business process reengineering, as appropriate, to align with commer- cial best practices and minimize cus- tomization of commercial business systems. Department of Defense In- struction 5000.75 also gives the func- tional sponsor a central role in lead- ing the business process changes that support system acquisition. The Reorganization Reflex Government organizations reor- ganize often. Some reorganizations are necessary. Missions change, stat- utes change, budgets change, threats change, and leaders inherit structures that no longer fit the work. But reor - ganization becomes a bad habit when it is used as a substitute for under- standing how the work gets done. The pattern is familiar. A leader sees poor performance and redraws the boxes. Offices are renamed. Re - porting chains shift. New directorates appear. Old ones disappear. A new battle rhythm is issued. Yet the same approvals still pile up, the same data still get entered more than once, the same handoffs still stall action, and the same customers still wait. That is administrative motion, not transformation. A new organization chart may clarify authority, but by it- self it rarely improves cycle time, au- ditability, data quality, customer ser-
vice or accountability. If the process crossed five offices before reorgani - zation, it may still cross five offices afterward. The work simply moves through new boxes with the same old delays. Business process reengineering offers a better starting point. In their 1993 book Reengineering the Corpo- ration: A Manifesto for Business Revo- lution , Hammer and James Champy described reengineering as the fun- damental rethinking and radical rede- sign of business processes to achieve
dramatic improvements in cost, qual- ity, service, and speed. The key word is process. Reengineering starts with the flow of work that produces value for a customer or mission user. Reor- ganization should follow that under-
standing, not replace it. A Process Map Is Not an Organization Chart
One common workshop mistake is treating process mapping as another way to document the organization structure. Participants begin with of- fices, branches, and job titles. They describe who owns what. They argue over lanes. Then they call the result a process map. A process map is different. An or - ganization chart shows who reports to whom. A process map shows how a trigger becomes an outcome. It should capture the start event, end result, customer, tasks, decisions, handoffs, data, systems, controls, re - work loops, and delays. A strong map exposes how work crosses bound - aries. A weak one simply redraws the bureaucracy. This distinction matters because many broken processes are hidden in the seams between organizations. No single office sees the whole thing. One office initiates the request, an - other validates funds, another checks
A program office buys an enterprise business system, then spends years customizing it to preserve old forms, old approvals, old reports, and old local practices.
20 DEFENSE ACQUISITION MAGAZINE | JULY – AUGUST 2026
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