Nunn-McCurdy

On September 8, 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed the Nunn-McCurdy provision into law. When the unit cost of a weapons program grows past set limits, the Defense Department must notify Congress.

A rise of 25 percent over the current baseline, or 50 percent over the original, is a critical breach. Then “the program must be terminated unless the Secretary of Defense certifies in writing” that it meets set conditions. A program that continues is restructured and needs a new milestone approval. Only a critical breach allows its original baseline to be revised.

No Consideration Needed

The Uniform Commercial Code governs the sale of goods in American state law. Section 2-209(1) reads: “An agreement modifying a contract within this Article needs no consideration to be binding.”

In contract law, consideration is what each side gives in exchange for the other’s promise. Under this section, the parties can change the deal without a new exchange.

The Webb Replan

In 2010 an independent panel chaired by John Casani reviewed the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA later told Congress that “the problems causing cost growth and schedule delays were associated with budgeting and program management.”

In August 2011 NASA announced a new plan. It assumed “a revised life-cycle-cost of about $8.7 billion” and a “launch readiness date of October 2018.”

Notice of Late Filing

An American public company that cannot file its annual report on time files a notice with the Securities and Exchange Commission, known as Form NT 10-K. A timely notice gives an automatic grace period of 15 days for the annual report, and five days for a quarterly report.

The warning helps, but it does not remove the cost. The business-school professors Eli Bartov of NYU and Yaniv Konchitchki of Berkeley found that stock prices fall after these notices. Investors “do not accept at face value management assertions about the expected filing date.”

Deadline Talk

Is Friday realistic? What’s a realistic timeline? — The deadline is open to discussion before it is set.

Heads-up: this is going to slip. — A warning that the date will be missed, given before it is missed.

Can I get an extension? — A request for more time.

By end of day. By close of business Friday. — The deadline, stated to the hour.

Down to the wire. At the eleventh hour. Pull an all-nighter. — The work is finished at the last moment.

The Agile Manifesto

From 11 to 13 February 2001, seventeen software practitioners met at a ski lodge at Snowbird, Utah, and in three days wrote sixty-eight words. The fourth of the four values is the one that matters here: responding to change over following a plan. Not instead of a plan — over it. The plan is acknowledged as valuable and then explicitly ranked second to the ability to change course.

The change order

The American answer to scope creep is a document. Either party proposes a change in writing, the supplier delivers an impact assessment naming the effect on fees, timeline and acceptance criteria, both sides approve, and only then does the work proceed.

The standard clause is blunt: work performed without an approved change order is performed at the consultant’s risk and may not be billable.

The American supplier is not defending the boundary of the work. He is building the machinery to price its expansion.

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