1996 - The Demanding Customer

This paper titled "The Demanding Customer" was written by John Crawford (NR-HQ 1952-1963) . It was initially published in 1996 as Appendix A to Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) paper DNFSB/TECH-10 titled "AN ASSESSMENT CONCERNING SAFETY AT DEFENSE NUCLEAR FACILITIES - The DOE Technical Personnel Problem".

“The Demanding Customer” argues that successful management of large, technically complex programs depends on a capable customer organization that can define requirements, assess contractor performance, and insist that the contractor manage its own work effectively. The customer must retain strong in-house technical competence—not necessarily a large staff—because it cannot delegate ultimate responsibility for technical decisions affecting cost, schedule, and performance. A technically strong and attentive customer also creates pressure for contractors to assign their best personnel and maintain high standards. Requirements should be sufficiently clear and rigorous to ensure the desired result, while still leaving the contractor room to exercise judgment, initiative, and innovation.

The central warning is that the customer must not compensate for persistent contractor weakness by doing the contractor’s work. Although customer personnel may be capable of supplying better designs or solving problems directly, doing so weakens contractor accountability, prevents objective review, and conceals poor performance from senior management. Instead, deficiencies should be documented and elevated promptly through contractor management until corrective action occurs. The same principle applies to quality assurance: the customer should insist that the contractor maintain an effective internal quality organization rather than building a parallel customer organization to compensate for it. In essence, the “demanding customer” maintains an orderly, disciplined, and well-documented relationship—setting high standards, preserving objectivity, and holding the contractor responsible for delivering within cost, schedule, and technical requirements.

During Vice President Gore’s “Reinventing the Government” campaign, a lot of focus was placed on contracting out various functions within government. Crawford and Steve Krahn (NR-HQ 1978-1983) took that as an opportunity to expand on Crawford's treatment of “The Demanding Customer,” found in into an expanded paper “The Demanding Customer and the Hollow Organization: Meeting Today's Contract Management Challenge,” that was published in Public Productivity & Management Review in 1998.