Senate appropriators support PPBE reform, provided some cautions

Several recent studies have examined the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution [PPBE] process of the Department of Defense, and have recommended various improvements. Chief among the concerns highlighted by these studies is that the Department’s processes are too cumbersome, and have contributed to capability gaps as compared to near-peer adversaries.

 

There is no doubt that the Department of Defense labors under a variety of processes that constrain efficient decision-making, and the Committee continues to support management reform efforts across the Department and the military services. Discussion of PPBE reform should first distinguish between the mechanics of a process, as opposed to the values and priorities that direct the process. For example, a nimble and efficient PPBE process would still result in capability gaps with advanced adversaries if departmental priorities were focused on overseas contingency operations rather than modernization of the force.

 

The Committee further recognizes that discussion of PPBE reform is closely associated with discussions on how to better transition technologies into the acquisition system. The Committee cautions that bridging the ‘‘valley of death’’ is not a discrete event that concludes when a project is no longer the responsibility of a science and technology agency. The successful transition of military technologies must include establishing the funding necessary in future years to test, field, operate, and sustain the new capability.

 

To this end, reform of the PPBE process should consider how improved resource processes can increase military capabilities over time, rather than measuring how many technologies can be transitioned in a particular year. Again, an ideal PPBE process would not improve the transition of technologies for improved warfighting capabilities, if resources are prioritized for the preservation of legacy platforms.

That was from the Senate Appropriations Committee on Defense FY 2022 report. They also gave the prospective PPBE commission a plus up of $2 million from the SASC request of $5 million. Of course, I’m very happy that the SAC-D is supporting the stand up of a PPBE reform commission, but my role as a blogger is to nitpick so here are a couple nits to pick:

First, it appears appropriators think PPBE reform is primarily about bridging the valley of death. While that is one symptom of the PPBE problem, it is not the primary one. It is just the one being talked about.

In any case, PPBE reform is not about improving the likelihood of transition of new efforts. There will always be a valley of death, as there should be, because not all projects are good projects or worthy of transition. Even if they were, there is still tradeoffs between projects.

PPBE reform is about making a new system of incentives which changes the very types of projects being worked on — changes the decision criteria for their progression or cancellation. Specifically, it is to integrate choices of requirements, budgeting, and acquisition into empowered portfolio managers, creating a system of peer review and coordination, and fundamentally improve oversight and program analysis.

This system that allows options to be kept open contrasts the appropriators claim that any technology transition must establish “funding necessary in future years to test, field, operate, and sustain the new capability.” The old lifecycle planning model requires exquisite prediction of technological uncertainties many years in the future.

Technology transition isn’t a discrete event, like the establishment of a program of record. Technology transition is a competitive process of disruption and acceptance.

My second point of concern is whether some of the language is geared toward PPBE reform narrowly defined (e.g., “nimble and efficient PPBE process”). Most people look at PPBE as something that has always existed. But it didn’t exist before 1960, and is in fact a radical break with tradition. Most people see PPBE as one of the circles in the DAU venn diagram, co-equal with requirements and acquisition. But McNamara and his generation understood that PPBE (and its tool systems analysis) was the system.

Requirements were invented to feed the parameters of the systems analysis, which created a budgeted program handed off to the acquisition process to “execute” under standing orders. It created the Acquisition Program Baseline, where oversight was based on cost and schedule growth to a fixed technical baseline prior to development.

These things did not exist in the 1950s and before. DoD needs to change the game, or it will remain stuck in an industrial-era model that cannot keep up with the commercial world or peer adversaries. Small changes like biennial budgeting, increasing reprogramming thresholds, and a “colorless” appropriation will not cut it.