Pentagon Pieces Together World's Most Complex PowerPoint Slide
If you've ever wondered how the U.S. military goes about developing, buying, and maintaining equipment, maybe this PowerPoint slide will help. Then again, maybe not.
The PowerPoint slide is a three-foot wall chart displaying the military's "Integrated Acquisitions Technology Logistics Life Cycle Management" diagram, which illustrates the "interfaces among three major decision support systems used to develop, produce, and field a weapon system for national defense." And as crazy as it looks, "defense acquisition is a complex process with many more activities than shown here and many concurrent activities that cannot be displayed on a two-dimensional chart."
"When we understand [it], we'll have won the war," war commander Gen. Stanley McCrystal joked about the slide.
Have you ever seen a more complex PowerPoint slide? If so, we'd like to know about it.
Comments
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timmyw
September 14, 2010 at 4:50pm
General McCrystal supposed said that about another PowerPoint slide showing the Afghan War.
This chart just shows us why it takes decades to build a weapon system, costs billions of dollars, and ultimately doesn't meet the needs of our warfighters.
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howardc
September 14, 2010 at 2:08pm
OK, first off, this is not a Powerpoint slide. It's a PDF in its printed wallchart form and a interactive flash image on the online form. If you really care, you can find it here.
https://ilc.dau.mil/
Second, this document shows the way that the DoD operates. The lifecycle management chart takes you from user/warfighter need through acquisition, test, production, support, and disposal and is applied to everything from nuclear submarines to tanks to machine guns.
Sorry, but this is about the 4th website I've seen that has linked this as a "powerpoint".
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erig007
September 14, 2010 at 1:50pm
processes of a small company could end up like this
It's just that here everything is shown in the same level
usually lots of processes are replaced by a small box in the master level and are shown in a sub level
it's less obvious but end up being clearer as the mind can't keep too much information at a time
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DarkMatter
September 14, 2010 at 10:46am
...Product has reached end of life only halfway through developement. and have reached last update upon final approval.... Tax Dollars at work.
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Keith E. Whisman
September 14, 2010 at 9:59am
My College English 101 Professor gave us a quick introduction to something he now loves and worships, Prezi. It's kinda like this, a big wall of details that get flipped around and focused on. Prezi is really cool, if powerpoint can do the same thing, then I'll suggest he stick to powerpoint, but Prezi is free and online only so you can access your presentations any where. My Professor said that he would give extra credit for students that give their essays as a Prezi presentation. Check it out..
www.prezi.com
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orca11
September 14, 2010 at 6:47am
It's big, but it looks pretty well laid out. I've seen some chaotic slides in my day, and that one's not bad at all.
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Khaotic
September 14, 2010 at 6:21am
Try being the guys that have to use that slide! I was brought into the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) about 8 months ago. That particular slide was a poster that covered a good majority of the back cubicle wall I occupied during the greater part of my immersion to AFOTEC. After two computer based training (CBT) modules (roughly 60 hours) I was sent to the class-room based training session which lasted 10 days. While some of the CBT was totally administrative in nature (covering command structure) the entire second CBT and the class-room sessions were all about this slide. The Acquisition model.
Leave it to MaximumPC to remind me I need to be at work rather than on their web page J Thanks guys!!
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