Many of the great defense programs of the World War II and early Cold War periods were intimately associated with PMs of significant tenure: Bill McClean with Sidewinder; Hyman Rickover with nuclear reactors; Leslie Groves with the atomic bomb; Wayne Meyers with Aegis; Werner von Braun, Bernard Schriever, and Red Raborn with ballistic missiles. Rickover claimed it requires 10 to 15 years of experience before rising to a PM. The 20 division heads in nuclear reactors averaged 20 years of technical experience. Yet this tenure was the exception. Former DepSecDef David Packard argued in 1970 that PMs were “often little more than an errand boy.”
The problem has long been recognized. The Robertson Committee of 1956 and “New London” Committees of 1963 called for extended tenure to five years. DoD Directive 5010.14 required PMs to serve three years at a minimum in 1965 but failed to make an impact. In 1984, Congress legislated four-year tours for PMs. A subcommittee investigation later found PM tenure actually fell to less than two years, concluding the services “flouted the law.” This culminated in DAWIA, 10 USC 1734, AcqDemo, and later signed tenure agreements. Yet by 2008, average tenure of MDAPs surveyed fell to 17 months, less than half the development cycle time. The problem is not limited to PMs, but requirements officers, programmers, comptrollers, contracting officers, and other key personnel that hold sway over PM duties.
This is a hard problem with no easy solutions. You can’t just force people into a role they do not want for extended periods — that could force early retirement. Officers can get four location moves in four years to get all the experiences for an O-6, like war college, staff jobs, etc.
Let’s say it takes 10,000 hours to become proficient at something — an instrument, a sport, or acquisition. Let’s further assume the average acquisition officer gets started in their field around year eight of their service. If the average work year is about 2,000 hours, and roughly 50% of their time is actually doing the acquisition job (because of training, mandatory activities, supervising, etc.) then the acquisition officer is proficient with just two years left until he or she is eligible for retirement.
Here’s a slice from former USD A&S Ellen Lord at a Senate hearing:
In the past, some military program managers were rotated from their program manager position with notably less than four years of tenure (the previous requirement). This was often due to being promoted to general/admiral, or to gain other experiences needed to remain competitive for promotion. Follow-on job opportunities also led to shorter than optimum tenures for some civilian program mangers albeit at a lower rate than military counterparts… Often, for various reasons, some resident training is not completed before the program manager has started in their position and must be completed sometime during their tour
Another problem that DoD has been admiring for decades. I wonder if going to an all civilian PM cadre isn’t part of the solution? I worked for many good military PMs, but many bad ones. None of them stayed for more than 2 years. So basically about the time they figure what’s going on, they are already leaving or planning their move. Not good for program continuity or decision making. Same applies to PEOs, by the way.
Commercial product folks get stock options to align tenure and incentives. I think many military folks have intrinsic dedication to the mission but are flung by requirements to make promotions and a lack of autonomy in the job.
Still baffled we don’t put more civilian program managers in charge of major ACAT programs. Typically they are left to lower category efforts even though their experience and qualifications outstrip their military counterparts.
Apple doesn’t put customers in charge of its major products why does the military think that’s a good idea?
That’s a good point. Army almost always has a long standing civilian as deputy PM and deputy PEO.