Management
The RAIN System Development Project:
Program Office
Home About Us Home Evolution Chart Nature of Project R&D Organization ProgramOffice Funding Status

"...the greatest challenge of this project: MANAGEMENT!...."

Many experienced people briefed about the RAIN project over the years have made the remark about management, above.

It has been stressed many times in this site that the RAIN System is composed of components derived from proven technologies and, further, there are businesses that are available to develop all of the RAIN components from proven track records of delivering the needed technologies. Pulling all of these magnificent resources together, coordinating them and ensuring that each subproject delivers quality, within budget and on schedule, will be the key challenge of the entire project.

The job of managing this project is assigned to an organization called the Program Office (PO).

These pages address the duties and recommended architecture of the PO, identifying some of the hurdles this office will face in bringing the RAIN System into existence.

In several instances, recommendations for the PO will simply be stated on this page. Backup information, particularly descriptions on how some of the decisions regarding the PO have been reached is presented in a separate document addressing the PO. This document will be referenced by links in the text which follows, where appropriate.

PO Duties

The PO is responsible for System Engineering and coordinating all activities on the project including, master planning, troubleshooting, problem-solving, and reporting to the customer. A table detailing these duties appears in the separate document.

PO Org Structure

The organizational structure is shown to the right: there are two concentric layers, the inner core being Central Office (CO) which interfaces to the individual Member's projects through a series of regional Field Offices (FOs). The FOs perform all duties of the PO relating to interfacing with Members' projects, including planning, monitoring, approving deliverables and payments, etc.

The table below summarizes many management issues involving the PO and links each into the separate paper (mentioned above) where more discussion is presented.

<<(Previous) R&D Organization

Next (Funding);
Definitions Some acronyms and other definitions related to the management are presented here.
PO Duties A table of PO functions, introduced above.
Management Culture An important part of management is to define, promote and discipline a project culture that includes healthy habits like good planning, careful monitoring, troubleshooting, co-operative problem-solving, etc.
PO Organization Field Offices (FOs) between member projects and a Central Office (CO). Details below.
Field Offices How the PO incorporates field offices in strategic locations to reduce costs and improve communications between management and the individual Members' projects.
The Central Office (CO) CO receives data from the FOs, integrates it into master plans and a system simulation, and interfaces with the customer.
Field Office (FO) Duties The FOs perform most PO functions involving interfacing with Members' projects, and feeds the Central Office with needed information for overall project monitoring and steering.
Central Office (CO) Duties The CO integrates the project, manages the PO resources, manages contracts and reports to the customer.
Timing Challenges The PO must be up and running before work begins in any Member's shop or we will have a ship without a rudder (management). Since some of the member businesses have existing Intellectual Property, and can probably get a sole source procurement, it is probably critical that the PO also be funded sole-source, at least partially.
The PO: Make/Buy One approach to the PO is to treat it like a member and find an existing company to take this role. This places a layer of management between the RAIN System development interests and the management: highly undesirable, strongly suggesting that the PO be specially made for this project, and not from an existing business.
Staffing: Where Do We Get Good Managers? Hire or contract? Timing considerations suggest that management consultants be used with minimal use of employees to manage this project.
Office Organizations About how the offices are organized:
The Field Offices (FOs) Individual management consulting firms, probably small one-person shops with some administrative and/or junior manager support.
The Central Office (CO) Built from the FITERAD Corporation shell, with some hired and some contracted senior managers with support staff for administration and managing the special tools (see below).
Office Funding See Funding, below.
Senior Project Manager Qualifications Qualifications of senior project managers are listed here.
Special Tools The PO will house two special tools in the CO; discussed below:
Master Project Planning Tool This software integrates project plans from the members into the master plan and "levels" resources project wide to produce the master budget and schedule.
System Simulator Workbench This software integrates cost/performance math models for each RAIN System component to produce and overall system simulation. Cost and performance vs key system parameters can be computed and suitable parametric trades made with this tool.
Operational System Simulator Simulates the operational components of the system to predict performance and generate models for the System Simulator Workbench.
Funding The PO must be funded and operational before members' projects are approved and begin. This presents challenges in how the PO is funded. It must have its own contract with the customer in advance of member contracts, but part of the PO management costs can be covered by fees paid from members' contracts.
CO Sole-Source Justification The initial PO contract must be sole-source unless all other member contracts (many sole-source) are held up until central management is funded: a highly undesirable situation.
Contracting Arrangements Financial support for the PO can come as a hybrid: its own sole-source funding and fees paid by managed member subprojects.