This is the one of several posts to illustrate the difference between “acquiring a system” and “providing a service”, that I raised in a previous post. [Intelink-U cross-post]
Several years ago (~2006), I was on three peer-review-teams for big DoD ERP implementations (DEAMS, GFEBS, and IDE-GTN Convergence)
These “ERAM” reviews had a bunch of process and structure, but the important thing was that we had a team of smart folks do several days of on-site interviews with involved personnel: we interviewed everyone from the 3-star sponsor to the GS-9 users, the contracting officer, the gov’t Program Manager (PM), the Program Executive Officer (PEO), the chief engineer, the contractor’s PM, the software jocks writing the code, and anyone else we could think of.
One of the questions I remember asking folks in the PMO (Program Management Office) was this: “When you are done building this system, who is going to operate it?”
Generally, when we asked this question, we would get a puzzled, head-cocked-to-the-side look, like the RCA dog.