1. TEN RULES FOR COMMON
SENSE PROGRAM
MANAGEMENT
The basis of these ten rules is guided by work of Col. Lee Battle
(USAF), the director of the Corona/Discover satellite system

2. Corona, first launched in 1959, was a military reconnaissance satellite operated by the CIA
used for photo surveillance of the Soviet Union. The novel and movie Ice Station Zebra was
based on a missing film canister from Discover, a Corona follow on vehicle.
2

3. Ten Rules of Common Sense Program
3
Management
1. Put Together The Right 6. Make The Program
Team Schedule The Leading
Metric
2. Execute Or Suffer The 7. Solve Problems When
Consequences They Appear
3. Establish A Credible 8. Test And Verify
Baseline
4. Control The Baseline 9. Communicate
5. Manage Risk 10. Deliver

4. 1. Put Together The Right Team
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 Acquire the best people possible, empower then
with enough authority to do their jobs, and hold
them accountable
 Organize to be lean and mean
 Build and maintain healthy, open, professional
relationships with team members, counterparts, and
suppliers

5. 2. Execute or Suffer the Consequences
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 The program manager is the “Captain of the ship”
 Treat your time like it is gold
 All communications must relate to program
execution and coordination
 You can get help on anything other than taking
responsibility for executing the program

6. 3. Establish A Credible Baseline
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 An improperly baselined program can not be
successfully executed
 Pay attention to systems engineering, requirements
analysis, management, and traceability, change
control, design reviews, and test and verification
planning

7. 4. Control the Baseline
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 The baseline is the lifeblood of the program
 Uncontrolled changes can destroy a program
 All changes impact the baseline
 Do not accept changes that increase risk
 Always have a prioritized set of requirements in
your pocket

8. 5. Manage Risk
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 Risk never goes away on its own
 Robust and proactive risk management is always
required
 Know the program’s risks and who owns them
 Eliminating risk is not feasible
 Don’t let risk management become a reporting
process – use it to manage the prorgam

9. 6. Make The Program Schedule The
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Leading Indicator
 Establish an Integrated Master Schedule (IMS) and
Integrated Master Plan (IMP) based on assessments
of increasing program maturity
 Know the critical and near-critical paths and the
dependencies
 Manage the critical path the resources

10. 7. Solve Problems When They Appear
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 Hit failures hard, unresolved problems will haunt the
program
 Prepare for problems

11. 8. Test and Verify
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 One test is worth a thousand opinions
 “test as you fly” means, testing must be as close as
the real thing as possible
 Make decisions based on real data

12. 9. Communicate
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 Communication is more important than organizing
 Information is power
 Take control of the reporting process
 Employ meetings with well defined agendas

13. 10. Deliver
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 It’s all about delivering the needed capabilities to
the user
 Each requirement and deliverable must be tied to
the Concept of Operations (ConOps)
 Getting something into the users hands early
provides feedback for the next block, spiral or
iteration