The "meta" problem is that political in-fighting usually results in local optimization everywhere. Various departments throw each other under the bus to steal budget/people/resources. When leadership finally decides to right the bus, they hire an outside consultant; this is an important signal to the departments to stop the nonsense and tell the consultant what everyone knows but doesn't want to talk about. Serious problems require serious solutions. It is much easier to say if Y department would give us X, then line go up forever.