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Program Managers lead Program (Project or Product) Management Offices.
Program Management Offices (PMOs) are part of the transaction costs of overseeing
contracts. They provide the PM with further resources to manage the acquisition of materiel,
supporting warfighters as end-users. Many members of the acquisition workforce furnish
either core or matrix support to a PMO.
At the beginning of FY2000, the size of the DoD’s acquisition workforce was
estimated to be 124,000 personnel (ADR, 2000). The Defense industry’s suppliers typically
follow the project management methodology established by the PM, and often contractors
will staff and operate their program offices to parallel that of the government programs they
support. Both types of DoD managers, PMs and contracting officers, act as transaction
agents to ensure that public funds are being used prudently to accomplish the mission, while
also promoting public policy mandates (e.g., small and disadvantaged businesses), and
ensuring that relevant Government regulations (e.g., safety) are enforced.
The DOD 5000 series of regulations serves as overarching guidance for the
acquisition of materiel—primarily materiel requiring new development and subsequent
investment in production. DOD Directive 5000.1, The Defense Acquisition System, provides
policies and principles to govern the management of all DoD acquisition programs. There
are five major thrusts governing the overall acquisition system: 1) flexibility in shaping
individual programs to meet needs, 2) responsiveness in achieving capabilities in accord
with their timelines of need, and doing so in increments via evolutionary acquisition, 3)
innovation via practices that reduce cycle-time and cost, 4) discipline in the adherence to
goals, with program baseline parameters serving as control measures, and 5) effective
management through decentralized responsibility and authority (DODD 5000.1, 2003).
DoD Instruction 5000.2, Operation of the Defense Acquisition System, establishes a
management framework that translates mission needs and technological opportunities into
stable, affordable, and well-managed acquisition programs (DODI 5000.2, 2003). The
instruction provides procedures for operation of the acquisition management system in
conjunction with a system of prioritizing and allocating funds (the Planning Programming,
Budgeting and Execution System (PPBES)), as well as a system to generate materiel
requirements (the Joint Capabilities Integration Development System (JCIDS)). Together,
they produce bonafide transaction needs, resources and technical performance solutions.
The successful interaction of these three decision-support and management systems are
the governance mechanisms relied on to produce advanced warfighting capability.
C) Cost, Schedule and Performance Attributes are Stratified
The first FAR principle stated above of customer satisfaction (including “cost, quality,
and timeliness of the delivered product or service”) encompasses many of the key features
of acquisition transactions. Acquisition transactions can largely be categorized by their
timeliness, dollar value, and technical performance requirements and characteristics (which
are translated into measures of project management success).
These characteristics are often identified and stratified in various policy and
regulatory documents that affect acquisition procedures and governance. The TCE
characteristics of uncertainty and complexity are largely incorporated within the parameters
of cost, schedule, and performance. Asset specificity is not addressed per se; however, the
DoD has long acknowledged the dangers of becoming “locked-in” to propriety technology (or
unique expertise, i.e., human asset specificity) (DOD Guidebook, 2004). Interestingly, we
observe much less of this cautionary language today, possibly because of highly inelastic
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