Here’s an excerpt from a 1970 congressional report by the Committee on Government Operations: “Policy Changes in Weapon System Procurement.” At the time, David Packard of Hewitt-Packard fame was the Deputy Secretary of Defense and emphasized the critical role of program managers. Yet in DoD, he found that PMs were too often officers that did not have special expertise in development and procurement, and who were often overridden by flag officers who often knew even less. Here is what the congressional report surmised:
In giving this emphasis to program management, Mr. Packard is restating essentially what was proposed and attempted in the McNamara regime. The fact that the problems persist and invite restatement suggests that there are no easy answers. Although it is popular now, as it was before, to refer to the Navy nuclear submarine and Polaris-Poseidon projects as examples to follow, there is no indication that serious thought has been given to the practicality of applying this experience to major systems across the board.
… The new goal is three-year tours for program managers. It is difficult to see how three-year tours of duty for military officers will enable them to gain the degree of technical and managerial expertise that Mr. Packard emphasized so strongly. Development projects frequently are maintained for much longer periods. The concept of expertise that Admiral Rickover espouses, and Mr. Packard seems to endorse, is associated with rigorous technical training career professionalism, and longer tenure than even a three-year tour of duty.
You may remember that David Packard and SecDef Melvin Laird instituted a policy of “participatory management” where the extreme centralization of the Robert McNamara years was supposed to be devolved back to the services. However, despite these measures, centralization largely continued unabated. This following statement rings true today, after another attempt to decentralize:
We surmise that the decentralization concept is useful mainly as a morale builder and a means of restoring confidence in the services after the strong centralizing tendencies of the 1960s. The realities point to more rather than less centralizing tendencies.
Hey Eric, interesting article. I’m wondering if this is why the Air Force Acquisition Officer (engineers and PMs) was created? t’s the only service that has this corps as a specialty code you commission into vs transfer into. Thanks!