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Hey Miller, can you hear?

This comment was misplaced under "RIF tally"; I feel, it should be a post by itself!
If George cannot hear this, he will never anything else:

Here we fo:

Time is running out on LLNS and George.

Until recently, employees have withheld judgement, to see how LLNS would restructure the lab. They have now seen enough to predict failure. The facts look bad.

1. LLNS management does not have command of information. This has made Miller's proclamations a source of ridicule.
a. "No layoffs in first year"
b."substantially equivalent"
c."We can cover the costs of transition without staff reductions"
d. "Leidle will lead a team to save $30M."
e. " We need to recover $80M... ah $280M, ah...."

2. The $50M/year fee to access the best practices of industry is wasted.
a. Bechtel, Battelle and BWXT have provided nothing of value. The senior industrial replacements brought nothing but themselves. They ask questions to try to solve problems, but provide nothing intrinsic or improved for the $50M/year fee.
b. LLNL was to implement industry best practice top to bottom accounting systems and practices...
b. and industry standard, improved project management software integrated seamlessly into the financial accounting system...
c. and standard IT practices...
d. and industry-best program development practices...
e. Formerly effective and decisive lab leaders are now waiting for their industrial partners to act decisively and effectively. But the new industrial leaders, alone, inexperienced and without the industrial infrastructure to support them, are unable to see their way forward. Little is getting done, except a reshuffling of the organization charts.

3. Miller is surrounded by folks inferior to those UC provided.
a. Leidle is no Mara, etc., The new practices in human resources are a retention timebomb.
b. Many folks in 111 are not trained for the jobs they hold, nor familiar with industrial practices, because they are experienced only in the unique public sector/government contractor relationship UC and NNSA developed under years of contract 48. They cannot initiate effective change, they do not even understand the basic principles.

5. There are no resources to pay for change. This significant organizational experiment, tearing down one system and standing up a replacement has a price.
a. Yet $280M is pulled out to waste on non-productive costs.
b. Miller is now raiding programs to pay for transition costs by reducing support to programs without reducing the burden rates, effectively increasing the cost of doing business.
c. No capital is provided to pay for the necessary changes.

6. Throughout the lab, employees lack confidence.
a. Awaiting better (industrial) leadership, they now wait rather than act. Decisions are deferred, innovation has ceased, awaiting directions that do not come.
b. Morale for these formerly effective, dynamic high-achievers is at an all time low, seriously affecting productivity. Retention will follow.(Try to find a leader not on vacation last week)

In short, the Bodman/D'Agostino organizational experiment, like Cheney's Iraq adventures, has been done on the cheap, without adequate thought to the long-term consequences. THEY DIRECTED THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EXISTING INFRASTRUCURE WITHOUT THOUGHT AS TO HOW TO REPLACE IT. The result is likely to be a stumbling, crippled ineffective organization for a long time, hidden from the public by Susan Houghton's spinmeisters.

Iraq, Mortgage bubble, destruction of the national labs.
Not a bad record for a President....

Comments

Anonymous said…
"2.a" is so painfully true... I get to my office every morning and feel like I'm in that Bill Murray time looping movie "Groundhog Day" when I hear about the latest LLNS partner idea for improving the Lab... Did everyone notice that Leidle had to back away from his cost cutting idea of closing the Lab library and canceling journal subscriptions - I guess someone pointed out that LLNL is suppose to be a research lab/think tank not a production site, and cutting off our connection to the research community was not such a hot idea
anon said…
This post mirrors my thoughts to a T. My WFO's ceased almost a year ago and I was read out of the programs in B140 as I gave up my SCI. I've since seen the latest nonsense out the current leader in the Global Security Div. and the placement of 3 Phd types now in charge of non existent programs, or if the programs do exist, they'll have to spread their "costs" amongst them to pay their salaries as they have of their own. What's the value added?
Folks, this absolutely breaks my heart to see what was once one of the greatest institutes on the planet, now being reduced to rubble. This, along with the current fiasco in Iraq has to go down as one of the biggest frauds on the American tax payer. Reminds me of my X wifes famous last words, when I found out she was fooling around on the side, "it's over". Sad but true, one just loses more than the other, but here, we all lose.

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