The Challenge of Meeting the CALS Mandate

Presented by:

Cynthia Hauer and Dona Mason

Since one-third of application-development projects are canceled before completion, and of the remaining two thirds, half will overrun initial cost estimates (Standish Group survey), implementing the functional elements of CALS in a business makes strategical, tactical, and operational sense. If this statement is true, then why aren't more businesses implementing CALS? Trying to implement the moving target of CALS as the government decides what is a "CALS requirement" today and changes their mind tomorrow is costly, has little return on investment (ROI), and requires the business to be a "good guesser" of the future. Even the CALS strategies that are brilliantly inducing product quality and faster time to market fail because they were not clearly defined, the culture shock is too large, and/or the lead-time to implementation is huge.

Despite these drawbacks, local companies are continuing to implement CALS and are successful because they maintain good strategy and planning, make good technology choices, have a long-term commitment, and most important, the companies have a clear definition of communication and goals. Building an infrastructure to allow CALS to flourish is a barrier to CALS implementation. The investment in computer hardware, software, networks, internet/extranet, security, obsolescence management, and core personnel cost is often too much. Small companies have an easier time implementing CALS than large companies. This is because (1) small companies' cost of implementation for a small number of employees is lower, (2) past implementations bar larger companies from reinvesting too soon and updating their infrastructure, and (3) the culture is more flexible in small companies due to one-on-one management/training. The businesses that are successfully implementing CALS have defined infrastructure plans that extend into the future, have reviewed all their business processes with CALS fundamentals as a measurement, and most of all have incorporated CALS into their mission. They also maintainCALS communication channels to increase accuracy in future forecasting. CALS does return investment and gives companies a competitive advantage in the marketplace if the company can meet the CALS challenge.