2014 Issue

34 It is important to keep your understanding of the mission at the highest levels and to assign 3 to 5 mission capability measures such as availability, reliability, and surviv- ability. Thesemeasures could be called Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) or another appropriate name – but there should be no more than half a dozen or so at the top mis- sion level. Each risk is written against one or more of thesemeasures or against safety. To proactively keep your system meeting its mission, you must observe the system to detect risks to these parameters. You must precisely define the risks to each af- fected measure in a language that allows priorities to be set. Mitigationsmay include hardware or software fixes which must be designed and sold to customers. Funds and other resources have to be found with sufficient lead time to support the observ- ing, risk handling, and fixing. PRISMprovides a systematic means to suc- cessfully accomplish all of this. How might this apply to your system? Here’s an example on a civilian system. Let’s say you work for a large oil company that owns a lot of oil producing land. Since much of it is also good farm land, they also farm the land. Your job is to make sure all the farm-related equipment is sustained, that is, it is in good working order to sup- port the mission of growing crops. Your readiness factors would be availability, reliability, environmental compliance, and safety. Any one of these areas could stop production, but they are all completely dif- ferent fromeach other and easy to precisely define. When the farm worker goes to get the equipment, is it available? When the worker uses it, will it break too often? Will your equipment pass all legal muster across all environmental rules and laws? Could anyone get hurt or could equipment be damaged? You will want to set up a way to keep an eye on all these things. Find a standard way to explain the impact and likelihood of any risks, and whether the problem will happen sooner or later. All of this will help you convince your boss of what money and other resources you need to ensure the mission continues. The PRISM™ approach uses this simple framework to establish adequate observa- tion, identification, and planning to ensure adequate resources so that the mission is accomplished each day. There is much more detail to this, of course. In our fully developed system we have effective and affordable IT tools to keep track of all the details. We run everything with standard- ized processes and we can quickly and ef- fectively audit and change themas needed. We encourage adoption of the risk-driven culture across every stakeholder. Our ap- proach to tracking programs that mitigate risks is top in its class. If you have a system and you can identify the mission it supports, you can use the PRISM™ approach. Be prepared to es- tablish top level measures, inspire a new culture, and sustain your systemwith afford- able tools. About the Author Col (RET) Charles T. Vono’s Air Force career began with graduation from the USAF Academy in 1976 and included pilot, engineer, quality, planning, and Reserve Advisor to PACOM. His 25 year civilian career has provided him a broad experience in ICBMs. Charles is currently writing the definitive book on PRISM. You can contact Charles at PRISM- Approach@ngc.com. He is an active Senior Member of AIAA. PRISM TM APPROACH | continued from page 33