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NASA's Outsourced Computer People Are Even Worse Than You Might Expect (arstechnica.com)
Eric berger, writing for ArsTechnica: As part of a plan to help NASA "modernize" its desktop and laptop computers, the space agency signed a $2.5 billion services contract with HP Enterprise Services in 2011. According to HP (now HPE), part of the Agency Consolidated End-User Service (ACES) program the computing company would "modernize NASA's entire end-user infrastructure by delivering a full range of personal computing services and devices to more than 60,000 users." HPE also said the program would "allow (NASA) employees to more easily collaborate in a secure computing environment." The services contract, alas, hasn't gone quite as well as one might have hoped. This week Federal News Radio reported that HPE is doing such a poor job that NASA's chief information officer, Renee Wynn, could no longer accept the security risks associated with the contract. Wynn, therefore, did not sign off on the authority to operate (ATO) for systems and tools.A spokesperson for NASA said: "NASA continues to work with HPE to remediate vulnerabilities. As required by NASA policy, system owners must accomplish this remediation within a specified period of time. For those vulnerabilities that cannot be fully remediated within the established time frame, a Plan of Actions and Milestones (POAM) must be developed, approved, and tracked to closure."
It's called lobbying (aka bribery). You funnel lots of money into the campaigns, foundations, or libraries of powerful people (for example....Secretaries of State) and magically you get whatever you want. Big government contracts. Laws that hinder your competitors. Regulations that benefit you personally. Tax breaks. The list goes on and on and on...
Or even make a decision without having to have 18 meetings with people who don't give a rip and don't know anything.
When I becane an IT manager, I instituted a "two meeting" rule. The first meeting to broach and issue and discuss it, and the second meeting to complete the discussion and make a decision.
This enraged people, who wanted multiple meetings spread out over weeks. Great way to avoid accountability but I wouldn't allow it. So people then started coming to me individually, post-decision, trying to get me to reconsider or have another meeting.
Sorry. I would rather have risked a sub-optimal decision than have no decision at all---- and the additional dozen meetings very likely would have resulted in something worse, not better.
I only lasted a few years in that job. Too counter-culture. (I also --- gasp --- got rid of subordinate managers who weren't getting the job done.)