The Section 809 Panel was charged by Congress to streamline and codify acquisition regulations. But its research indicated such changes would not be sufficient to make the leap in effectiveness and efficiency the United States needs to remain inside the turn of near-peer competitors in the 21st century. In addition to recommending necessary evolutionary changes, the panel also recommends revolutionary changes to how the DoD Decision Support System (DSS) integrates the three component systems of Big-A acquisition: requirements (the joint capabilities integration and development system, or JCIDS), budgeting/funding (the planning, programming, budgeting and execution process, or PPBE), and acquisition (DODI…

Section 809 Panel released Vol 3 on 15 Jan 2019.   This final report’s section 2 is titled, “Portfolio Management Framework” (starts on page 49 of the report).  Recommendations 36, 37, 38, and 39 in this section outline a move from program-centric to a portfolio-centric framework that is multitiered with a systems view. One portfolio set is led by a Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE), which replaces the current Program Executive Officer (PEO) structure. The other portfolio set is led by Enterprise Capability Portfolio (ECP) co-leaders.   The concept leverages the ANSI portfolio management standard best practices published by PMI while also being…

John Driessnack, Olde Stone Consulting LLC, in collaboration with Project Management Institute (PMI), briefed Team 5 of the Section 809 Panel on use of Portfolio Management and other ANSI standard best practices. The Panel members were very interested in the concepts and asked for further options on how to implement a robust portfolio management approach for DoD Acquisition.    The presentations made on 23 Feb and 23 Mar were partly based on John Driessnack’s PMI white papers published in Mar 2015 and Feb 2017 on how the Federal Government would benefit from using PMI’s ANSI standards for Portfolio, Program, and…

DAU posted, as part of the DAG Dialog series, Professor John Driessnack’s two videos on his framework for analysis and assessment of programs.  These videos outline the Driessnack cubes, which he uses to look at the root cause of program challenges.   In the first video, John discusses using frameworks to help you do analysis and assessments on programs.  He reviews his framework that consists of three cube.  First is the Analysis Cube (scope, structure, lifecycle, institutional rules, and knowledge areas).  Second is the Assessment Cube (energy, decisions, stability, linkage, and discipline).  Third is the Wisdom Cube (governance, leadership, system, team,…

In this whitepaper, the author proposes that the new U.S. presidential administration update federal programming guidance procedures on budgeting and acquisition with an eye towards defining a more holistic management framework based upon industry standards for project, program, and portfolio management — that could result in a more effective and efficient bureaucracy. He says that these changes could promote implementing the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act (PMIAA) and be the catalyst for an overall improvement of capital asset management and accountability. WHITE PAPER PDF RESOURCE LINK

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) news articles and reports continue to highlight problems with federal agencies’ acquisition of new systems or modification of existing systems. Often, in response to these reports, the U.S. Congress fine-tunes existing laws, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) revises policies and puts an emphasis on specific approaches, and individual federal agencies rewrite policies and procedures. Repeatedly, one hears that current laws and policies are inhibiting the ability of federal agencies to deliver project value relative to new or modified systems. An outsider looking in might further comment that the environment is complicated by…