This Guest paper was submitted for publication and is copyright to Mark A. Seely© 2016.
Published here May 2017

PART 4 | Editor's Note & Table of Contents
Chapter 11: Dynamic Baseline Model (DBM) Implementation
Establishing a Realistic Performance Expectation | Managing Performance at each Level - Section 1
Level  4: Enter the Challenge of Risk | Bringing it to Ground | Measuring Performance at each Level
Seeking Opportunities for Improvement  | Chapter 12: Conclusion | The DBM Ten Commandments
Appendix A: DBM Complexity Diagnostic | PART 6

Seeking Opportunities for Improvement

Level 1
Opportunities for improvement should address the overhead utility question, Direct Labor vs. Indirect Labor and Overhead bearing equipment, the degree of automation and the associated investment.

Level 2
Opportunities to improve upon an anticipated outcome generally focus on "crashing" or "fast tracking" the project. Crashing entails incurring added costs to accelerate schedule as with, for example, adding another shift. Fast tracking is a decision in risks to break the logic of precedents within the schedule — starting dependent successor task prior to knowing the outcome of a precedent task.

Level 3
Given the state of chaos associated with dynamic complexity, it becomes hard to distinguish opportunities from threats. Embracing the positive side here, every position taken by the Program Manager is an opportunity for improvement — i.e. against the backdrop of imminent failure.

Relaxing functional requirements, reducing scope, perhaps making for but not with, paring back to the fundamentals and allowing the product to "evergreen" through time may enhance traction. Effective phasing of the implementation, through concept, definition, build, may enable a greater sense of stability.

Level 4
Generally Level 4 solutions entail simplifying the implementation to a less than appealing functionality, a concept that is within the art-of-the-practical. The greater purpose is to rebalance end user base in favour of a new harmonization. This is a tall order when they may be paying hundreds of millions of dollars to then find the new solution is less functionally robust than the legacy system. Once the new orientation takes hold, functional enhancements through evergreening will be closer to Level 2 intervention.

Level 5
Level 5's require a sound estimation of the public mindset that will intercept the initiative in its implementation phase. Understanding the public mood and engineering this mood to the extent possible through discussion forums, op eds and the like enhance the interception.

Measuring Performance at each Level   Measuring Performance at each Level

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