How long's a legacy?

Today I need to share with everyone a quick recap from a meeting we had last Friday afternoon with CG-4, CG-4d, CG-442, CG-6, CG-63, CG-8, CG-91, CG-93, CG-93d and I to talk about CG-LIMS.

We met to make sure we all had a common understanding of three things:

• The notional migration of legacy systems to CG-LIMS
• The legacy logistics sustainment / migration / disposal timeline
• The demands on our human resources to accomplish both of the above

You could say everything above is nothing new. The notional timeline in the ORD has been out there for a while now. But there’s something clarifying about seeing a single timeline with CG-LIMS implementation by asset type overlaid with the resulting legacy sustainment timeline. It makes it clear that the Coast Guard is going to be maintaing legacy systems for a long time.

Seeing all the CG-LIMS Acquisition, EA, and SELC reviews and CDRLs — and knowing that many of them will require personal involvement of the same small group of people — makes it clear that legacy sustainment and CG-LIMS execution must be viewed as inseparable initiatives.

Now that the Coast Guard has taken over as the system integrator, we need to see CG-LIMS implementation and legacy sustainment / bridging as an issue that needs to be deal with holistically.

What are the next steps?

1. Complete the cost estimate for our current approach. We received preliminary results the R&D Center / LMI team we’re working with to develop the Project Office Estimate. This is the first estimate of its kind to be completed with the draft changes to the MIL-HDBK-881 template for ERP implementations, so it’s not surprising there are a few areas that we’re still working to make sure we’ve approached in a logical manner. After the team from CG-928 completes the Independent Cost Estimate, we’ll compare both and develop a single Coast Guard cost position. At about the same time we complete this work (end November) we may have more clarity on the TASC contract award and plan going forward.

2. Take the pulse of TASC in late November. The LCCE and additional information about TASC substance and timing may lead us to make adjustments to our current strategy.

Until then, we’ll continue executing the current strategy.

The slides we made to support the meeting are in CG Portal here. Everyone on the core IPTs should have access by now. If not, drop me a line.

I should point out that the timeline in the ORD and assumes an execution speed and funding level to support it. It’s a also a fairly rough first cut at showing CG-LIMS execution alongside legacy subsystem sustainment timelines.  The timeline may be off by a quarter or two just to prove I’m human. The point for that meeting was to have simple pictures to facilitate a high level conversation.  It’s close enough to true that I thought it was worth sharing with the whole group in this forum.