Beyond FTS2000: A Program for Change Appendix A -- FTS2000 Case Study (1989) / Chapter Skim
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2 Development of the Strategy for FTS2000: 1984
2 Development of the Strategy for FTS2000: 1984
Pages 10-18
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From page 10... ...
A tall, rangy individual whose youthful enthusiasm, hector, and bearing belied the grey hair and beard, he moved from Chicago to settle into an almost monastic existence in Arlington where replacing the FTS became his life. The strategy evolved from the interaction of complementary viewpoints in a small team stimulated by the long-range planning discussions.
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From page 11... ...
They could not hope to attract them from outside the government due to the prevailing Office of Personnel Management (OPM) policies regarding pay and the OPM hiring process; AT&T at that time was not able to help GSA, partly because it had not come to terms with the fact that deregulation had changed the world and was beginning to bring telecommunications under the laws governing competition and competitive regulations.
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From page 12... ...
network and go their own way. OMB provided a sympathetic audience for such moves; there was too much technical risk in interfering with the existing network to any large extent as the FTS was a critical system on which the whole of the government depended for day-to-day operation; there was no resource and capability anywhere in the government or private sector with sufficient experience to design a new network of the FTS's size other than the common carriers themselves; any replacement plan that required up-front funds would take many years to gain congressional approval and in all probability would fail in the world of tight budgets as the deficit rose; it was logically impossible to determine requirements for future data usage, but the governmental procurement system was firmly rooted in a process that mandated the development of requirements estimates.
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From page 13... ...
The session was held between the head of the Office of Telecommunications Services, the head of the Office of Network Services, and the head of the Office of Information Resources Procurement. Development of the annual operating plan was beginning and the session was to determine what was to be planned for the coming fiscal year.
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From page 14... ...
This appeared to answer some of the problems with approach 1 but it suffered from a major flaw that there were no experienced potential vendors who had dealt with networks of the size of FTS other than the common carriers. The way of doing business implied by this alternative was not that favored by the common carriers, who preferred alternative 3.
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From page 15... ...
was to take market share at the expense of profit and their common approach was to cut their costs by building their own networks. In all cases, their new network technology was predominantly digital -- fiber optic transmission, digital switching, software control of networks -- to cut the cost of voice transmission.
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From page 16... ...
The strategy hence was to: buy services, (not hardware) and reflect the service plans of the common carriers in the specification; thereby, shift technical activities to the service provider and get rid of the dedicated system; pay for services consumed, not hardware; make a single award to a single prime contractor; evaluate the bidding teams' capabilities to accomplish the transition safely; provide no up-front payments and make only minimum guarantees to avoid lock-in to the winning contractor; and require a service oversight center to measure the quality and quantity of services delivered for payment and billing purposes.
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From page 17... ...
What was important was to get the common carrier industry working as quickly as possible on the government's problem using their own tested methods for creating capacity against uncertain requirements. The only process that seemed promising for GSA in this unique situation was to press energetically ahead in the general strategic direction described, while at the same time revealing as openly as possible the proposed direction.
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From page 18... ...
To help create a sense of urgency, GSA was deliberately optimistic about the procurement schedule in public announcements. THE COMMITMENT IS MADE AND THE PROGRAM STARTS At meetings on the November 8 and 19, 1984, senior GSA management were briefed regarding the essentials of the strategy and the proposed timetable.
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