According to FAR Part 16, the Federal Government uses fixed-price contracts when it wants to place most of the risk and responsibility for performance on the contractor. This means that fixed-price contracts are generally not subject to being adjusted as a result of the contractor’s costs or profits increasing or decreasing in performance. As a…
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when speaking about the Iraq War, took a lot of “writ” for saying there are unknown unknowns and that the unknown unknowns are difficult to manage. No doubt it is a weird statement on its face. But, most folks who manage risk for a living understand that the unknown unknowns…
My past is littered with evidence of my lack of scientific knowledge. A particularly shocking display of this occurred when I had to design and execute a “scientific experiment” in high school physics. My experiment was dropping a gold fish in liquid nitrogen and seeing if he would come back to life after he thawed….
In May of 2010, the US Government had lots of military and civilian personnel stationed in Iraq and it was dangerous place. To protect the folks in Iraq, the US Government awarded Triple Canopy a contract to provide security. Triple Canopy was supposed to repel attacks, go on roving patrols, shoot at bad people and…