Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 64

problems, the CSA and the secretary of the Army can
advocate for and influence strategic planning that synchronizes Army operational needs and objectives with
acquisition planning. This will free up senior leaders to
sharply focus resources on achieving mission objectives
with fewer individuals, organizations, and resources.

The Need to Improve
Army Acquisition

Acquisition has three major pillars: identification
of the capabilities needed through the JCIDS; resourcing the capabilities via the Planning, Programming,
Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process; and execution of programs by science and technology (S&T)
and research and development (R&D) organizations,
program executive officers (PEOs), and their program
managers (PMs).8
There have been many attempts to reform DOD
and Army acquisition
over the last fifty years,
Karen Burke is an acquisition professional in
the U.S. Army Research,
Maj. Justin Barnes,
Development and
U.S. Army, is a
Engineering Command
judge advocate. He
(RDECOM). A Chief
formerly served as
of Staff of the Army
a Chief of Staff of
fellow in the Strategic
the Army fellow in
Studies Group, she
the Strategic Studies
has over twenty years’
Group. He is a summa
experience in defense
cum laude graduate
acquisition in positions
of the University of
across Army science and
St. Thomas School of
technology and joint
Law and a graduate of
program management.
Indiana University. He
She holds an MS in enwas an assistant progineering management
fessor in the adminfrom Western New
istrative and civil law
England College and a
department and ediBA from Framingham
tor of the Military Law
State College. She holds
Review at the Judge
Level III certification in
Advocate General’s
program management
Legal Center and
and systems engineering
School. He has served
and is a member of the
in a variety of Army
Army Acquisition Corps.
staff judge advocate
Burke is the primary
assignments.
author for this article.
62

most intending to overcome inherent bureaucratic
and incentive-driven practices (some say counter-incentive-driven practices). However, reform has been
stymied because of inertia due to entrenched organizational stakeholder equities and a bureaucracy
that believes in overlapping oversight.9 A 2009 report
published by the Business Executives for National
Security describes the DOD’s acquisition process
evolution as not reflecting “any rational overall design.
It is, rather, a collection of Band-Aids laid over other
Band-Aids, each an incremental measure intended to
fix a narrowly defined problem.”10
Within Army acquisition practices, senior leaders rarely are authorized to make wholesale change,
and they do not stay in their positions long enough
to see change through . Consequently, enacting total
acquisition system reform has been nearly impossible,
leaving minor incremental improvements as the most
pragmatic approach.11 Unfortunately, many improvements made in this manner have exacerbated the
underlying problems. In a 2015 review of acquisition
reforms enacted between 1980s and 2015, the Center
for Strategic and International Studies found that
“despite many implemented reforms being apparent
‘successes,’ the problems of cost and schedule growth
have remained significant and persistent.”12 They have
increased the amount of oversight and documentation
rather than identifying meaningful business practices
that would reduce cost and time and eliminate needless layers of oversight.
The authors of this article, members of a team
from the Chief of Staff of the Army Strategic Studies
Group (CSA SSG), offered recommendations for
facilitating rapid capability development in an article
in the September-October 2016 issue of Military
Review.13 The previous article, “Strategic Acquisition
for Effective Innovation,” explained why the Army
needs a rapid acquisition and innovation organization modeled after those within the Office of the
Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the other services.
Such an organization could deliver objective, analytics-based capability recommendations to the CSA
and the secretary of the Army. This article extends
the discussion by proposing new business practices
that would focus Army priorities, maximize investments, and rapidly assess solutions through prototyping and experimentation.
November-December 2016  MILITARY REVIEW