the pentagon wars- project management

8/19/2019 The Pentagon Wars- Project Management

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low quality materials and a lack of proper design and adequate testing. The final design

ended up being a troop transportation vehicle which could not carry troops (instead of 11

men it could only carry 6); a reconnaissance vehicle that’s too conspicuous to do

reconnaissance, and a quasi-tank that has very little armor.

The main problem to be solved was to perform a good live test on the Bradley, since

its main purpose was to bring troops in a safe manner. The congress appointed Colonel

Burton from the Air force to ensure that the design of the product meets all the quality

requirements needed. The entire test results were manipulated or not disclosed in their

entirety. Everyone in the organization was focused on pursuing their own interests. This

type of problem is very common in organizations where people don’t have a common goal

to direct their actions.

The technology that was being used for the development of the Bradley needed to

be the best technology possible, mainly because it was human life at stake; and also good

technology was needed to accomplish a competitive advantage for being able to export this

vehicle to other countries. Apart from the technology the human resources needed to

construct and manage the development of the Bradley were really important. They

shouldered the responsibility to create a product with the necessary quality to get the

soldiers in a battle field. . We can see that the people involved in the Bradley lacked the

intensity of their sentiments to realize that the final product was actually protecting

people’s lives, and ignoring anything could have a serious consequence of putting people’s

lives at risk.


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The project was funded by the US Congress, it was managed by the Pentagon and

supervised by the, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The end users were the US Army soldiers

whose main need was to arrive safely to the frontline. The project was being managed by

Colonel Partridge, who was responsible for the success of the Bradley project under the

supervision of the congress. Even though this structural hierarchy was established, many

stakeholders were involved and everyone wanted to give their own viewpoints and

suggestions to the final product, the pressure on the supervisors and the amount of people

involved, made it hard to hold anyone accountable for the project. If general Burton would

not have been sent to test the Bradley, the amount of risk involved in the project the money

spent on the project would have grown exponentially as well as the time to finalize the

actual product.

In the end of the movie, they mention that pentagon sanctioned an additional one

billion for “Capability upgrades”. Colonel Burton won his fight to have the Bradley

modified, and all these modifications helped in reducing the causalities during its use in the

Gulf War.

Most of the officers involved in the Bradley were promoted and other went on to

high paying positions in the defense industry, while Colonel Burton was forced to retire.

This shows how the managers that were not totally involved or responsible were promoted

due to the power of bureaucracy and the influences they had.


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Analysis

During the movie, it is flagrantly visible how the process or a formal methodology

was absent completely. If we tried to analyze how the organization was managed in a

normal methodology of analysis, design, implementation, testing and maintenance, we have

the following:

Analysis: The initial idea of the Bradley came to existence in 1968, the main

purpose was to create a vehicle that serves as efficient and fast transportation of 11 people

to the field and their safety in the vehicle was the highest priority

Design: Even though the initial idea was to create a vehicle to transport troops to

the field, after meeting the final requirements of all people involved in the design of the

Bradley, the product ended up having unnecessary added features of scout, troop transport,

antitank capabilities and a carrying capacity of 6 men instead of 11. And the most important

thing was that it wasn’t safe. The lack of power from the engineering team, in this case of

Smith, turned Bradley into a useless product when considering the original purpose of

creating it. An example of this lack of power is that even though Smith knew from a report

created by the British that aluminum armor burns, and emits a toxic gas when hit by a shell,

Smith was ordered to use aluminum in the vehicle instead of steel to make it faster.

Implementation: The trial done by Partridge was after 17 years the Bradley started

and with a total expenditure of 14 billion. At the end of the movie the narrator stated that

the implementation took another year with an added expense of about a billion.


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During the implementation phase, we can see that there is a lack of management.

Many people could decide about the final design of the Bradley that constantly evoked

changes in the final product.

Testing: Even though some tests were conducted to measure the functionality of the

Bradley, none of them was a live test. We can see how during the whole movie, Burton was

making all the efforts possible to make the final test that could prove that soldiers wouldn’t

be safe. A way we can see in the movie this lack of interest in measuring the pitfalls of the

final product is when Burton tried to do the test of the Bradley and the people in his team

did the following actions:

• When he tried to test the Bradley with fuel They put water instead

• When he tried to test the Bradley with sheep They incinerated the

evidence

• When he put mannequin in the Bradley When Burton went to pick a

phone call, they undressed the mannequin to prove that the cloth stayed

untouched.

Launching and maintenance: The final part of the movie tells us that the final

product was finished after a year of the trial. But following the sequence and way things

were handled with the Bradley we can assume that little or no maintenance was done.

Related to specific process, we can see the lack of the most important one, the

implementation of project scope management; if this process would have been

implemented there would have been understanding and a common direction among all

members of the project team.


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The project lacks a proper timeline; we know that the project started in 1968 and

lasted for 17 years, the project cost the taxpayers 14 billion. A critical event was when the

congress selected Burton to perform the Bradley tests. It was at this point that the direction

of the project changed. Burton was a very honest person who was really focused on the

final product; he wanted to make a live test on the vehicle to ensure the quality and safety

of the troops during transportation. After the general’s inclusion to the project, he

demonstrated his intentions; Dalton and all the commanders earlier followed the orders of

Partridge, started supporting Burton and realized the important of creating a final quality

product.

We can see that at the beginning the motivation of the commanders was really low,

because they thought that they could not make a difference, after Burton arrival people

started to see that there was someone that was interested in making a difference, at the end

we can even see that Dalton and the soldiers helped Burton to make the live test as realistic

as possible, so that everyone knew the quality of the project.

The requirements needed by the organization was to create a vehicle capable to

transport troops to the field in a safe manner, the lack of a good management process and

control related to a lack of control on the project scope, cost, and time which made the

project go out of control for 17 years,

The decision making process that was handled by the organization was not formal.

Firstly we can see that General Partridge was responsible for making all the final decisions,

which didn’t approach other people to decide and he always had the last word. In

conjunction with this, we can see that when the big commanders wanted to make a change


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in the design without a real basis or facts to support it , they were allowed to do it and the

design team managed by Smith, had to follow any orders without their opinions being

heard, even though they were the experts. I think that the bias that can be found here in the

heuristic process of decision making is availability; this bias is because there was no true

knowledge of what was happening. People didn’t know the real facts and the events that

were taking place and this lack of information influenced the decision-making process, for

example the congress didn’t get involved until General Burton made notice of how the

project was progressing completely out of control.

During the development of the Bradley we encountered a lot of problems, but the

biggest one was the lack of management, this factor further encompasses a number of

smaller problems as follows:

• Absence of scope Management.-Not a clear scope definition of what the final

product needed to accomplish

• Lack of Risk Management.-In the growing amount of money and time that was

being spent

• Lack of Communication management.-horizontally between peers and also

vertically, the movie shows a strong lack of support from the superiors.

• Bad organizational environment: like they say good apples get spoilt in a bad barrel.

• Internal managers and workers have no connection with the customer.-The

managers in charge of the project were just worried about their promotion and

position rather than focusing their efforts in meeting the safety requirements of the

soldiers.


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• The organization has an absence and process mapping. As mentioned earlier there

is a lack of methodology that is required to make the final product successful.

These problems were addressed after some consequences already took place, and

some factors like the time and money spent where so much that it was hard to remedy.

Through the integration of Burton into the project, a complete metamorphosis took place in

the way the big commanders were involved in the project and smoothed out the problems

that the project was encountering.

At the end, we can say that the project was successful, the live test was done on

Bradley and all the shortcomings and the quality issues with the product were uncovered.

The necessary modifications were made to the application. At this point in time the project

was over budget by an expenditure of 14 billion and over schedule by 17 years.

Thanks to Burton’s intervention, the final goal of the project was achieved, this

vehicle was used the Gulf War to transport troops in a safe manner. Therefore we can

conclude that the final objective of the stakeholders was accomplished, even though at a big

expense due to the lack of management and compromise on numerous areas within the

project.


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Conclusion

In conclusion I would say that the congress and the US army lacked in good project

management practices in the Bradley development and other projects that were managed by

them like the sensor fused anti-tank missile and the Pave-way bomb. This lack of

methodology, process and supervision made the project go out of control and have an

expenditure of 14 billion and span over 17 years.

Until a person from the outside, in this case general Burton was assigned to validate the

test of Bradley; no attempt was made to manage the project in an ethical manner and for the

benefit of the society, instead they pursued their own interests.

I think that the major lesson that we can get out of the project is that we need to form a

strong team devoted and committed to the daily activities and a good leader to manage the

development of the project. Apart from this, there should be a clear definition of a scope to

avoid the project going out of control.

If I could give and advise to this organization I would suggest that they change the

managers and the leaders to people who are really committed to the project, people who are

honest and are able to make decisions which doesn’t only involve their own interests. At

the end of the movie we can see that the only person with a potential to change the

organization was fired, while the people who lacked the responsibility and moral principleswere promoted.

I would also recommend the use of many project management principles and follow

well established norms that can help the organization to succeed in more projects, if the


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PMBOK is followed, they can make use of the 9 knowledge areas, the most impactful areas

that can be implemented are

• Project integration management.-The use of this process can help to have a

consensus and a clear vision from all stakeholders so that the final product really

matches the organizational needs.

• Project time management .-This process will help define the activities needed to

complete each project and establish the amount of time needed to complete

them, this process will help the projects be in control.

• Project cost management.-The use of this process will allow to establish from

the beginning a budget and give the stakeholders with an overview of the

expenditure that the project will incur.

• Project quality management-With the use of this principle the organization can

handle the requisite tests on the products and make sure that they meet the

necessary standards and quality control limits as expected.

• Project communication management - This process will help maintain an

organizational structure with an established flow of communication and will

help to distribute the information in a correct and timely manner. This will help

bring transparency into the organization keeping everyone abreast of the events

and avoid that the processes goes out of control.

• Project risk management -This process will help identify the potential risks that

the enterprise can face and create contingency plans to deal with them in case

they occur. This will also help the organization to maintain projects within the


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established boundaries, and to avoid factors like time and cost to go out of

control.

I would like to end this assignment by saying that I really enjoyed the movie. It

allowed me to relate many concepts I had read in the books and apply them in real life

situations. Something that I found quite interesting is that even though, the movie is related to

the design of a war vehicle, many problems and situations presented are the ones as I have

previously experienced at work.

References: The Pentagon Wars Movie

the pentagon wars- project management

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