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Spent 5 years at one of NASA's prime subcontractors, positions ranging from mechanical CAD jockey to assistant program director. This "guide" was written by a

Spent 5 years at one of NASA's prime subcontractors, positions ranging from mechanical CAD jockey to assistant program director. This "guide" was written by a gentleman in the last years of his 37 year career. I saw many similar guides/reviews of programs that were way behind sched and over budget. All written by retiring/recently retired upper management, they'd come in under a budget provided by some government oversight company or consulting group. They'd poke sticks into every group, come up with their assessment, then drop it on the active program director's desk. The program director would assign actions, the gov't oversight group could check off the box that it participated in "program saving" guidance, and 3 months later everyone forgets/ignores the input. I think this guide paints a clear picture of how inefficient and misguided gov't run programs are for those that can stand to see it. The irony is so strong in the title, it's verging on sad. It is hard to believe anything ground breaking or efficient was ever created by following a "100 Rules" guide.

gnarbarian 12y ago
As a federal state and municipal contractor of ten years I can say from experience the higher up in government you go the more exponentially wasteful their policies are and meaningless the average task becomes. For example I spent maddening weeks changing fonts back and forth and trying to get the same number of records per page (as the original access version) in a report 100,000 pages long that nobody will ever read, print, or analyze with tools. (it was a PDF) I am convinced they were taking sheets from the report I wrote and printing them out on transparencies which were overlaid on the old report so they could tell me to move things around one pixel at a time.
ThomPete 12y ago
This is by no metrics isolated to governmental run organizations but something you will see in many larger organizations. It's a consequence amongst other things of having deep pockets and not tight enough feedback loops IMHO.

gnarbarian 12y ago

As a federal state and municipal contractor of ten years I can say from experience the higher up in government you go the more exponentially wasteful their policies are and meaningless the average task becomes. For example I spent maddening weeks changing fonts back and forth and trying to get the same number of records per page (as the original access version) in a report 100,000 pages long that nobody will ever read, print, or analyze with tools. (it was a PDF) I am convinced they were taking sheets from the report I wrote and printing them out on transparencies which were overlaid on the old report so they could tell me to move things around one pixel at a time.

ThomPete 12y ago

This is by no metrics isolated to governmental run organizations but something you will see in many larger organizations. It's a consequence amongst other things of having deep pockets and not tight enough feedback loops IMHO.