Reports

Let's suppose we ignore the GWOT for a moment and concentrate on the success of the reconstruction program. The Congress threw a heap of money into the IIRF in 2003, and later, into the IIRF-1. From that huge pot of cash, there were 5576 planned projects, of which 5551 have been started and 5077 completed.

Then along came a veritable Pottery Barn full of tubs of money, including DFI, MNCI, USAID, ISFF, CERP, ESF, Miscellaneous Donors, and "others". Including these sources, our totals increase to 14224 projects, 13562 starts, and 11990 completions.

But wait, there's more!

Additional funds came from OMA and MILCON. With them, there are 14760 projects, of which 14075 have started and 12434 completed. The total value is just over $15 Billion, or around a million dollars a piece. However, the size and complexity range from less than $50,000 to well over $100 Million.

"Hey", you might ask. "Didn't you say we'd spent $30 Billion on reconstruction?"

I did. Good luck finding the other fifteen.

Regardless of your preferred method of accounting, this is the program than needs managing. Some 15,000 projects at 15,000 locations, with 15,000 individual contracts, plans, and specifications. 15,000 sets of documentation and 15,000 sets of project data. To provide some perspective, the Company numbers each of our projects and it took us the better part of 95 years to complete 15,000 projects. Here, it was accomplished in four years and, as with the Company, they're a little behind on the filing.

As many of you are aware, individual project management is no small task. However, projects are generally discreet, whereas this program is continuously growing into new and interesting shapes. Ultimately, while project management is about getting the bricks and mortar into a neat pile, the core of the program management is reporting the status of the piles of bricks and mortar. Is the pile tall enough? Was the piling done in time? Have all of the bricks been used?

In base form, I've already done what 500 people do full time. I told you above that we are 82.42% complete with all projects. Sounds easy enough - until some agency asks the level of completion of CERF funded communications projects in Arbil. Someone else may want to know the projected project dollars spent from last April through 2008 for primary healthcare centers contracts less than $100,000 in the USACE Southern District.

I'm not saying these folks need these particular data sets, they just want these particular data sets. When it's something that gets reported in a regular format and on a regular schedule, it's called reporting. When the request is for a new arrangement of data (usually exchanging rows for columns and usually for a briefing ten minutes from now), it's called a "drive by". Drive by reporting is a massive time waster, and probably keeps a score or more employed.

That's neither here nor there. The key thing is the reporting. Primarily, it's to the flock of general officers who see the reconstruction as integral to the success of our mission here. The reports also satisfy the needs of the various funding groups,... and Laura Bush.

So to satisfy these requests - we need a huge data base.

And we'll give it a name.

And the name will be grand!

And we'll call it ----- IRMS!!!!!!

Of course, it's a freaking acronym. What isn't?

IRMS, the Iraq Reconstruction Management System, gets some of its data from the field project managers through their own independent data base, other data from schedulers in USACE district offices using third party software, more from the various sectors gleaned from their various spreadsheets and trackers, and who knows what else from where else. It's a huge, huge thing, and is served and massaged by the fifty Company people that we already have here.

While we knead the IRMS, the primary focus of the four Sectors is to feed it. Unfortunately, the change in shape of this program over the years has resulted in changes to the form of the data, resulting in a number of reporting inefficiencies and some IRMS indigestion (Vaal is unhappy). A clear advantage to the consolidation of the sectors under the one Company is that data input standards can once again be imposed and the IRMS will again receive wholesome, fiber-rich data entry, vital to the production of regular reports.

At that point, we'll be able to better control the drive bys and Laura Bush, and I'll be able to report with confidence that we're 82.42% complete with all projects.