Page 253 - Global Project Management Handbook

12-14 COMPETENCY FACTORS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Strategic Cities Program
In the late summer and early fall of 2004, the insurgency was increasing, particularly
in the Sunni triangle area of central Iraq. The MNFs, the U.S. Department of State,
and the Iraqi government directed a focused effort to win the peace in these cities. The
Strategic Cities Program (SCP) was created to accomplish this. The program plan was
simple; first, the MNFs would defeat the insurgency, and then, immediately following
the end of hostilities, various groups, including the PCO, would move in to start
rebuilding the city, and the IRMO would coordinate the stabilization process.

Program Contractor Role Adjusted
As mentioned earlier, a contractor called the Program and Contracting Office Contractor
(PCOC) was retained on a cost-plus basis to manage the IRRF II program. This created
a situation where one government contractor was managing other government contrac-
tors. In the summer of 2004, it became clear that this arrangement would not work for
two reasons. First, the contractor was slow to mobilize the right people to Iraq, and sec-
ond, the government moved strong leaders into Iraq early on. With the PCOC short of
the right people to manage the program, government leaders stepped in to run the pro-
gram. This illustrated one advantage to cost-plus contracts. That is, when something is
not working, you can quickly adjust a contractor’s scope to correct the situation.

A DB Contractor Fails

A total of 13 cost-plus contracts were awarded to DB contractors. All the contractors
mobilized to Iraq in the second quarter of 2004 and began work immediately. All but
one contractor was able to subcontract work to local Iraqi subcontractors and make
positive progress on projects.
It became apparent in late summer of 2004 that this one contractor was not going
to do any actual on-site project work. At that time, the PCO had two options. One
option was to fire the contractor and potentially sue the contractor for not fulfilling the
contract, and the second option was to negotiate a “termination for convenience.” In

the end, the PCO negotiated a termination for convenience with the contractor because
it was the quickest thing to do, and the entire focus of the program was speed, that is,
to get projects started. It was later reported in the press that the contractor left Iraq
because it was unsafe to work in Iraq, but the press missed the fact that all the other
12 contractors were still working in Iraq.

Contracting Office
Regulatory compliance is a big deal when awarding and executing government con-
tracts. And if the contracts are cost-plus, which all the contracts in Iraq were, the
bureaucratic regulatory compliance effort becomes a bigger effort. Because of this, the
government contracting officers and the contracting office were very important. In
fact, it was not unusual that the contracting officer thought that he or she was the proj-
ect manager because he or she was responsible for making sure that funds were only
disbursed for work that was completed in compliance with the contract and within the
intent of the law.