You are the PMO Director for World of Wonder. One of the programs managed by the company is a high visibility both for the government and your company valued at $1B. Your company currently does not have a contractor management process and your program has three subcontractors.Define processes as covered in this Unit to assist WW to properly manage the subcontractors. You must provide a 20 slide PowerPoint presentation. Follow the rubric to make sure you cover the vendor/contractor relationships functional model and scorecard example.

What went wrong?

The government decided to divide the contract for the design, development and production of a new radio into two separate contracts. One contract would be for the design and prototype development of the radios and it would be led by a Lead System Integrator (LSI) company. This was Contract A. The second contract, Contract B, would be issued upon completion of Contract A and would be to produce multiple units of the selected prototype.Both contracts would be re-competed so vendors who won Contract A not necessarily were guaranteed to produce the radio during Contract B.At the time the contract was let, the requirements were not finalized.World of Wonder was selected to be the LSI. Company World of Wonder (WW) had extensive defense and lead systems integration experience. WW was collocated with the government customer, so it made it easy to participate in weekly status reviews and be able to resolve any issues. Three companies were selected as subcontractors. Two subcontractors were selected for the design and prototype development phase of now two different radios.Both had extensive hardware experience and defense expertise.Both companies were known defense competitors who had great interest of being LSI under contract B and be able to win the production of their own radio.Both companies had no interest in having WW be part of the management team during Contract B. Company Nanotech would develop a version of the radio at a contract value of $400M.They had a local presence.Company DistributeX would develop the second radio.They were remote.They received a contract valued at $400M. The third subcontractor would generate all the logistic support requirements.This subcontractor was a business unit from a separate company under WW, named MiniWorld.The contract value for Miniworld was $25M.The remaining CV was allocated to WW. The government would then choose the design that would go into production.The third subcontractor was a division of the LSI within a separate company. The contract was valued at $1B and it was a CPAF.The LSI named a Vice President to lead the complex technical program.There were three subcontract program managers who reported to the Director of Subcontract Management. He reported to the Program Vice President. The subcontract managers would manage the day to day interaction with Nanotech, Distribute X, and MiniWorld.As time progressed both contractors developing the radios were over running in cost and behind schedule.The program was managed with Earned Value Management techniques. The Director spent most of his time addressing fire drills with the VP.Every day there was a different issue.The VP was known for throwing temper tantrums. All internal reviews were shouting matches.Both Nanotech and Distribute X started running into design problems. WW costs were also increasing because they had to micromanage Nanotech and DistributeX closely to be able to contain the cost and meet schedule.Earned value was assessed on a weekly basis.WW also ran into relationship problems with the customer.Funding was not flowing to WW as expected which in turn meant that funding to all subcontractors was also late. Nanotech was managed by a seasoned program manager who was not afraid to hold Nanotech accountable or speak her mind at executive meetings.She properly balance the views of the subcontractor and the views of her company.The VP would have preferred she always agree with him at all cost. Distribute X was managed by a subcontract manager who lived in Arizona but during the week returned to San Diego to managed the contractor.He was notorious for attending meetings and avoiding actions. Overtime was not in his schedule.MiniWorld was managed by a relocated program manager who had been in the company for close to twenty years and was counting down days to his retirement.He never volunteered to take the slack from anyone else on the team.There was no specific way to rate the performance of the subcontractors.All three subcontract managers had a good relationship with WW Director but the Director would lack backbone to tell the VP when he disagreed with his approach and back up his team. At least four subcontract program managers were victims of the execution of the contracts. The program was re-baselined twice in a course of two years. meaning all CPI and SPI was reset. Upon execution of both re-baselined efforts, within a couple of months once again, all subcontractors were having cost, technical and schedule problems.However, Nonotech had been able to develop a limited prototype which could only 5 of the 8 communication requirements. Nanotech also had the habit of communicating directly with customer without going thru WW.Many times was WW requested to meet with the customer based on information provided by Nanotech. Both Nanotech and Distribute X issued stop work orders whenever their funding was late.Both Nanotech and DistributeX were subcontractors to each other for a portion of their individual contracts.It was a full web of horrors.Nanotech hired Distribute X's testing division and DistributeX hired Nanotech's metal construction division. After three years of challenges with cost, technical and schedule problems, the program was eventually cancelled.The director was demoted and the government representative retired. What went wrong? What could have been done internally at WW?What could have been done to properly managed the subcontractors?

Rubric:

Grammar, Spelling, Format

Used proper grammar, spelling and format and submitted a 20 slide presentation.

Manage vendor/Contractor Relationship

Describe what processes will you institute that could have been used to manage the vendor/contractor relationship prior to issuing the Request for Proposal.

Manage vendor/contractor acquisition

Define the processes that could have been used to manage the vendor/relationship acquisition.

Manage vendor/contractor Performance

Define the processes that could have been used to manage the vendor/contractor performance.

Define a performance subcontractor scorecard

Using the information on the case and the template presented in class, create a subcontractor scorecard for this case study which covers all three subcontractors. You can make up the information on contract information and ratings. You are to explain your ratings.