Fox News says GPS may be lost next year due to the failure of the Air Force to replace aging satellites in orbit. The third generation NAVSTAR satellites are supposed to be a big improvement over the current satellites. This illustrates a significant problem for management that develops as programs age. The bureaucracy gets larger making it harder to meet schedules and ensuring escalating costs. Workers on the program become complacent. Some of the more competent workers and most of the more ambitious workers move on to more cutting edge programs. It is a difficult challenge for management to keep the team lean and mean, particularly in a government civil servant environment. If the program manager pushes workers hard, there will be complaints up the line to his leaders, and often he will be replaced. It takes a creative program manager to keep workers motivated as a program ages.

Here is an update from A. J. Strata, who thinks journalists are acting like Chicken Little again. It is true that TV guys tend to get over-excited at times. They are looking for another Watergate all of the time. I'm unimpressed by Shepard Smith. My comments regarding the difficulty in keeping people motivated on long programs is still valid. I have no idea how well the management of the GPS program is doing, but they have had a lot of technical problems and schedule slips.