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On the military side we've started to look at things like having options to get into a project management 'stream' for some of the officer occupations, which is already being done a bit haphazardly via job posting preferences and career management, but generally with the turnover it makes more sense for military pers to support dedicated civilians as the lead. That way you still have experienced folks who know the processes in the mix, with relelvant knowledge of the actual on the ground requirements and realities. I'm one of the weirdos that like contracts, so keep getting back into the ADM(Mat) world as a military guy.Sorry I misunderstood "Pete". I'm hearing you now.
I can see that if you have spent a career in uniform managing contracts that your experiences are not much different than those of a civilian that has spent a career managing contracts.
But perhaps that goes to my point? If you are short of qualified bodies in the procurement field how do you find suitable, military friendly, candidates to fill the gaps?
I agree entirely with your point on MBAs and not talking to the plant floor - and that is a nation wide, if not a First World problem (a real one).
McKInsey et al keep telling the bosses that they can get you to 95% efficiency. And I keep telling whoever will listen that 70% is a much more realistic planning horizon. I don't make what McKinsey makes.
The plus side is that with the vacancies and the military priority hiring program, a lot of people can jump into a civi job after a posting, but with the hiring freeze and SWE limits we generally have way more work than people, and with burnout working somewhere other than DND is a pretty appealing alternative.
On the civilian side it seems to be a long decline from DRAP, where we reduced positions with a hiring freeze, so there is a bow wave of experienced folks retiring now, a period where we weren't hiring new people, and a lot of new folks just coming up to speed now. So not uncommon to have a mix of really experienced people with really new people and not much in between, so the retirements hit pretty hard.
I don't really think there is much we can do about it at this point, as it's been building for over a decade, but we do have a lot of stuff on hold that we just can't get to, so when the organization plans around for us 'surging' to do more, I just shake my head. Our daily output is the surge, and burnout is a real and consistent issue already.
I agree with you on the efficiency; I'm not sure how to actually come up with a number, but suspect 70% would be pretty high.
We have a lot of internal churn and losses just by the GoC processes. I'm sure we spend several thousand dollars in wages though for every basic travel claim though just in admin, and it seems like buying $50 of o-rings is about the same LOE as buying $24,999 worth ($25k is still the threshold for a lot of other processes to kick in, which is really low for some items).
Little things like the mandatory GBA+ form are an annoyance in the grand scheme of things, but seems like something that anytime at all spent on things like that for random part buys is wasted, and it all adds up over the enterprise to a not-insignificant LOE spent every year on things with no actual value. Especially when it could have been either exempted for standard re-supply buys, or added onto an existing form with a checkbox for "N/A".
For context, I think a normal parts buy needs a PCC form, which covers the tech details, quantities, etc, an SRCL for the security requirements, the GBA+ form, the Indigenous procurement form, and sometimes a few other ones. Once those are all approved, that will turn into an actual RFP, which is it's own beast. Best case the various forms only need signed by the procurement officer and tech authority, but sometimes will also need other stakeholders, and can go as high as the DG (or ADM, if it's a routine buy of really expensive widgets).
Projects are their own thing, with NP and capitol ones having their own hoops, and then a lot of complications for the implementation side of things, but things that should be easy take more time than seems reasonable, so leaves less time to figure out the complicated things.
Frustrating to work in, and see a lot of internal waste as a taxpayer, but sometimes spite against the system and coffee is the motivator needed to kick some bureaucracy over the line to get parts eventually showing up in bins.