David Packard left office as DepSecDef in December 1971, and a few years later with the passage of OMB Circular A-109 and updates to the 5000-series including Milestone Zero, the rapid and austere prototyping program was essentially dead. Hopefully that doesn’t happen to today’s rapid acquisition reforms, which are probably the most exciting since the Packard era.
Here are parts of a GAO critique of delegation and rapid acquisition from Elmer Staats in 1978:
Findings/Conclusions. Major changes in the management of weapon systems were recently introduced following criticism by the services of excessive program direction and “micromanagement”‘ by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD)…
Many claims of interference in program management stem from efforts of OSD to obtain the needed information for making meaningful reviews and recommendations…
Delegation of reviews to the services could be effective if the OSD maintained its capability of acquiring data, continued its participation in programs, and had final authority for major decisions.
Recommendations: The Secretary of Defense should: expedite identification and description of all mission areas and define each service’s responsibility for each mission; require the services to justify each new, planned major weapon system; reevaluate the new service review procedures instituted in January 1977 [i.e., Milestone Zero] to insure OSD staff adequate participation; retain the requirement for his staff to prepare independent program evaluations and cost estimates before each decision point; and undertake a review of administrative practices in weapon system acquisition management.
This distinction between policy and administration, that policy makers at the top could decide on future actions and install reporting structures to ensure that the policy was followed is one of the great myths of management — especially at the level of the Department of Defense.
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