Programs we surveyed spent on average over 2 years completing the steps necessary to document up to 49 information requirements for their most recent acquisition milestone. This includes the time for the program office to develop the documentation and for various stakeholders to review and approve the documentation. These 49 information requirements also took, in total, on average 5,600 staff days for programs to document. However, on average, almost half of these requirements, 24 of the 49, were not highly valued by the acquisition officials we surveyed. Four major defense acquisition programs we examined illustrate the challenges in completing the milestone decision process.
We surveyed 24 program managers that held a milestone B or C decision since 2010 and found that it took them over 2 years on average to complete the entire set of documents needed for the milestone decision. The program managers, as well as other acquisition officials we surveyed, considered on average about half of the information requirements as not highly valued.
What was from a February 2015 report from the GAO, “ACQUISITION REFORM — DOD Should Streamline Its Decision-Making
Process for Weapon Systems to Reduce Inefficiencies.” Good charts at the link.
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