Tue, Nov 04, 2003
This Report Probably Won't Change Your Perception
The FAA's own structure and culture are largely responsible
for the huge gobs of twine that seem to wrap around the axles of
all moving parts at the agency, a just-released Government
Accounting Office report (GAO-04-227T) seems to say. The quotes
below are all straight from the report (subheads are ours); we
encourage you to look at the whole thing, to get a more-complete
picture --ed.
Over the years, systemic
management issues, including inadequate management controls and
human capital issues, have contributed to the cost overruns,
schedule delays, and performance shortfalls that FAA’s major
ATC projects have consistently experienced. These problems
occurred, in large part, because FAA lacked the information
technology and financial management systems that would have helped
it reliably determine the projects’ technical requirements
and estimate and control their costs and schedules. In addition,
organizational culture issues discouraged collaboration among
technical experts and users, and frequent changes in FAA’s
leadership—seven different Administrators and Acting
Administrators in the first 10 years—hampered the
modernization efforts.
There's hope:
FAA has taken steps to improve the management of its ATC
modernization efforts and has made progress. For example, it
implemented a costeffective, incremental development approach that
avoided costly late-stage changes. In addition, it has fully or
partially implemented over 30 GAO recommendations designed to
improve its management controls and address human capital issues.
The Congress also extended the term of the FAA Administrator to 5
years, providing for greater continuity and stability, and enacted
legislation designed to bring the benefits of performance
management to ATC modernization.
Living in 'Interesting Times'
FAA faces a number of challenges in fully implementing
recommendations that GAO and others have made to improve its
management controls and address human capital issues. FAA also
faces the challenge of becoming a more efficient and accountable
performance-based air traffic organization.
How bad is it?
Initially FAA estimated that its ATC modernization efforts would
cost $12 billion and could be completed over 10 years. Now, two
decades and $35 billion later, FAA expects to need another $16
billion through 2007 to complete key projects, for a total cost of
$51 billion.
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