U.S. Naval Air Crewmen, attached to Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron (HM) 15, conducts flight operations in an MH-53E Sea Dragon in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, July 24, 2025. Source: Official U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Iain Page This image was cropped to show detail and was edited using multiple flters plus dodging and burning techniques.
Financial Management Reform Financial management flexibility is critical to effectively managing a portfolio of programs that provide joint warfghting capabilities. This was one of the themes in the 809 Panel report, which mentions reprogram- ming 153 times in Volume 3. The rec- ommendations include providing the DoD with greater fexibility for shift- ing appropriated funds to where they can provide the greatest beneft at the time of need. The Commission on Planning, Program- ming, Budgeting, and Execution Reform re- port helped with some issues, but it did not solve several fundamental problems. These problems include a long lead time to obtain funding for new starts, restrictions on moving funds from one program to another, appropriation categories that restrict what can be done with a certain “color of money,” and appropriation life (that incentivizes unintended behaviors by government managers trying to meet financial execution obligation and
not necessary to accelerate gaps in our capabilities. The report of the Advisory Panel on Streamlining and Codifying Acquisition Regula- tions (Section 809 Panel) , released in Janu- ary 2019, identifed portfolio manage- ment as a priority candidate for reform, recommending not only a change in investment processes but a shift away from the decades-old, program-cen- tric acquisition model. The proposal would involve a new organizational construct for requirements, funding, and acquisition management respon-
sibilities. This type of reform would be the most signifcant undertaking in defense acquisition history and would require congressional support. To manage the risks associated with such a big change, some pilot port- folios could be identifed to demon- strate the proposal’s utility and allow the workforce to learn by doing. DoD adopted a similar pilot approach with Agile DevSecOps that has grown into DoD’s preferred methodology for software.
We cannot accelerate acquisition cycle times without reforming our requirements and budgeting processes. A piecemeal approach to reform will not be effective as we have seen over the last two decades.
September-October 2025 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION | 41
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker