedia article on NIF states:

The Pulsed Power Conditioning Modules (PCMs) suffered capacitor failures, which in turn caused explosions. This required a redesign of the module to contain the debris, but since the concrete structure of the buildings holding them had already been poured, this left the new modules so tightly packed that there was no way to do maintenance in-place. Yet another redesign followed, this time allowing the modules to be removed from the bays for servicing. Continuing problems of this sort further delayed the operational start of the project, and in September 1999 an updated DOE report stated that NIF would require up to $350 million more and completion would be pushed back to 2006.[1]

More problems like this manifested, but perhaps the most damaging risk event had to do with dust. High-energy lasers do not react well to dust: if the various mirrors and lenses used to aim and manipulate the beams have so much as a speck on them, the damage can be explosive, immediate, and expensive. Insufficient consideration was given to the difficulties of performing an extremely large construction effort, with new technology and large, heavy, and expensive components, all in a clean room environment. The early problems with design, construction, and dust cascaded to the point that NIF became the poster child for the perils of failing to perform the project management function adequately.

The truly ironic aspect to the NIF management disaster was the lateness with which management embraced Earned Value and Critical Path-based management information systems. The original estimate of $1.1 Billion (USD) would turn into $4.2 Billion by the time the construction part of the project was complete. Now, it may well be that had NIF management approached the U.S. Department of Energy with an initial estimate of $4.2 Billion, the DOE may have approved the project anyway. But that’s not what happened, leaving the typical management analyst to wonder what might have been. Even a simple Earned Value Management System would have provided early warning of the upcoming overruns, as well as the delays. But such basic project management information systems weren’t implemented in the early phases of the project. Management felt that they could get a handle on the cost performance of the project without an EVMS, with not-enough-life-boats or let’s-fill-the-dirigible-with-Hydrogen-sized consequences (well, to be honest, nobody died, but $3.1 Billion could have done a lot of life-improving, don’t you think?).

Of course, there’s always the possibility that, had a functioning EVMS been in place early-on at NIF, it would have had a similar impact to project controller Frederick Fleet calling NIF’s PM, and shouting “The Cost Performance Index-based Estimate at Completion is indicating a massive overrun, right ahead!”, and then watching helplessly as the failure unfolded. But, from an information technology point of view, it would have at least given some credence to the idea that management wasn’t flying completely blind. Being at the helm of a large project crash leaves those responsible with only a couple of narratives to further, neither of which is very attractive:

·         The “I didn’t see it coming, but then, nobody could have seen it coming” story line. The problem here is, if this kind of problem is out there, lying in wait for any similar effort, why would anyone undertake that kind of project in the first place?

·         The “I knew it was a possibility, but I thought our response to that event would have alleviated its negative consequences” script. This is easily overturned by noting either the number of lifeboats on board being far fewer than needed, or the fact that the lack of an EVMS in the earliest stages rendered project personnel hopelessly ignorant of performance-based cost overruns.

Of course, hindsight is 20-20, and there is a distinct element of unfairness to criticizing management decisions after-the-fact. I understand that, and do not wish to, as they say in American football, “pile on.” On the other hand, if you are (were) in charge of a large project that incurred massive overruns and delays, and you didn’t have a working Earned Value Management System from the get-go, maybe, just maybe you deserve a bit of being piled-on.

What do you think?