DTIC ADA576025: Improving Acquisition Outcomes: Organizational and Management Issues

1.2 MB·English

by  Defense Technical Information Center

THE ARTS This PDF document was made available
CHILD POLICY from www.rand.org as a public service of
CIVIL JUSTICE
the RAND Corporation.
EDUCATION
ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT Jump down to document6
HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit
NATIONAL SECURITY
research organization providing
POPULATION AND AGING
objective analysis and effective
PUBLIC SAFETY
solutions that address the challenges
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SUBSTANCE ABUSE facing the public and private sectors
TERRORISM AND
around the world.
HOMELAND SECURITY
TRANSPORTATION AND
INFRASTRUCTURE Support RAND
WORKFORCE AND WORKPLACE
Browse Books & Publications
Make a charitable contribution
For More Information
Visit RAND at www.rand.org
Explore the RAND National Defense
Research Institute
View document details
Limited Electronic Distribution Rights
This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law as indicated
in a notice appearing later in this work. This electronic representation of RAND
intellectual property is provided for non-commercial use only. Unauthorized
posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are
protected under copyright law. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce,
or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. For
information on reprint and linking permissions, please see RAND Permissions.
Report Documentation Page Form Approved
OMB No. 0704-0188
Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and
maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information,
including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington
VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it

does not display a currently valid OMB control number.
1. REPORT DATE 3. DATES COVERED
2009 2. REPORT TYPE 00-00-2009 to 00-00-2009
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER
Improving Acquisition Outcomes: Organizational and Management
5b. GRANT NUMBER
Issues
5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER
6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER
5e. TASK NUMBER
5f. WORK UNIT NUMBER
7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 8. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION
RAND Corporation,National Defense Research Institute,1776 Main REPORT NUMBER
Street, P.O. Box 2138,Santa Monica,CA,90407-2138
9. SPONSORING/MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) 10. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S ACRONYM(S)
11. SPONSOR/MONITOR’S REPORT
NUMBER(S)
12. DISTRIBUTION/AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
Approved for public release; distribution unlimited
13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES
14. ABSTRACT

15. SUBJECT TERMS
16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF: 17. LIMITATION OF 18. NUMBER 19a. NAME OF
ABSTRACT OF PAGES RESPONSIBLE PERSON
a. REPORT b. ABSTRACT c. THIS PAGE Same as 18
unclassified unclassified unclassified Report (SAR)
Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98)
Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18
This product is part of the RAND Corporation occasional paper series.
RAND occasional papers may include an informed perspective on a
timely policy issue, a discussion of new research methodologies, essays,
a paper presented at a conference, a conference summary, or a summa-
ry of work in progress. All RAND occasional papers undergo rigorous
peer review to ensure that they meet high standards for research quality
and objectivity.
OCCASIONAL
P A P E R
Improving
Acquisition Outcomes
Organizational and
Management Issues
Irv Blickstein and Charles Nemfakos
Prepared for the Offi ce of the Secretary of Defense
Approved for public release; distribution unlimited
NATIONAL DEFENSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Th e research described in this report was prepared for the Offi ce of the Secretary
of Defense (OSD). Th e research was conducted in the RAND National Defense
Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored
by the Offi ce of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff , the Unifi ed Combatant
Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense
Intelligence Community under Contract W74V8H-06-C-0002.
Th e RAND Corporation is a nonprofi t research organization providing objective
analysis and eff ective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and
private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily refl ect
the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.
RAND® is a registered trademark.
© Copyright 2009 RAND Corporation
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any
electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or informa-
tion storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from RAND.
Published 2009 by the RAND Corporation
1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050
4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2665
RAND URL: http://www.rand.org
To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact
Distribution Services: Telephone: [phone];
Fax: [phone]; Email: [email protected]
Preface
Today’s defense environment is placing growing pressure on defense
policymakers to be nimble and adaptive, particularly with respect to
acquisition systems and processes. Th is occasional paper is one in a
series drawing upon the expertise of core RAND Corporation staff
to explore issues and off er suggestions on topics that are likely to be
of critical importance to the new leadership: the use of competition,
development of novel systems, prototyping, risk management, organi-
zational and management issues, and the acquisition workforce. Th e
papers are designed to inform new initiatives for markedly improving
the cost, timeliness, and innovativeness of weapon systems that the
Department of Defense (DoD) intends to acquire.
Many of the problems that contribute to poor cost and sched-
ule outcomes are systemic to the way that the acquisition process is
organized and managed in DoD. In this paper, we discuss a few of
these problems and how they may be contributing to ineffi ciency and
unrealistic expectations. Th e paper includes recommendations regard-
ing the role of the service chiefs in the acquisition process, the role of
the combatant commands in the requirements process, the impact of
joint duty on the acquisition process, and the growing emphasis on
management processes at the expense of workforce initiative.
Th is study was sponsored by the Offi ce of the Under Secretary
of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (OUSDAT&L)
and conducted within the Acquisition and Technology Policy Center
of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded
research and development center sponsored by the Offi ce of the Sec-
retary of Defense, the Joint Staff , the Unifi ed Combatant Commands,
1
2 Improving Acquisition Outcomes: Organizational and Management Issues
1
the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense
2
Intelligence Community.
3
For more information on RAND’s Acquisition and Technology
4
Policy Center, contact the Director, Philip Antón. He can be reached
5
by email at [email protected]; by phone at 310-393-0411, exten-
6
sion 7798; or by mail at the RAND Corporation, 1776 Main Street,
7
Santa Monica, California 90407-2138. More information about
8
RAND is available at www.rand.org.
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
Improving Acquisition Outcomes
Introduction
Despite years of change and reform, DoD continues to develop and
acquire weapon systems that it cannot aff ord and cannot deliver on
schedule. Th e U.S. Government Accountability Offi ce reported, for
example, that research and development costs in 2008 for selected major
programs were 42 percent higher than originally estimated and that the
average delay in delivering initial capabilities had increased to 22 months
(March 2009, p. 1). Also, William Lynn, the new Deputy Secretary of
Defense, stated that it will be very diffi cult to
sustain a force large enough to meet demands Organizational
if current acquisition trends continue. Th is sug- and management
gests that the new administration will have to issues contribute
fi nd ways to halt traditional cost growth associ- to ineffi ciency
ated with fi elding new capabilities—or consider and unrealistic
program terminations (Lynn, 2009, p. 16). expectations in
Many of the problems that contribute to the acquisition
poor cost and schedule outcomes are systemic process.
to the way that the acquisition process is orga-
nized and managed in DoD. It is our purpose in this paper to discuss a
few of these problems and how they may be contributing to ineffi ciency
and unrealistic expectations. Th ese issues include
• the service chiefs’ role in the acquisition process
• the combatant commands’ (COCOMs’) role in the requirements
process
3
4 Improving Acquisition Outcomes: Organizational and Management Issues
1
• the impact of joint duty on the acquisition process
2
• a growing emphasis on management processes at the expense of
3
workforce initiative.
4
5
6 The Service Chiefs’ Role in the Acquisition
7 Process Is Too Limited
8
9 Stronger ties are needed between service leaders who understand warf-
10 ighting needs based on operational experience and those who are respon-
11 sible for acquiring weapon systems to meet those
12 Service chiefs needs. Over time, a schism has developed in
13 have become some of the military departments between the
14 increasingly service chiefs, who validate warfi ghting require-
15 disconnected from ments, and the service acquisition chiefs who
16 the acquisition develop and acquire new weapon and informa-
17 process. tion systems in conjunction with their program
18 executive offi cers and program managers.
19 A large impetus for the schism was the Goldwater-Nichols Act
20 passed in 1986, which was intended to improve unity of command and
21 push the military departments and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to instill a
22 more “joint” approach to military operations. Among its key provisions,
23 the act established that only one offi ce in a military department was to
24 have responsibility for that department’s acquisition process, and that
25 offi ce would report to the secretary of the military department (through
26 a service acquisition executive). In eff ect, the Goldwater-Nichols Act
27 put the service chiefs on the sidelines of the acquisition process.
28 At the time, there was some concern about the impact of this
29 step. For example, Senator Sam Nunn said he “was concerned that we
30 not create an impenetrable wall between the staff s of the service secre-
31 tary and the service chief” (1985). As time has passed, it does appear
32 that the service secretaries and the service chiefs, along with their
33 respective staff s, are not regularly engaging in meaningful dialogue.1
34
35
1 For example, one program executive offi cer told the authors that “they have substantive
36
discussions of my programs at the Pentagon, but I am not invited.”
Improving Acquisition Outcomes: Organizational and Management Issues 5
Without such dialogue, service chiefs may be intractable in empha-
sizing warfi ghting needs at the expense of reducing cost where pos-
sible; on the other hand, the acquisition process loses the operational
insight that is critical in analyzing trade-off s between cost, schedule,
and performance.
To mitigate this problem, the military department acquisition
instructions for each military department could be modifi ed to explic-
itly state the duties and expectations of the service chiefs and their
staff s. As an example, these instructions could state that program deci-
sion meetings, where acquisition decisions are made, could be chaired
by the service acquisition executive and the service vice chief. Such a
revision would send a broad message to those who develop warfi ghting
requirements that a link exists between the requirements process and
the acquisition process.
The Combatant Commands’ Role in Defense Management
Th ere is a prevailing theory in Washington, D.C., that acquisition out-
comes would improve if the combatant commands had a greater role
in DoD’s process for determining warfi ghting requirements. According
to this theory, acquisition outcomes would improve because the mili-
tary departments would better attune themselves to the warfi ghting
capabilities that COCOMs need to have as well as when they need
to have them; on the other hand, acquisition outcomes would also
improve because the COCOMs would have to take fi scal constraints
into greater consideration when identifying the capabilities they want.
Th ere is an historic precedent for this concept. Th e idea of
addressing warfi ghter needs more directly through participation of the
COCOMs in DoD’s decisionmaking processes emerged in the middle
1980s during the Reagan Administration. At that time, Integrated Pri-
ority Lists (IPLs) were introduced to allow unifi ed and specifi ed com-
manders (at that time known as Commanders in Chief, or CINCs)
to infl uence the direction of resource allocation and weapon systems
acquisition by identifying their highest priority requirements and mak-
ing recommendations for programming funds. In concept, IPLs were a