Packard said he had seen cases “where the project manager is often little more than an errand boy for all the service officers, both above him and around him in the organization.” High-ranking officers too often wanted “to get in on the act.”
That was from “Policy Changes in Weapon System Procurement.” (1970, Dec. 10). Forty-Second Report by the Committee on Government Operations. Here is a lengthy quote from former DepSecDef David Packard:
To be brutally frank about this situation, the services need to be organized so that the development and production of new weapons systems is managed by people who are experts in that business. This is not the practice in the services. Instead, the weapons management job is performed under a system in which too much responsibility is given to officers whose special expertise is not development and procurement.
Most of the services are structured so that the project manager, even if he is selected as someone who has expertise and capability, is supervised and can be overridden by general and flag officers who, although they may be the finest of men and highly competent in military affairs, often know little or nothing about development and production. I conclude, therefore, that it is going to require a major change in the organizational structure of all three services to straighten out the management of new weapons programs.
This is a challenge to be sure. The Air Force has developed its acquisition program managers from accession – that is, Second Lieutenants start in the career field and can have multiple years of experience in smaller programs before obtaining responsibility for higher dollar ACAT I type efforts. However, the other services bring their acquisition program managers in at the Field Grade Officer level after having served in the operational Army, Navy, or Marines. This would seem to fit within the criticism Mr. Packard suggests. I’m not sure which model is better – to be sure, within each, there is still a great deal of turnover as officers are required to change jobs frequently, often with no regard to the state of the program they are managing. Interesting topic for further research and discussion.