Federal and public sector
The program is not failing on technology.
Whether a modernization that has already absorbed years and money is failing on technology or on the conditions around it, and which one to fund next.
Three of the programs below ran inside federal organizations. Each one names what changed, by how much, and which condition was actually the constraint. None of them was solved by buying a different system.
The programs in full
- 45 Days on an Eight-Year Problem
October to November 2015
A Fort Leavenworth requirement that had defeated internal teams and multiple contractors across eight years, delivered into production in 45 days by a team that had never worked together, after the inherited work was discarded and the requirement rebuilt from intent.
- The Federal Data Warehouse Turnaround
Fall 2018 to 2019
An eight-month backlog cleared in weeks once decision authority moved to where the knowledge already was.
- HR Processing, Modernized
2010
Modernizing HR processing by fixing the operating model and decision rights, not just the software.
Written for federally funded programs
Where a federal funding body sets the rule, the rule is the subject. These name the requirement rather than describing risk practice in general.
- What P80 Means, and What It Does Not Promise
A P80 is the value a program has an 80 percent modeled chance of not exceeding. It is an output of a simulation rather than a number anyone selects, and it inherits every judgment that went into the model.
- What FTA Oversight Procedure 40 Actually Requires
FTA has funded cost contingency at the 65th percentile since July 2018, and schedule follows a different larger-of rule that most summaries get wrong. What a sponsor must actually produce, and at what confidence level.
- Who Controls Contingency, the Owner or the Contractor?
Contingency and management reserve are defined inversely by different federal agencies, so the argument usually starts from incompatible definitions. Where no release authority is named, the default is not neutrality, it is holding.
- The ATO Is an Authority Problem, Not a Security One
An authorization to operate is one named official accepting residual risk in writing. Deferring is institutionally safe and granting is personal exposure, so every intervention that adds evidence without moving the consequence lengthens the queue.
- The Real Cost of a Continuing Resolution Is Attention
The money usually arrives. What does not come back is the senior attention spent planning one year three or four times, and preparing for every funding scenario is the cost rather than the insurance.
- Why a Reorganization Does Not Move the Conditions
A reorganization is the one large intervention an executive can make without an appropriation, an authority or a procurement, so it gets selected on availability and the diagnosis is written to fit. A chart moves resource rigidity and leaves routine rigidity intact.
What this is not
This is thirty years of federal and public sector delivery experience, not a contract vehicle, a facility clearance, or a claim to prime. Where a vehicle is required, the diagnosis runs as a scoped line under somebody else's prime.
The four arrangements that takes, and what each one refuses, are set out on working alongside a program somebody else runs.
Every case study above is labeled with the period it happened in and whether Mission Intelligence Systems delivered it. All 9 entries here predate the company and are the field work the Four A's were built from. That distinction is published on each one rather than left for a reader to infer.