Michael Hammer’s warning still lands because it names a failure pattern defense acq- uisition professionals know well. Organizations buy modern software, point it at an out- dated workflow, and call the result digital transformation. In his 1990 Harvard Business Re- view article, “Reengineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate,” Ham- mer urged leaders to stop paving cow paths. The image endures be- cause it is true. A cow path is a route worn by habit. Paving it does not cre- ate a better road. It only hardens an inefficient one. The modern version is easy to spot. A program office buys an enter - prise business system, then spends years customizing it to preserve old forms, old approvals, old reports, and old local practices. The form becomes a screen. The routing slip becomes workflow. The spreadsheet becomes a custom report. The paper folder becomes a repository. The process is not reengineered. It is simply digi- tized in place. The cost shows up later. Custom- ization drives up implementation expenses, expands testing, compli - cates cybersecurity patches, slows upgrades, increases training burdens, and locks the organization into the very practices the new system was supposed to replace. The root cause usually is not technical. It is resistance to change disguised as a requirement. The objections are familiar: We have always done it this way. We are dif- ferent. Our process is special. Some- times that is true. Often it is not. For defense business systems, business process reengineering can- not be ceremonial. It must come be- fore automation, requirements final - ization, software configuration, and major reorganization. That is not good practice. Federal law requires that defense business processes be reviewed and revised through
JULY – AUGUST 2026 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE 19
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