The Integrated Baseline Review (IBR) is an important assessment of a program's ability to perform according to plan in government procurement. This concept is missing from every Commercial Enterprise project I have worked or been associated with.
The purpose of the IBR is to come to a mutual agreement between the government and the contractor about the cost, schedule, technical deliverables, and the associated technical and programmatic risk. These questions rarely arise in commercial projects.
The official definitions are:
- A joint review by Client Program Managers and their technical staffs, and Contractor Program Managers and their technical staffs to provide a mutual understanding of the Performance Measurement Baseline.
- A clear understanding of issues, findings, improvements, opportunities, and a realistic and executable Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB).
- Identification of any risks to the project performance.
The questions that are answered during the IBR include:
The documents that answer these questions are part of the Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB). This document is also always missing from large commercial IT programs, along with the other document listed in the right hand column.
Many would conjecture that all this formality inhibits the innovation and creativity of the developers on software intensive project. But they would be wrong, dead wrong. Some of the most innovative software, biopharma products, mechanical devices are "invented," designed, engineered, manufactured, and put to work on large defense programs. I have the privilege of working several of them.
- an therapy for Ebola and Marburg virus
- a manned space flight program
- the clean up on one of the most toxic nuclear waste sites in the planet
- the upgrade and replacement of a world wide telecommunications system
With the integration of Earned Value Management and Agile software development, we'll be seeing much more of the discussion of how to "engineer" the solution to complex IT problems, using teams of people who understand that "engineering" means processes and methods executed by people who both follow the method and provide innovation inside the boundaries of emerging requirements and technology.