You can’t make decisions based on 40,000 pages of paper, McNamara was wrong
MCNEIL: … the budget system got pretty complicated under [Robert] McNamara. It took them years to wake up to the fact that he was not […]
robert mcnamara
Getting out of an acquisition system based on predictability and compliance
Jared Serbu: You already have the problem of DoD having the build a budget that they are not going to execute on for another two […]
Podcast: The political-economy of defense with Russell Rumbaugh
I was pleased to have Russell Rumbaugh join me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss some of the most fundamental issues facing defense management. […]
The downside of industrial management controls
Litton Industries became the first conglomerate to preach the gospel of management controls. Lacking either the experience or training to evaluate the performance of so […]
How Robert McNamara forced a policy of “program birth control” on the DoD
McNamara confirmed that each major weapon system development program and all basic and applied research programs would be examined at their inception as well as […]
How DoD policy-making became over-simplified
So the program budget may become, not an information system, but an approved five-year plan that serves as an instrument of control. This arrangement can […]
Can we do away with judgment/intuition in systems design?
The judgement inherent in this balancing of programs and systems can no longer be intuitive or rely on past experience alone. The range of choice […]
Defense is too big, complex, dispersed to be managed from a single point
It has been suggested in some quarters that I am unwilling to decentralize decision-making authority. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I strongly believe […]
Eisenhower’s appeal for increased efficiency and economy — the Single Manager Plan
Today, most of our defense funds are appropriated not to the Secretary of Defense but rather to the military departments. The Secretary of Defense and […]
No more one-horse races for weapon systems
Programs like MBT-70, C-5A, and the F-111 get defended before Congress and the American public-whatever their problems in performance, cost, and schedule slippages-simply because the […]
The history of acquisition since 1950
In an essay published in 1978, the highly regarded historian John Lukacs argues for history that is “microcosmic and sociographic, not sociological and generalizing.” By […]
To End the Reform Pendulum, Fix the Budget
After a 2009 law increased centralization of defense acquisition decisions, reform began to swing in the other direction starting around 2015. The new emphasis is […]