Pentagon takes another stab at business reform.The Defense Department's convoluted convoluted /con·vo·lut·ed/ (kon?vo-lldbomact´ed) rolled together or coiled. web of accounting systems over the years has become the proverbial pro·ver·bi·al adj. 1. Of the nature of a proverb. 2. Expressed in a proverb. 3. Widely referred to, as if the subject of a proverb; famous. Hydra whose ugly heads continue to multiply every time someone cuts one off. Many have attempted to untangle the clutter and kill the beast, with little or no success. To take another stab at the problem, the Pentagon brought in a new team of experts headed by Paul A. Brinkley, undersecretary of defense for business transformation, who came to the Defense Department in 2004 after an extensive career in the private sector. Under the broad label of "business transformation," the Pentagon wants to consolidate thousands of fragmented information systems that track everything from how much money it pays in contractors to the location of inventories and the status of payroll accounts. Unless that's accomplished, officials argue, it will become increasingly difficult to account for taxpayers' defense dollars, which the Pentagon is now spending to the tune of more than $450 billion a year. Based on his experience in private industry, Brinkley contends that many of the traditional strategies for tackling business reforms at the Pentagon have failed because they tended to focus on meeting overambitious o·ver·am·bi·tious adj. Ambitious to an excessive degree. o  ver·am·bi deadlines, rather than realistically looking at the
problem.
"The Defense Department generally is oriented o·ri·ent n. 1. Orient The countries of Asia, especially of eastern Asia. 2. a. The luster characteristic of a pearl of high quality. b. A pearl having exceptional luster. 3. to big goals, big targets," Brinkley says. The prevailing wishful thinking wishful thinking Psychology Dereitic thought that a thing or event should have a specified outcome is that, "On this date, we'll throw the switch and everything is going to be good." On the business side of things, however, this approach is not likely to work, he explains, because the task is so mind-numbingly complex, and more significantly, because the Defense Department cannot be managed as your run-of-the-mill Fortune 500 corporation. A case in point is a decision that was made several years ago to set a 2007 deadline for a "clean audit" of the Defense Department's finances. That self-imposed goal proved to be, at the very least, impractical. "It's better to have gradual improvements" leading up to a clean audit, rather than determine that on this specific day, "we'll get a clean audit." Even corporations don't work that way, he says. "But the culture here wants to do the big thing, declare the big victory." The "clean audit" issue has caused some heartburn heartburn, burning sensation beneath the breastbone, also called pyrosis. Heartburn does not indicate heart malfunction but results from nervous tension or overindulgence in food or drink. within Brinkley's office because it has opened up the Defense Department to criticism that it is not accountable for the funds it spends. Among the critics are members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is the audit, evaluation, and investigative arm of the United States Congress, and thus an agency in the Legislative Branch of the United States Government. and other watchdog organizations. What is often misunderstood is that the Pentagon, in fact, can be audited with today's systems, although the process is drawn out and laborious la·bo·ri·ous adj. 1. Marked by or requiring long, hard work: spent many laborious hours on the project. 2. Hard-working; industrious. . As part of the "business transformation" effort, the intent is to make the audit less cumbersome and error prone, says Thomas Modly, deputy undersecretary of defense for financial management, who oversees reform efforts along with Brinkley. Exhaustive audits are done now, he says. "But it is a very manual, labor-intensive and expensive process. The level of accuracy is probably not where it needs to be." Modly and Brinkley recently drafted a long-term blueprint to begin a slow but sure consolidation of disparate computer systems within the military services and the Defense Department, so that eventually coherent information The coherent information is an entropy measure used in quantum information theory. It is a property of a quantum state ρ and a quantum channel  Monthly reports are sent to Congress documenting war costs, but they are not done the way a modern corporation would do them. "We do it through a series of data calls and some analysis. We estimate what percentages of those dollars are actually spent on one operation, versus others. It's very cumbersome, expensive, error prone. "Our goal is an automated process so you can slice and dice Refers to rearranging data so that it can be viewed from different perspectives. The term is typically used with OLAP databases that present information to the user in the form of multidimensional cubes similar to a 3D spreadsheet. See OLAP. information however you want to, like a real corporation would do it." In the current plan, there is no single deadline, but rather "hundreds of deadlines for different standards," Modly adds. "We are doing it incrementally." Financial information systems, for example, have up to 24 months to comply. "Our audits today cost billions of dollars," Brinkley says. As more systems are modernized mod·ern·ize v. mo·dern·ized, mo·dern·iz·ing, mo·dern·iz·es v.tr. To make modern in appearance, style, or character; update. v.intr. To accept or adopt modern ways, ideas, or style. and consolidated, the costs will drop, he asserts. Brinkley's office spends $4.2 billion a year on business systems modernization modernization Transformation of a society from a rural and agrarian condition to a secular, urban, and industrial one. It is closely linked with industrialization. As societies modernize, the individual becomes increasingly important, gradually replacing the family, . Modly says he is optimistic op·ti·mist n. 1. One who usually expects a favorable outcome. 2. A believer in philosophical optimism. op about a clean "automated" audit becoming a reality sooner than anyone expects. "We currently have a clean opinion of about 16 percent of our assets and 42 percent of our liabilities." Between now and 2007, those numbers will grow to 38 percent and 49 percent, respectively. "Each year, it will get bigger." As with past attempts at reforming defense management practices, it remains to be seen whether they will fizzle out Verb 1. fizzle out - end weakly; "The music just petered out--there was no proper ending" fizzle, peter out, taper off discontinue - come to or be at an end; "the support from our sponsoring agency will discontinue after March 31" or achieve real results. In this case, the Pentagon has to hope that Hercules has finally arrived to remove the monster from its dark marsh and destroy it. |
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