Orion Shield

Executive Summary

The Orion Shield Project was a research and development contract that went horribly wrong from the very inception. During the Request for Proposals phase, Scientific Engineering Corporation (SEC) fabricated test results, which ultimately led to their securing the contract with Space Technology. Throughout the course of the contract there were numerous ethical, legal, technical and contractual obligations that were not adhered to. The indiscretions that occurred happened from both sides of the stakeholders in the contract, but were ultimately blamed solely on the shoulders of the Orion Shield Program Manager, Gary Allison.

Mr. Allison was provided ample opportunities to provide accurate information, but allowed himself to be persuaded to do otherwise. Mr. Allison also had obligations to fully understand his position and role in the contract but failed to do so and improperly managed his resources, ultimately leading to the failure of the project. To simply use Mr. Allison as a scapegoat in the failure of Orion Shield would be disservice to program managers. Multiple levels of leadership failed on the Orion Shield Project, unfortunately for Mr. Allison he was at the tip of the spear, and in over his head.

Proper utilization of project management principles would have helped facilitate the Orion Shield Project. Fully understanding the scope of work, the budget, and time constraints would have allowed for a higher percentage of success. Mr. Allison and SEC failed to implement the core strategies in program management, which inevitably led to the failure of Orion Shield.

Orion Shield Project Failures and Indiscretions

A Review of the Case

Project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. Project managers must not only strive to meet specific scope, time, cost, and quality requirements of projects, they must also facilitate the entire...