Congratulations to Mr. Chris Miller, the newly appointed PEO for the Department of Defense Healthcare Management System (DHMS). He made a quick transition out of his current position as Executive Director of SPAWAR Systems Center ATLANTIC in Charleston (Gettin’ out while the Gettin’s Good!). I don’t blame him for jumping ship! As I detailed in my blog 19 July (What’s Hot in Charleston?), Mr. Miller has been getting increasingly frustrated in his job.
Mr. Miller has presided over this prestigious group of high-end technical engineers since he arrived in Charleston in 2010. As soon as he unpacked, he undertook an ambitious campaign to change just about everything! While attempting to implement the Navy’s unwieldy Enterprise Resource Planning Program, he simultaneously broke apart the organizational structure to create a new matrix organization of competency-aligned units. And in case that wasn’t enough to completely disrupt the flow, he then proceeded to collapse hundreds of existing contracts under his new Pillar scheme – grouping like-functions together under pre-approved potential industry providers.
The fact that the SSC LANT folks continued to provide results to the fleet throughout this excruciatingly painful process is a testament to their drive and willpower. But now that we are on the backside of all these changes, things are settling down into a new normal that will continue to roll out high-end technological solutions to the fleet for years to come. And in the end, the changes are most likely for the better: SSC LANT has more resources and a better competitive advantage than they did before he arrived.
Mr. Miller has already cut his teeth on fixing tough problems for the Veterans Administration. Shortly after he arrived at SSC LANT he became involved in a problematic VA contract that SSC LANT was struggling with. Through his persistence and direct oversight, he got the work back on-track. In the past year, as pressure from Navy continues to push SPAWAR away from non-Navy work, he has faced some tough decisions on how to proceed.
Based on the trends witnessed in Charleston, here’s my prediction for what he will consider important in his new role at DoD DHMS:
- CONSOLIDATION: Mr. Miller will want to find areas of redundancy that work against each other – pockets of expertise that solve the same (or similar) problems across the organization. By combining them, he will hope to present more cost-effective and cohesive solutions to the organization.
- OVERSIGHT: Mr. Miller will use existing (or create new) metrics that can show how his folks provide oversight to Industry. He looks for reasonable ratios of Government-to-Industry support and expects every Industry provided solution to have a strong Government point-person who fully understands the technology and the requirements.
- COMPETITION: Mr. Miller will insist on an environment of competition and will combine contracts under Multiple Award Contracts to get the best deal for the Government.
Those are predictions based on close observation. Do you you have comments/thoughts/ideas that can help DHMS folks prepare for what’s next? Please let us know your thoughts.
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