The Billion Dollar Event

I was literally begging my friend for an invite. I mean, who wouldn’t? It was a One Billion Dollar event. Yes, Billion, with a B. When I heard through the grapevine the event would be held in Atlanta, just an hour away, I immediately called my connection at the Pentagon.?He was a fellow Lieutenant Colonel doing process improvement work in DC. To my surprise, not only did he know about the event, but he was the Project Officer making all the logistical arrangements.?Which he meant he could get me a golden ticket.

After incessant begging, he agreed to slip me in; under the condition, I was to sit in the back and not make a peep.?I agreed. A month later I was driving to Atlanta.

The road to this event was several years in the making. It should be no surprise it involved federal government money and bureaucracy.?It was the National Guard-Reserve Equipment Allocation (NGREA, pronounced Na-GREE-Ah) process. It was a procedure in which Federal funds were identified and distributed to purchase gear for the National Guard and Reserve Units of the Army and Air Force.?Such gear includes uniforms, rifles, tanks, bomber aircraft, and more. The amounts of money involved are in the tens of billions of dollars. And the process involved was a tangled mess of complexity of federal, state, and private industry regulations that had festered and mutated over the years. At the time of the event, it was taking an average of just over one year for money allocated to NGREA to be formally committed to purchasing (and then even longer for the equipment to be actually purchased and delivered). It was like putting money in a jar with a RENT label on it.?The money was supposed to go to the landlord, but until it was handed over at the end of the month, you use the money for other stuff.

During one presidential administration, it was determined that more money was needed for an education initiative; money that could be moved by executive action, not requiring congressional approval.?That’s when somebody noticed the jar with the NGREA Label on it. It’d been up on the shelf for a while and was stuffed with about a billion dollars. With the wave of a Presidential pen, the money got moving…but out of NGREA jar and into the pockets of the Department of Education.

The Senior Executive Series (SES-a civil servant that is roughly equal to a General or Admiral) who oversaw the NGREA were none too happy about this.?The lead SES decided something must be done. So convened a working group to look at the matter; to drive some action to reduce the time money sat in the NGREA pipeline so it couldn’t be taken again. Somebody on his staff must have been in a Process Improvement class because they billed it as a “Rapid Improvement Event” (RIE) which is how I got wind of it.

Arriving in Atlanta, I wasn’t sure what to expect.?I thought they might follow the standard RIE format:

1. Review the problem statement to ensure everyone was on the same page
2. Map the current state
3. Do an Ideal state that helps identify wastes and to get the creative thoughts flowing
4. Develop a Future State map that would address waste in the current state
5. Draft an action plan to get to the future state

It was a tried and true approach.?I thought that with a billion dollars involved they might use gold-plated dry erase markers and maybe have Starbucks Coffee in the room instead of the cheap crud we usually had at military events. But what happened was a surprise.

First, it was at a three-star hotel. Usually, military events were held in some non-descript conference room on a base. But the rumor was the SES leading the event had been at the Pentagon since it was built, and, as such, had a bit of sway. So a hotel was booked. Second, we did have good coffee and a wonderful lunch. Unfortunately, those two items were the highlight of my visit.

Walking into the three-star hotel’s main ballroom was the first surprise. Most DoD events take place in some non-descript conference room on a military base. The second surprise was the sheer size of the room and the number of people.?The room had tables set up in a giant U shape with two screens at the opening of the U.?This was ideal for facilitating, as it allowed everyone to see the screen and each other.?But there were 48 chairs around the tables…all filled.?I sat in a chair along the back wall with about 20 or so more “observers” and assorted aides. Altogether there were about 70 people in the room. With this many I expected it to be quite raucous…so many people were bound to get into discussions. How the facilitators were going to handle this was going to be interesting; and led to more surprises.

There was a two-man team upfront facilitating the event, with a few support staff sitting in the back with me. We started late (no surprise there). After the introductions (which took close to half an hour with the 48 around the table talking about themselves) the SES gave an opening statement (another 30 minutes as he rambled through the problem facing the group). The facilitators were hired from a large consulting firm, well known to the DOD community. They were well dressed, well-spoken, and well prepared to take over the event.

After the SES’ opening remarks, the facilitators began a presentation.?A PowerPoint deck with slide after slide about the history of NGREA and how the recent transfer of funds was allowed to happen. When they were done, it was lunchtime. After lunch, another PowerPoint. This time it presented a possible future process. Yet it was missing something…

There was no group input. It was being presented to this room full of people that were supposed to be a “working group.” By my understanding, this group was to work on the problem.?I was expecting them to provide input, propose solutions, and contribute ideas. But, instead, they were being lectured to…the solution was being dictated to them. And that’s how the first day ended.

But there were so many questions I had in my mind. The proposed future state was focused on how to speed up the flow of funds through the pipeline. But the focus was solely on actions under the Pentagon’s control. There was nothing about how the Guard and Reserve Commands submitted requests (which had a huge impact on flow). There was no input from the Treasury Department, Government Office of Accountability, or any other organization that dealt with financials. And there was no discussion about reducing the dollar amount in the pipeline. To improve flow, you can build a bigger pipe, you can reduce the amount going into the pipe, or you can do both. They only wanted a bigger pipe.

The second day was only a half-day; ending at lunchtime allowed the attendees to catch afternoon flights back home. The morning was filled with recaps of day one, a closing speech by the SES on a job well done, and a list of nebulous action items. The?list was a bunch of generalized tasks with no clear owners or definite due dates.

It was a dull ride home. The event left me feeling hollow. I had such high hopes that such a big event would be full of collaboration, innovations, and action. But in the end, it was a bunch of predetermined actions being mandated to the attendees. There was not any engagement of participants and no new ideas were brought forth by the workers.

I did not keep up with NGREA after the event…there were other things to do. A couple of years later I remember seeing an article about NGREA funds being shifted to emergency relief funds after some disaster. Two years ago a large chunk of NGREA was diverted to pay for border wall construction.?So apparently the billion-dollar event did not have much success.

Have you ever been to a unique event? Something outrageously huge in scope? Or perhaps an intriguing problem??It would be great to hear about them in the comments.

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