Defense Acquisitions
DOD Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support Development of Global Information Grid Gao ID: GAO-06-211 January 30, 2006Department of Defense (DOD) officials currently estimate that the department will spend approximately $34 billion through 2011 to develop the core network of the Global Information Grid (GIG), a large and complex undertaking intended to provide on-demand and real-time data and information to the warfighter. DOD views the GIG as the cornerstone of information superiority, a key enabler of network-centric warfare, and a pillar of defense transformation. A high degree of coordination and cooperation is needed to make the GIG a reality. In prior work GAO found that enforcing investment decisions across the military services and assuring management attention and oversight of the GIG effort were key management challenges facing DOD. This report assesses (1) the management approach that DOD is using to develop the GIG and (2) whether DOD's three major decision-making processes support the development of a crosscutting, departmentwide investment, such as the GIG.
DOD's management approach for the GIG--in which no one entity is clearly in charge or accountable for results--is not optimized to enforce investment decisions across the department. The DOD Chief Information Officer has lead responsibility for the GIG development effort, but this office has less influence on investment and program decisions than the military services and defense agencies, which determine investment priorities and manage program development efforts. Consequently, the services and defense agencies have relative freedom to invest or not invest in the types of joint, net-centric systems that are consistent with GIG objectives. Without a management approach optimized to enforce departmentwide investment decisions, DOD is at risk of not knowing whether the GIG is being developed within cost and schedule, whether risks are being adequately mitigated, or whether the GIG will provide a worthwhile return on DOD's investment. The department's three major decision-making processes are not structured to support crosscutting, departmentwide development efforts such as the GIG. In some significant respects, the department's processes for setting requirements, allocating resources, and managing acquisitions encourage investing in systems on an individual service and defense agency basis. While the department has developed a new process for determining requirements, the framework to assess capability needs is still evolving; the new process is not yet identifying shortfalls and gaps in joint military capabilities on a departmentwide basis; and requirements-setting continues to be driven by service perspectives. In addition, the resource allocation process is structured in terms of individual service programs and outdated mission areas instead of crosscutting capabilities such as net-centricity, and it is not flexible enough to quickly accommodate requirements resulting from lessons learned or from rapidly emerging technologies. Also, the process for managing acquisitions is unsuited to developing a system of interdependent systems such as the GIG, and DOD has struggled to achieve service buy-in on joint-service development programs to address interoperability problems. Finally, the lack of integration among these three processes makes it difficult to ensure that development efforts are affordable and technically feasible.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-06-211, Defense Acquisitions: DOD Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support Development of Global Information Grid
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Report to Congressional Committees:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
January 2006:
Defense Acquisitions:
DOD Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support
Development of Global Information Grid:
GAO-06-211:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-06-211, a report to congressional committees:
Why GAO Did This Study:
Department of Defense (DOD) officials currently estimate that the
department will spend approximately $34 billion through 2011 to develop
the core network of the Global Information Grid (GIG), a large and
complex undertaking intended to provide on-demand and real-time data
and information to the warfighter. DOD views the GIG as the cornerstone
of information superiority, a key enabler of network-centric warfare,
and a pillar of defense transformation.
A high degree of coordination and cooperation is needed to make the GIG
a reality. In prior work GAO found that enforcing investment decisions
across the military services and assuring management attention and
oversight of the GIG effort were key management challenges facing DOD.
This report assesses (1) the management approach that DOD is using to
develop the GIG and (2) whether DOD‘s three major decision-making
processes support the development of a crosscutting, departmentwide
investment, such as the GIG.
What GAO Found:
DOD‘s management approach for the GIG”in which no one entity is clearly
in charge or accountable for results”is not optimized to enforce
investment decisions across the department. The DOD Chief Information
Officer has lead responsibility for the GIG development effort, but
this office has less influence on investment and program decisions than
the military services and defense agencies, which determine investment
priorities and manage program development efforts. Consequently, the
services and defense agencies have relative freedom to invest or not
invest in the types of joint, net-centric systems that are consistent
with GIG objectives. and programs managing development of the GIG‘s
core network lack a clear understanding of the GIG concept. Moreover,
Without a management approach optimized to enforce departmentwide
investment decisions, and the various entities involved frequently
neglect to coordinate with one another, DOD is at risk of not knowing
whether the GIG is being developed within cost and schedule, whether
risks are being adequately mitigated, or whether the GIG will provide a
worthwhile return on DOD‘s investment.
The department‘s three major decision-making processes are not
structured to support crosscutting, departmentwide development efforts
such as the GIG. In some significant respects, the department‘s
processes for setting requirements, allocating resources, and managing
acquisitions encourage investing in systems on an individual service
and defense agency basis. While the department has developed a new
process analytic framework for determining requirements, the new
framework to assess capability needs is still evolving; the new process
is not yet identifying shortfalls and gaps in joint military
capabilities on a departmentwide basis; and requirements-setting
continues to be driven by service perspectives. In addition, the
resource allocation process is structured in terms of individual
service programs and outdated mission areas instead of crosscutting
capabilities such as net-centricity, and it is not flexible enough to
quickly accommodate requirements resulting from lessons learned or from
rapidly emerging technologies. Also, the process for managing
acquisitions among programs is also unsuited to acquisitions developing
a system of interdependent systems such as the GIG, and, as it DOD has
struggled to achieve service buy-in on joint-service development
programs to address interoperability problems. Finally, the lack of
integration among these three processes makes it difficult to ensure
that development efforts are affordable and technically feasible.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is recommending DOD adopt a management approach with more clearly
defined leadership, authority to enforce investment decisions across
organizational lines, and accountability for ensuring the objectives of
the GIG are achieved. DOD concurred with GAO‘s recommendation.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-211.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Michael J. Sullivan at
(202) 512-4841or SullivanM@GAO.GOV.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
DOD's Management Approach for the GIG Is Not Optimized to Make
Departmentwide Investment Decisions:
DOD's Key Decision-Making Processes Are Not Designed to Support
Investments in Crosscutting Efforts Such as the GIG:
Conclusion:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Appendix III: Five Major Acquisitions Related to the Core GIG Network
and Information Capability:
Appendix IV: Joint Family of Concepts:
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Figures:
Figure 1: Scenario for Tracking Threats without Benefit of
Interoperable Systems:
Figure 2: Comparison of Communications Exchanges with and without the
GIG:
Abbreviations:
C4ISR: Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance:
CIO: Chief Information Officer:
DOD: Department of Defense:
FYDP: Five Year Defense Plan; Future Years Defense Program:
GIG: Global Information Grid:
GIG-BE: Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion:
IT: Information Technology:
JBMC2: Joint Battle Management Command and Control:
JCIDS: Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System:
JFC: Joint Functional Concepts:
JOC: Joint Operating Concepts:
JROC: Joint Requirements Oversight Council:
JTRS: Joint Tactical Radio System:
NCES: Network Centric Enterprise Services:
OMB: Office of Management and Budget:
PPBE: Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process:
PPBS: Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System:
SINCGARS: Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System:
TSAT: Transformational Satellite Communications System:
WIN-T: Warfighter Information Network-Tactical:
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
January 30, 2006:
The Honorable John Warner:
Chairman:
The Honorable Carl Levin:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Duncan L. Hunter:
Chairman:
The Honorable Ike Skelton:
Ranking Minority Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
House of Representatives:
Despite recent progress by the Department of Defense (DOD), military
operations continue to be hampered by command, control, and
communications systems that lack the ability to interoperate.[Footnote
1] While DOD has been able to patch together disparate systems and
networks to facilitate communications on the battlefield, retrofitting
systems after they have already been fielded can be inefficient and is
not sufficient to meet DOD's stated goal of achieving a networked force
where soldiers, weapon systems, platforms, and sensors are closely
linked and able to operate seamlessly together. DOD believes it can
solve these interoperability problems and achieve a networked force by
developing the Global Information Grid (GIG). The GIG is a large and
complex set of programs and initiatives intended to provide an Internet-
like capability allowing users at virtually any location to access data
on demand, share information in real time, collaborate in decision
making regardless of which military service produced which weapon
system, and have greater joint command of a battle situation.
DOD began investing in the GIG in the late 1990s. We reported in 2004
that DOD planned to spend at least $21 billion through 2010 to develop
a core network for the GIG.[Footnote 2] Today, DOD officials estimate
that the GIG infrastructure will cost approximately $34 billion through
2011.[Footnote 3] DOD's investment in the GIG will extend far beyond
development of the core network, as DOD also intends to integrate the
majority of its existing and planned weapon systems, information
technology systems, and other related systems into the GIG over the
long term. Accomplishing these objectives involves developing and
advancing new technologies, reaching consensus on common standards and
requirements, aligning systems with the attributes of the GIG, and
assessing whether the GIG is providing a worthwhile return on
investment.
In prior work, we identified management and investment challenges,
operational challenges, and technical challenges DOD faces in
implementing the GIG.[Footnote 4] We found that enforcing investment
decisions across the military services and assuring management
attention and oversight were key challenges facing DOD. In this report,
conducted under the authority of the Comptroller General, we further
examine management challenges by (1) assessing the management approach
that DOD is using to develop the GIG and (2) addressing whether DOD's
three major decision-making processes support the development of a
crosscutting, departmentwide investment, such as the GIG. These major
decision-making processes are the Joint Capabilities Integration and
Development System, which DOD uses to identify, assess, and prioritize
military capability needs; the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and
Execution process, which guides how DOD allocates resources; and the
Defense Acquisition System, which governs how DOD acquires weapon and
information technology systems. We are addressing this report to you
because we believe it will be of interest to your committees as you
consider DOD's requests to authorize and appropriate funds for
developing the GIG.
To assess DOD's management approach for the GIG and the extent to which
the department's primary decision-making processes support the GIG, we
collected and reviewed (1) related legislation, directives,
instructions, and guidance; (2) DOD policies and guidance related to
the GIG and network-centric (or "net-centric") governance; and (3)
programmatic and technical documents pertaining to core GIG systems. We
also conducted a review of relevant literature, analyzing studies on
net-centric warfare, systems interoperability, and DOD management and
investment decision making. These studies were collected from defense
and public policy research databases as well as the online collections
of DOD organizations (such as the Defense Science Board and the Joint
C4ISR Decision Support Center), individual think tanks, and
congressional agencies. We also drew upon previous GAO reports on
defense acquisition, information technology investments, and
interoperability issues. We conducted interviews with and received
briefings from officials with a number of DOD organizations (including
the Office of the Secretary of Defense; the Joint Staff; and the three
military services--the Departments of the Air Force, the Army, and the
Navy) that have responsibility for achieving the GIG. We also
interviewed several subject matter experts from academic, think tank,
or consulting organizations who have senior-level DOD experience or who
have recently written on the operation of DOD and its key decision-
making processes. Additional information on our scope and methodology
is in appendix I. We conducted our work from December 2004 through
January 2006 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards.
Results in Brief:
DOD's decentralized management approach for the GIG is not optimized
for the development of this type of joint effort, which depends on a
high degree of coordination and cooperation. Clear leadership and the
authority to enforce investment decisions across organizational lines
are needed to achieve the level of coordination and cooperation
required, but no one entity is clearly in charge of the GIG or equipped
with the requisite authority, and no one entity is accountable for
results. For example, DOD assigned overall leadership responsibility
for the GIG to the DOD Chief Information Officer, to include
responsibility for developing, maintaining, and enforcing compliance
with the GIG architecture; advising DOD leadership on GIG requirements;
and providing enterprisewide oversight of the development, integration,
and implementation of the GIG. However, the Chief Information Officer
generally has less influence on investment and program decisions than
the military services and defense agencies, which determine investment
priorities and manage program development efforts. Consequently, the
services and defense agencies have relative freedom to align or not
align their investments with GIG objectives. A result of this shared
responsibility for the GIG is that the various offices and programs
managing development of initiatives related to the GIG lack a clear
understanding of what the GIG concept is and neglect to coordinate with
each other. Without a management approach optimized to enforce
investment decisions across the department, DOD is at risk of not
knowing whether the GIG is being developed within cost, schedule, and
performance objectives. In prior work, GAO has stated that a
decentralized management structure and the absence of an effective
central enforcement authority are leading causes for the
interoperability problems experienced in past military operations. We
have also reported that an essential ingredient for better ensuring
that overall DOD business transformation is implemented and sustained
is to create a Chief Management Officer position to address key
stewardship responsibilities in areas such as information technology.
In addition, DOD's major decision-making processes are not structured
to support crosscutting, departmentwide efforts such as the GIG.
Overall, these processes were established to support service-and
platform-oriented programs rather than joint, net-centric programs, and
in some significant respects, they remain configured in this way. The
Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) was
implemented in 2003 to enhance the department's ability to determine
requirements for joint military capabilities, but its analytical
framework is still evolving, and it is not yet providing assessments of
capability needs on a departmentwide basis. Consequently, JCIDS is of
limited use for the time being in terms of developing a departmentwide
investment strategy for the net-centric systems critical to the GIG.
The Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process does not
foster integration of the military services' and defense agencies'
budgets to allow for a more cooperative, joint investment approach for
the acquisition of joint capabilities. In addition, the resource
allocation process, which has tended to favor longer-term weapon system
development efforts, is not flexible enough to accommodate emerging
requirements resulting from lessons learned in recent military
operations or the rapidly advancing information technologies that are
characteristic of command, control, and communications systems. DOD's
acquisition process continues to move programs forward without
sufficient knowledge that technologies can work as intended;
consequently, weapon systems cost more and take longer to develop than
originally planned and deliver less capability than initially promised.
In addition, with increased emphasis on joint, net-centric
capabilities, key transformational systems under development depend on
capabilities being provided by other acquisition programs, and they
depend on integrated architectures and common standards as a foundation
for interoperability. However, the acquisition process is not well-
suited to managing interdependencies among programs and fostering joint-
service cooperation in development of weapon and information systems.
Finally, the lack of integration among these three processes makes it
difficult to ensure that development efforts are affordable and
technically feasible.
We are recommending DOD adopt a management approach with more clearly
defined leadership, authority to enforce investment decisions across
organizational lines, and accountability for ensuring the objectives of
the GIG are achieved. In written comments on a draft of this report,
DOD concurred with our findings and recommendation (DOD's letter is
reprinted in app. II).
Background:
DOD has increasingly emphasized joint military operations where, to the
extent possible, service components are closely aligned and employed as
a single joint force. To function effectively as a joint force, DOD has
come to recognize the vital role of achieving information superiority
over its adversaries by having better access to, and greater ability to
share, information across the battlefield. In the late 1990s, the
department began to articulate a vision for network-centric (or "net-
centric") warfare in which networking military forces improves
information sharing and collaboration, which leads to enhanced
situational awareness. Enhanced situational awareness enables more
rapid, effective decisionmaking, which in turn enables improved
efficiency and speed of execution and results in dramatically increased
combat power and mission effectiveness.
A high degree of interoperability is required to achieve battlefield
information superiority. DOD defines interoperability as the ability of
systems, units, or forces to exchange data, information, materiel, and
services to enable them to operate effectively together.[Footnote 5] A
lack of interoperability can make it difficult to hit time-critical
targets and distinguish "friend" from "foe." Figure 1 shows a scenario
in which a sea-based system and a land-based system are tracking
aircraft and are unable to integrate their views of a battlefield. This
lack of interoperability can delay U.S. military response or contribute
to a lethal mistake involving U.S. personnel and equipment.
Figure 1: Scenario for Tracking Threats without Benefit of
Interoperable Systems:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
DOD has recognized that interoperable systems are critical to
conducting joint military operations and that patching systems after
the fact to improve communications is inefficient, and the department
has established policies to promote systems interoperability. However,
GAO and DOD's Inspector General have reported in the past that these
efforts have not been very effective. For example, in the first of a
series of reports beginning in 2002, DOD's Inspector General found that
policies governing systems interoperability were inconsistent and that
without consistent guidance the department was at risk of developing
systems that lack the ability to fully interoperate.[Footnote 6] In
2003, we found that DOD's process for certifying systems
interoperability did not work effectively for ground-surface-based
intelligence processing systems.[Footnote 7] In addition, DOD officials
have said that added emphasis on joint operations and reliance on
information technology creates an increasing requirement for more
systems to exchange information, which in turn makes achieving
interoperability among systems increasingly complex.
DOD views the GIG as the cornerstone of information superiority, a key
enabler of net-centric warfare, and a pillar of defense transformation.
DOD defines the GIG as the globally interconnected, end-to-end set of
information capabilities, associated processes, and personnel for
collecting, processing, storing, disseminating, and managing
information.[Footnote 8] The GIG's many systems are expected to make up
a secure, reliable network to enable users to access and share
information at virtually any location and at anytime. Communications
satellites, next-generation radios, and a military installations-based
network with significantly expanded bandwidth will pave the way for a
new paradigm in which DOD expects to achieve information superiority
over adversaries, much the same way as the Internet has transformed
industry and society on a global scale. Rather than striving for
interoperability through efforts to establish direct information
exchanges between individual systems, the focus of the new paradigm
will be to ensure that all systems can connect to the network based on
common standards and protocols. Figure 2 shows a general depiction of
how DOD enables data exchanges in systems that lack the necessary
connections and how DOD expects the GIG to break through such
limitations.
Figure 2: Comparison of Communications Exchanges with and without the
GIG:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
DOD has adopted a two-pronged approach to realizing the GIG: (1) invest
in a set of new systems and capabilities to build a core infrastructure
for the eventual GIG network (an overview of the five major
acquisitions related to the GIG's core network are listed in app. III)
and (2) populate the network with weapon and information systems that
are able to connect when the core network infrastructure becomes
available.
DOD's Management Approach for the GIG Is Not Optimized to Make
Departmentwide Investment Decisions:
The effort to make the GIG a reality represents a different, inherently
joint type of development challenge that requires a high degree of
coordination and cooperation, but DOD is using a management approach
that is not optimized for this type of challenge. Responsibility for
developing and implementing the GIG resides with numerous entities,
with no one entity clearly in charge or accountable for investment
decisions. Because the GIG will comprise a system of interdependent
systems, it needs clearly identified leadership that has the authority
to enforce decisions that cut across organizational lines. Without a
management approach optimized to enforce investment decisions across
the department, DOD is at risk of continuing to develop and acquire
systems in a stovepiped and uncoordinated manner and of not knowing
whether the GIG is being developed within cost and schedule, whether
risks are being adequately mitigated, and whether the GIG will provide
a worthwhile return on DOD's investment. Consequently, interoperability
problems could continue to hamper DOD in fielding a joint, net-centric
force.
Development of the GIG is essentially a shared responsibility in DOD,
with no single entity both equipped with authority to make investment
decisions and held accountable for results. For example, as laid out in
policy directives, DOD's Chief Information Officer has overall
responsibility for leadership and direction of the GIG. This includes
developing, maintaining, and enforcing compliance with the GIG
architecture; advising DOD leadership on GIG requirements; providing
enterprisewide oversight of the development, integration, and
implementation of the GIG; monitoring and evaluating the performance of
information technology and national security system programs; and
advising the Secretary of Defense and the heads of DOD components on
whether to continue, modify, or terminate such programs.[Footnote 9]
However, the Office of the Chief Information Officer generally has less
influence on investment and program decisions than the services and
defense agencies, which determine investment priorities and manage
program development efforts. Consequently, the services and defense
agencies have relative freedom to invest or not invest in the types of
joint, net-centric systems that are consistent with GIG objectives. The
end result of this shared responsibility is that neither the CIO nor
the military services and defense agencies can be held fully
accountable for the department's success or failure in developing the
GIG.
More broadly, another result of this environment of shared
responsibility is that the various offices and programs that are
managing initiatives related to the GIG do so in a disparate manner.
For example, a 2002 DOD study found that there was little unity of
effort among the 80 separate initiatives and actions under way
associated with joint command and control.[Footnote 10] The next year,
DOD's Defense Science Board reported that joint warfighting needs--such
as joint battle management and joint intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance--are "neglected or spread in an uncoordinated fashion
across multiple service and defense agency programs."[Footnote 11] In
2004, the DOD Inspector General found that DOD lacked a strategy to
integrate its net-centric initiatives, including clearly defined net-
centric goals and organizational roles and responsibilities.[Footnote
12] In responding to this study, DOD's Deputy Chief Information Officer
(CIO) indicated that improvements could be made in the department's
guidance and approach to achieving net-centric goals, but that elements
of a strategic plan have been or are being developed. However,
according to the study, management comments from other DOD entities
"clearly illustrate that DoD components needed leadership and strategic
guidance and were unaware that the—[CIO] had the lead for network-
centric concepts." [Footnote 13] The study also found that there was a
lack of common understanding across DOD of what constitutes net-centric
warfare--of which the GIG is a key enabler. Officials we interviewed in
the Office of the Chief Information Officer stated that there is also a
lack of common understanding throughout DOD about what is included in
the GIG. DOD's management approach to realizing joint, interoperable
capabilities puts DOD at risk of duplicated efforts and suboptimal
investment outcomes for command, control, and communications systems.
Almost 20 years ago, we identified DOD's decentralized management
structure and the absence of an effective central enforcement authority
for joint interoperability as two causes for joint command, control,
and communications interoperability problems experienced in past
military operations. We concluded that solving the interoperability
problem would require "a great deal" of cooperation among the services
and a willingness among them to pursue interoperability even when it
conflicts with their traditional practices.[Footnote 14] In 1993, we
found DOD had not made significant progress in improving on this
situation. We recommended that DOD establish a joint program office
with directive authority and funding controls for acquiring command,
control, and communications systems and that DOD consolidate
responsibility for interoperability in U.S. Atlantic Command (now U.S.
Joint Forces Command).[Footnote 15] DOD responded that our
recommendations would unnecessarily complicate DOD management, and DOD
stated that planned and recently implemented policy, procedural, and
organizational changes intended to address the problem needed time to
take effect.
In recent years, however, DOD has recognized that its approach to
developing and fielding command, control, and communications systems
was somewhat disjointed. In an effort to improve the situation, DOD
tasked Joint Forces Command in 2003 to lead the development of
advanced, integrated joint battle management command and control
(JBMC2) capabilities departmentwide. While Joint Forces Command was
given responsibilities to lead this effort, it does not control the
resources for materiel solutions, and the command may not have
sufficient influence over the services' resource decisions to ensure
the assessment framework it has developed for improving JBMC2
capabilities will be executed effectively. The framework for specific
mission areas within JBMC2 will begin to be implemented in 2006, but
formal agreements involving resourcing and level of service
participation in these assessments are have not yet been worked out. In
addition, in 2004, the Joint Staff initiated the Net-Centric Operating
Environment project in part to improve coordination of the GIG core
network systems currently under development. The Joint Staff has
proposed options to establish a stronger joint management structure for
these systems, such as placing them under a single acquisition
authority, and this analysis is being considered as part of DOD's
Quadrennial Defense Review effort. In the meantime, a study released in
2005 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a
bipartisan think tank, reiterates the need for DOD to instill a greater
joint focus in its management approach to achieving systems
interoperability by transferring budget and acquisition authority for
joint command, control, and communications from the services to a
single joint entity.
In the broader context of defense transformation--of which the GIG is a
key component--we have pressed DOD to adopt a more centralized
management approach to integrate and improve its business processes,
human capital, and military capabilities. In 2004, we reported that no
one person or entity had overarching and ongoing leadership
responsibilities or accountability for the department's transformation
efforts,[Footnote 16] and we recommended that DOD establish clear
leadership and a formal crosscutting transformation team with the
responsibility for overseeing and integrating DOD's transformation
strategy and the authority to perform these responsibilities. DOD
disagreed with our recommendations, indicating that the Secretary of
Defense provides the leadership needed and that a crosscutting
transformation team would represent an unneeded and confusing
bureaucratic layer. However, we pointed out that (1) the day-to-day
demands placed on the Secretary of Defense make it difficult for him to
personally maintain the oversight, focus, and momentum needed to
sustain transformation efforts and (2) that without a crosscutting
team, DOD has no routine vehicle for maintaining a continued focus on
transformation goals and no mechanism for resolving implementation
issues that may arise. Similarly, to address problems DOD has long
faced in managing its business systems[Footnote 17] and to guide the
department's business transformation efforts, we have proposed that DOD
establish a more centralized management structure to control the
allocation and execution of funds for DOD business systems.[Footnote
18] Specifically, due to the complexity and long-term nature of
business transformation efforts, we reported that strong and sustained
executive leadership is needed if DOD is to succeed. We believe one way
to ensure strong, sustained leadership for DOD's business management
reform efforts would be to create a full-time, senior executive
position for a chief management official, who would serve as the Deputy
Secretary of Defense for Management. This position would serve as a
strategic integrator to elevate and institutionalize the attention
essential for addressing key stewardship responsibilities, such as
strategic planning, enterprise architecture development and
implementation, information technology (IT), and financial management,
while facilitating the overall business management transformation
within DOD. DOD's position has been that the Deputy Secretary of
Defense has the requisite position, authority, and purview to perform
the functions of a Chief Management Officer. Although DOD has recently
begun taking some positive steps to transform the department's business
operations, including establishing the Business Transformation Agency
in 2005, we continue to believe that a Chief Management Officer
position may better ensure that overall business transformation is
implemented and sustained.
DOD's Key Decision-Making Processes Are Not Designed to Support
Investments in Crosscutting Efforts Such as the GIG:
DOD's major decision-making processes are not structured to support
crosscutting, departmentwide efforts such as the GIG. In some
significant respects, the processes remain configured for investing in
weapon and information systems on an individual service and defense
agency basis. In addition, the department's new process for determining
requirements is still evolving, and it is not yet identifying
shortfalls and gaps in joint military capabilities on a departmentwide
basis. The resource allocation process remains structured in terms of
individual service programs and outdated mission areas instead of
crosscutting capabilities such as net-centricity, and it is inflexible
in terms of accommodating emerging near-term requirements and rapidly
advancing technologies. DOD's acquisition process continues to move
programs forward without sufficient knowledge that their technologies
can work as intended; consequently, systems cost more and take longer
to develop than originally planned and deliver less capability than
initially promised. In addition, the acquisition process is not well
suited to managing interdependencies among programs and fostering joint-
service cooperation in development of weapon and information systems.
Finally, the lack of integration among the three processes makes it
difficult to ensure that development efforts are affordable and
technically feasible.
The three processes assessed in this report are the Joint Capabilities
Integration and Development System (JCIDS); the Planning, Programming,
Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process; and the Defense Acquisition
System.
JCIDS Process Not Yet Providing Departmentwide Assessment of Military
Requirements:
Implemented in 2003,[Footnote 19] JCIDS is intended to enhance the
process DOD uses to identify, assess, and prioritize joint military
requirements, but service perspectives continue to drive requirements
setting, a condition that has tended to impede the development of
interoperable systems in the past.[Footnote 20] JCIDS is not yet
identifying shortfalls and gaps in existing and projected joint
military capabilities on a departmentwide basis, and the analytical
framework that underpins JCIDS (capability-based assessments) is still
evolving. Without crosscutting, department-level assessments, DOD is
limited in its ability to develop a departmentwide investment strategy
to support development of the net-centric systems critical to the GIG.
JCIDS replaced the approximately 30-year-old Requirements Generation
System, which DOD states frequently resulted in systems that were
service rather than joint-focused, programs that duplicated each other,
and systems that were not interoperable. Under this process,
requirements were often developed by the services as stand-alone
solutions to counter specific threats and scenarios. In contrast, JCIDS
is designed to identify the broad set of capabilities that may be
required to address the security environment of the 21st century. In
addition, requirements under the JCIDS' approach are intended to be
developed from the "top-down," that is, starting with the national
military strategy, whereas the former process was "bottom up," with
requirements growing out of the individual services' unique strategic
visions and lacking clear linkage to the national military strategy.
The Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) has overall
responsibility for JCIDS and is supported by eight Functional
Capabilities Boards,[Footnote 21] which lead the capabilities-based
assessment process.
The requirements process remains service-focused to a significant
extent. For example, the four members of the Joint Requirements
Oversight Council are the services' Vice Chiefs of Staff and the
Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps,[Footnote 22] an arrangement
some studies contend grants too much influence to the services in
setting requirements. The services are force providers--they supply the
forces and develop the systems for military operations--but combatant
commanders conduct joint military operations and thus represent the
demand side of the requirements process. Combatant commanders are not,
however, members of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, and
analyses conducted both prior to and following the implementation of
JCIDS recommend either replacing the current members with
representatives from the combatant commands or enlarging the Council to
include such representatives.[Footnote 23] DOD has included
representatives from the combatant commands on the Functional
Capabilities Boards, along with representatives from nine other
organizations[Footnote 24] (under the former requirements process, only
representatives from the military services and the Defense Intelligence
Agency served in a similar capacity). DOD officials indicate, however,
that combatant commander participation on the boards is in reality
limited and of ongoing concern, and a July 2005 Joint Forces Command
briefing indicates that, so far, the combatant commands' requirements
do not drive the requirements process. In May 2005, DOD introduced a
new mechanism for the combatant commands to identify capability
gaps,[Footnote 25] and a DOD official told us the combatant commands
are embracing this opportunity. However, the official also indicated
that much requirements setting continues to be driven by the services
at this point and that it is unclear how the services will respond to
this type of input from the combatant commands.
The JCIDS process is still evolving. A key enabler for capability
assessments under JCIDS are joint concepts, which are visualizations of
future operations that describe how a commander might employ
capabilities to achieve desired effects and objectives. The majority of
the joint concepts have completed an initial phase of development, but
they continue to be evaluated and revised.[Footnote 26] These concepts
are intended to describe future capability needs in sufficient detail
to conduct a capabilities-based assessment, which is the methodology
through which capability gaps and excesses are identified. A Joint
Staff official states that capability-based assessment continues to be
refined daily and has yet to produce a common framework or set of
rules.[Footnote 27] At present, it can take several years to conduct a
capabilities-based assessment under JCIDS, which is too slow according
to a Joint Staff official associated with the process. However, the
biggest challenge posed by a change such as JCIDS may be a cultural
one: Joint Staff officials stated that the services are struggling with
JCIDS, and the officials observed that the new process requires the
services to change their behavior and think in a joint way.
JCIDS is not yet functioning as envisioned to define gaps and
redundancies in existing and future military capabilities across the
department and to identify solutions to improve joint capabilities. At
this point, requirements continue to be defined largely from the
"bottom up"--by the services--although DOD uses the JCIDS framework to
assess the services' proposals and push a joint perspective. The
importance of defining capability needs and solutions from a
crosscutting, department-level perspective was highlighted in a
prominent 2004 study chartered by the Secretary of Defense, which
stated that "a service focus does not provide an accurate picture of
joint needs, nor does it provide a consistent view of priorities and
acceptable risks across DOD." [Footnote 28] The study observed that the
analytical capability for determining requirements largely resides in
the military services, and it recommended that analyses of both joint
needs and solutions to meet those needs be conducted at the department-
level (in collaboration with the combatant commands, Joint Staff,
defense agencies, services, and Office of the Secretary of Defense).
Resource Allocation Process Does Not Support Crosscutting Investments:
The resource allocation process is not structured to facilitate
investments in crosscutting capabilities such as the GIG. Unlike JCIDS,
the resource allocation process is structured in terms of individual
service and defense agency programs rather than in terms of joint
capability areas, such as net-centricity. In this structure, the
military services have come to dominate in the development of the DOD
budget, designing their programs and budgets based more on individual,
service-focused systems than on crosscutting capabilities with broad
joint utility. In part, this situation reflects the persistence of a
service-centric culture rooted in the services' interpretation of their
Title 10 authority to organize, train, and equip military
forces.[Footnote 29] This resource allocation culture has contributed
to DOD's interoperability problems and made it difficult to capitalize
on rapid advancements in information technology that can improve joint
operational effectiveness.
The predecessor to PPBE was the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting
System (PPBS), established in the early 1960s to be DOD's central
strategic planning, program development, and resource allocation
decision-making process. DOD expected the system to align the
department's investments in defense programs with overarching national
security objectives and military strategy, integrating the previously
unrelated programs and budgets of the military services into a coherent
program and budget for DOD as a whole. One of the central products of
this system was the multiyear Five Year Defense Plan (FYDP),[Footnote
30] which the Secretary of Defense could use to assess each military
service's contribution to DOD's overall capability in crosscutting
mission areas, termed as Major Force Programs.[Footnote 31] By
categorizing service programs into a structure of Major Force Programs,
the FYDP was intended to give the Secretary of Defense visibility over
the totality of DOD's capabilities, and thus enable the Secretary to
make trade-off decisions among service investments in support of
overall DOD objectives. The PPBS process fell short of these
expectations in several respects:
* The services and defense agencies tended to receive the Secretary's
planning guidance after they had begun preparing their proposed
programs and budgets, and the guidance has been criticized for not
clearly articulating DOD funding priorities, reflecting resource
constraints, containing performance measures, or providing enough
detail to be useful. Together, these factors contributed to the
services' latitude to define their own investment priorities
independent of the Secretary's stated objectives.
* The Office of the Secretary of Defense reviews of the services'
program and budget submissions occurred late in the process. As a
result, opportunities to build joint priorities (such as interoperable
systems) into the services' program and budget submissions were
limited, and joint initiatives were often addressed late in the process
when it was more difficult to make changes.
* PPBS was structured to allocate resources to meet longer-term, more
predictable needs, which made it difficult to accommodate (1) near-term
requirements such as those identified by combatant commanders based on
lessons learned from recent or ongoing military operations and (2)
rapidly advancing technologies. For example, commercially developed
information technology tends to advance quickly, and it has been
difficult to plan for advances in these technologies through the normal
planning and budget process.[Footnote 32]
* PPBS was not well integrated with the requirements determination and
acquisitions processes to ensure that development efforts were
affordable and technically feasible. For example, more acquisition
programs are started than DOD can afford, with the result that many
programs must compete for funding.[Footnote 33] This situation in turn
creates incentives to produce overly optimistic cost and schedule
estimates and to over promise capability.
* The Major Force Programs that comprise the FYDP have changed little
since the inception of PPBS in the early 1960s, despite changes in the
operational environment and the emergence of strategic objectives such
as the GIG. Some observers have recommended that the major program
areas be substantially reconfigured to focus service programs on
transformation initiatives, including creating a Major Force Program
dedicated to C4ISR programs.[Footnote 34] In prior work, GAO also found
that the FYDP did not provide visibility over some high-priority items,
including information technology.[Footnote 35] Information technology
investments as an area of funding are difficult to identify in the DOD
budget, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense reports separately
to Congress and OMB on DOD's information technology expenditures.
However, we have found material inconsistencies, inaccuracies, or
omissions that limit the reliability of this reporting effort.[Footnote
36]
In an effort to streamline the process and make it more efficient, DOD
revised PPBS in 2001 to make department-level reviews of service and
defense agency programs and budgets concurrent rather than sequential.
In 2003 DOD further revised the process to increase its effectiveness
and emphasize budget execution by requiring a full budget development
cycle every other year rather than every year. DOD named the revised
process the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution process.
These recent changes have not addressed some of the characteristics of
the process that in the past made it difficult to address joint needs-
-such as systems interoperability:
* The services and defense agencies continue to have control over
resources for command, control, and communications systems critical to
the GIG, a condition that has in the past fostered development of
service-specific systems with limited interoperability. As a DOD-wide
interoperability solution, however, the GIG represents a different type
of development challenge that requires a more cooperative, joint
investment approach than has been typical of DOD in the past. If those
who are responsible and accountable for the success of the GIG do not
have control over resources, the department may continue to employ a
stovepiped approach to investing in systems, and thus fail to
fundamentally improve interoperability outcomes.
* PPBE is still not sufficiently integrated with the requirements and
acquisition processes. In addition, the requirements determination
process is now structured in terms of capabilities, but the resource
allocation process continues to be structured in terms of individual
service and defense agency programs rather than capability areas (such
as net-centricity). Also, the Major Force Programs established with the
FYDP remain virtually unchanged and no longer adequately reflect the
needs of current and future missions.
* The PPBE process is still not flexible enough to quickly accommodate
emerging technologies or requirements resulting from lessons learned.
In recent years, some budgetary flexibility has been created through
such mechanisms as the congressionally established Limited Acquisition
Authority[Footnote 37] granted to U.S. Joint Forces Command to meet
urgent, unanticipated warfighting needs. However, because there are no
funds budgeted for this authority, the command has faced challenges in
finding funding for projects.
In response to GAO recommendations, DOD has issued a policy and taken
initial steps toward implementing a portfolio-based management approach
to investing in information technology systems. However, DOD was slow
to formalize its policy, and it is too early to assess its
effectiveness.[Footnote 38] DOD believes that managing its information
technology investments by mission-oriented portfolios[Footnote 39]--a
concept emphasized in the commercial sector--will (1) ensure
information technology investments support the department's vision,
mission, and goals; (2) ensure efficient and effective delivery of
capabilities to the warfighter; and (3) maximize the return on DOD's
investment. However, the DOD directive establishing information
technology portfolio management indicates that portfolio management
processes must work within the bounds of DOD's three major investment
decision-making processes. Given this guidance and the limitations of
the PPBE process, it is unclear whether portfolio managers would be
sufficiently empowered to meaningfully influence DOD components'
information technology investments.
Acquisition Process Not Suited to Managing Interdependent Programs:
DOD has taken various steps in recent years to improve acquisition
outcomes and focus acquisition decision-making on developing joint, net-
centric systems, but the Defense Acquisition System remains essentially
structured to support investments in service-oriented systems. To
effectively develop the GIG and enable net-centric capabilities, the
acquisition process must ensure that programs critical to the GIG not
only achieve desired cost, schedule, and performance objectives, but--
because the programs are interdependent and must work together to
deliver a capability--it must also ensure that their development is
closely synchronized and managed. In addition, to be interoperable,
systems must be developed from a joint perspective and aligned with the
architecture, standards, and data strategies established for the GIG.
Further, the acquisition process must be adaptive to keep pace with the
rapid advances that have taken place with information technology in
recent years.
Although DOD produces the best weapons in the world, GAO has found that
the department's acquisition process has long been beset by problems
that cause weapon systems to cost more, take longer to develop and
field, and deliver less capability than originally envisioned.[Footnote
40] In recent years, we recommended that DOD adopt a knowledge-based
approach to acquisitions that reduces risk by attaining high levels of
knowledge in three elements of a new product--technology, design, and
production--at key consecutive junctures in development.[Footnote 41]
DOD has taken steps in recent years to address these issues. In May
2003, DOD issued a revised acquisition policy that incorporated
knowledge-based and evolutionary acquisition principles employed by
leading commercial companies, with the aim of fostering greater
efficiency and flexibility and reducing risk in the development and
acquisition of weapon systems. [Footnote 42] The revised policy
requires program managers to reduce risk by demonstrating attainment of
essential knowledge at key program junctures and establishes as DOD's
preferred strategy developing systems incrementally, an approach in
which the customer may not get the ultimate capability right away, but
the product is available sooner and at a lower cost. However, we
continue to see many programs move forward with a high degree of risk.
For example, programs that are critical to the GIG, such as the Joint
Tactical Radio System (JTRS) and Transformational Satellite
Communications System (TSAT), have progressed without sufficient
knowledge that their technologies could work as intended.[Footnote 43]
Consequently, these programs have faced cost, schedule, and performance
issues that have complicated DOD's efforts to deliver these key GIG
components as originally planned.[Footnote 44]
Under the Defense Acquisition System, programs that are intended to
produce interdependent systems are too often managed independently
rather than as a system of systems.[Footnote 45] With increased efforts
to promote net-centric capabilities, key transformational systems under
development depend on capabilities being provided by other acquisition
programs. However, DOD program management and acquisition oversight
tend to focus on individual programs and not necessarily on
synchronizing multiple programs to deliver interdependent systems at
the same time, as required to achieve the intended capability. This
focus has affected some recent DOD efforts to develop such systems of
systems. We recently reported, for example, that the Army's effort to
develop a high-capacity communications network for higher-level command
units, a program called the Warfighter Information Network-Tactical
(WIN-T), was at risk because critical capabilities to be provided by
other programs--unmanned aerial vehicles--may not be available when
needed (one platform was not adequately funded for a dedicated
communications capability and the other was still in the concept
development phase).[Footnote 46] In addition, the Army's Future Combat
Systems[Footnote 47] program is at risk because its development
schedule is not consistent with the fielding schedules for the Joint
Tactical Radio Systems, on which it is critically dependent.
Although DOD has acknowledged the growing importance of
interoperability and recognizes the corresponding need to improve joint
coordination in acquisitions, the military services continue to develop
and acquire systems that have limited interoperability with other
systems on the battlefield. This condition persists in part because the
military services have traditionally focused on developing and
acquiring systems to meet their own specific missions and have placed
relatively less emphasis on developing and acquiring the types of
interoperable systems needed to meet the demands of joint
operations.[Footnote 48] Consequently, systems have often been
developed to perform service-specific tasks and to support vertical
exchanges of information. Rather than being developed around integrated
architectures[Footnote 49] and common standards, systems have been
designed and developed using different standards and protocols, and
operate in different portions of the radio-frequency spectrum.
DOD has had policies in place for several years to improve systems
interoperability, including the designation of interoperability as a
key performance parameter for all systems that exchange information and
required testing for interoperability, but recent military operations
have shown that interoperability problems persist. Recently, DOD has
introduced new initiatives to improve interoperability and focus on the
need for joint, net-centric systems. For example, in 2003, DOD replaced
the requirement for an interoperability key performance parameter with
a net-ready key performance parameter. Whereas the interoperability key
performance parameter sought to ensure a system could exchange
information directly with several other systems, the new net-ready key
performance parameter requires a system to be able to exchange
information with the "network." In addition, DOD's Chief Information
Officer launched a net-centric program review effort in 2004, intended
to improve the department's focus on developing systems with net-
centric attributes. While these efforts represent some commitment by
DOD to improving the interoperability of the systems it develops and
acquires, they may be of limited value unless interdependent programs
are managed more effectively.
One mechanism DOD has used for a relatively longer period of time to
help address the systems interoperability problem is combining similar
service requirements into joint-service development programs in an
effort to ensure closer up-front coordination between services and to
realize economic efficiencies. However, in practice the department has
long struggled to achieve service buy-in, which is essential to joint
acquisition success. For example, in 2003 we reported that the Joint
Tactical Radio System program had difficulty getting the military
services to agree on joint requirements and funding necessary to
execute the program. We further found that the lack of joint-service
cooperation on the program hampered production of necessary program
documents such as the concept of operations and migration plans and
that together these factors caused schedule delays. In the meantime,
the Army made unplanned purchases of additional legacy radios to meet
operational needs.[Footnote 50] We recommended that DOD strengthen the
joint-program management structure by establishing centralized program
funding, realigning the Joint Program Office under a different
organizational arrangement, and placing the cluster development
programs under the Joint Program Office. In the fiscal year 2004
National Defense Authorization Act,[Footnote 51] Congress directed DOD
to take steps consistent with most of our recommendations. Similarly,
DOD's efforts to develop a Single Integrated Air Picture capability--
whereby airborne tracking information from different sensor systems can
be fused into a single picture--have also encountered joint management
challenges. Although Joint Forces Command was given new oversight
responsibilities in 2003 to promote stronger joint management of the
Single Integrated Air Picture development effort, it has been
difficult, according to officials from Joint Forces Command and the
Single Integrated Air Picture program office, to resolve differences
with the services regarding requirements and funding.
While DOD's acquisition policy now includes knowledge-based and
evolutionary acquisition principles, the acquisition system operates
too slowly and is too inflexible to keep pace with the rapid
development of communications technologies essential to modern,
interoperable command, control, and communications systems. For
example, the National Research Council found in 1999 that the program
management and oversight processes of the acquisition system operate on
metrics optimized for weapon system acquisitions in which underlying
technologies change more slowly than do the information technologies
essential to modern command, control, and communications
systems.[Footnote 52] The study concludes that metrics oriented to long
acquisition cycles and full performance capability often do not allow
for the timely integration of commercial technologies into command,
control, and communications systems. More recently, in a 2002 study,
DOD's Joint C4ISR Decision Support Center concluded that technology for
joint command and control capabilities progresses by a generation or
more before the acquisition system can field them.[Footnote 53] The end
result of these problems is that the acquisition system is not
sufficiently responsive to warfighter needs for interoperable systems.
DOD entities have developed short-term interoperability solutions
(e.g., a communications network--the Joint Network Transport
Capability[Footnote 54]--deployed to Iraq in 2004) and invested
supplemental appropriations in legacy (largely commercial off-the-
shelf) command, control, and communications systems urgently needed on
the battlefield (e.g., in fiscal year 2005, Congress appropriated $767
million in supplemental funds[Footnote 55] for the legacy
SINCGARS[Footnote 56] radios).
Conclusion:
DOD's current approach to developing the GIG does not foster the level
of coordination and cooperation needed to make the GIG a reality. DOD's
management approach for the GIG effort and the department's decision-
making processes contain fundamental structural impediments to success
that recent changes to them have not been able to overcome. In fact,
these vertically-oriented or "stovepiped" ways of doing business have
helped perpetuate the very interoperability problem that the GIG is
intended to overcome. We believe DOD will not be successful in
"horizontal" or crosscutting initiatives such as the GIG unless it
substantially changes its decentralized management approach and the
service-centric, poorly integrated processes it uses to make investment
decisions. The stakes are high. Management inefficiencies that were
accepted as the cost of doing business in the past could jeopardize
crosscutting efforts like the GIG because greater interdependencies
among systems will mean that problems in individual development
programs will ripple through to other programs, having a damaging
effect on the overall effort. In addition, the likelihood of slowed
growth and perhaps even reductions in DOD's future budgets that may
result from the nation's long-term fiscal imbalance will limit the
department's ability to mitigate the impact of these problems with
additional budgetary resources. Without significant change in DOD's
management approach and processes, we believe the department will not
be able to achieve the GIG as envisioned and may have to settle for a
different, more expensive solution farther out in the future than
planned.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
To better accommodate the crosscutting nature of the GIG development
effort, we recommend DOD adopt a management approach that will ensure a
joint perspective is taken. In doing so, DOD should (1) consolidate
responsibility, authority, and control over resources--within the
existing management structure or in a new entity--necessary to enforce
investment decisions that cut across organizational lines and (2) hold
the organization accountable for ensuring the objectives of the GIG are
achieved.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In written comments on a draft of this report, DOD concurred with our
findings and recommendation (DOD's letter is reprinted in app. II). In
commenting on our recommendation, however, DOD noted that Department of
Defense Directive 5144.1 (May 2, 2005) indicates that the DOD Chief
Information Officer is responsible for integrating information and
related activities and services across the department. While this
directive is intended to help strengthen the department's management of
investments such as the GIG, we remain concerned that the
responsibility, authority, and accountability for developing the
components of the GIG reside among many organizational entities across
the department. DOD also noted in its comments that Department of
Defense Directive 8115.01 (October 10, 2005) establishes policy for
managing information technology by portfolios and that this portfolio
approach should provide a critical tool for improving integration
across the department's major decision support systems (JCIDS, PPBE,
and the Defense Acquisition System). We agree that the concept of
portfolio management holds promise; however, we are not confident that
DOD will be able to effectively implement the policy unless it
substantially changes its decision-making processes and ensures that
portfolio managers are sufficiently empowered to influence DOD
components' information technology investment decisions.
We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Defense; the
Secretaries of the Air Force, Army, and Navy; the Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Networks and Information Integration; the Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; the
Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller); the Director of the Defense
Information Systems Agency; and interested congressional committees. We
will provide copies to others on request. This report will also be
available at no charge on GAO's Web site at http://www.gao.gov.
If you have any questions about this report or need additional
information, please call me at (202) 512-4841 (sullivanm@gao.gov).
Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public
Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who
made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix V.
Signed by:
Michael J. Sullivan:
Director:
Acquisition and Sourcing Management:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To assess the Department of Defense's (DOD) management approach for the
Global Information Grid (GIG) and the extent to which the department's
primary decision-making processes support the GIG, we collected and
reviewed (1) related legislation, directives, instructions, and
guidance; (2) DOD policies and guidance related to the GIG and network-
centric (or "net-centric") governance; and (3) programmatic and
technical documents pertaining to core GIG systems. We also conducted a
review of relevant literature, analyzing studies on net-centric
warfare, systems interoperability, and DOD management and investment
decision making. We conducted this literature review by searching
several types of databases using such search terms as Joint
Capabilities Integration and Development System; Planning, Programming,
Budgeting, and Execution process; Defense Acquisition System;
interoperability; jointness; requirements; defense budget; Global
Information Grid; etc. The databases were:
* the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) database, which
collects thousands of research and development project summaries from
defense organizations;
* Policy File, which provides abstracts and full-text articles on
public policy research and analysis from research organizations, think
tanks, university research programs, and publishers; and:
* Dialog Defense Newsletters, which contains full-text newsletters on
defense companies, products, markets, technologies, and legislation.
We identified related analyses by searching online archives at GAO,
individual think tanks such as RAND, and congressional agencies. We
also individually searched online collections of various DOD
organizations, including the Defense Science Board, the Office of Force
Transformation, the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the Joint C4ISR
Decision Support Center. We examined the selected documents to identify
the positions taken within them regarding the nature and causes of
problems related to interoperability, jointness, and DOD's decision-
making processes. We placed these results in a series of matrices to
identify commonalities in the literature--such as concerns about
organizational structure and the lack of integration among the three
decision-making processes--and we used this synthesis to develop and
support our findings.
In addition, we conducted interviews with and received briefings from
officials with a number of DOD organizations (including the Office of
the Secretary of Defense; the Joint Staff; and the three military
services--the Departments of the Air Force, the Army, and the Navy)
that have responsibility for achieving the GIG. We also interviewed
several subject matter experts (from academic, think tank, or
consulting organizations) who have senior-level DOD experience or who
have recently written on the operation of DOD and its key decision-
making processes.
We conducted our work from December 2004 through January 2006 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Comments from the Department of Defense:
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE:
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER:
6000 DEFENSE PENTAGON:
WASHINGTON, DC 20301-6000:
January 11, 2006:
Mr. Michael J. Sullivan:
Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management:
US General Accounting Office:
441 G Street, NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Sullivan,
This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the General
Accounting Office (GAO) draft report "Defense Acquisitions, DoD
Management Approach and Processes Not Well-Suited to Support
Development of Global Information Grid," dated December 19, 2005 (GAO
Code 120383/GAO-06-211).
The DoD has reviewed the findings of the report and appreciates the
efforts of the GAO staff to present objective viewpoints regarding
Management Approach and Processes of the Global Information Grid. After
reviewing the draft report, DoD concurs with the findings and
recommendations and provides the enclosed comments.
My point of contact is Mrs. Bonnie Hammersley, Resource Planning and
Budget Office. She can be reached at 703-695-3937, or via e-mail at
bonnie.hammersley@osd.mil.
Signed by:
Cheryl J. Roby:
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Resources):
Enclosure: As Stated:
GAO DRAFT REPORT DATED JANUARY 2006:
GAO-06-211:
"Defense Acquisitions: DoD Management Approach and Processes Not Well-
Suited to Support Development of Global Information Grid"
DEPARMENT OF DEFENSE COMMENTS TO THE GAO RECOMMENDATION:
RECOMMENDATION: To better accommodate the crosscutting nature of the
Global Information Grid (GIG) development effort, the GAO recommended
that the Secretary of Defense adopt a management approach that will
ensure a joint perspective is taken. In doing so, DOD should (1)
consolidate responsibility, authority, and control over resources-
within the existing management structure or in a new entity-necessary
to enforce investment decisions that cut across organizational lines
and (2) hold the organization accountable for ensuring the objectives
of the GIG are achieved.
DOD RESPONSE: DoD concurs with the recommendation. DoD agrees that a
management approach and specific measures are necessary to better
assess and enforce GIG investment decisions that cut across
organizational lines. Departmental Directive 5144.1, dated May 2, 2005,
indicates that the ASD(NII)/DoD CIO is responsible for integrating
information and related activities and services across the DoD. It
specifically states that the ASD(NII)/DoD CIO is the principal staff
assistant and advisor to the Secretary of Defense on networks and
network-centric policies and concepts; command and control (C2)
communications; non-intelligence space matters; enterprise-wide
integration of DoD information matters; Information Technology IT,
including National Security Systems and (NSS) information resources
management (IRM); spectrum management; network operations; information
systems, information assurance, position, navigation, and timing
policy, including airspace and military-air-traffic control activities;
sensitive information integration; contingency support and migration
planning and related matters.
Under the leadership of the DoD CIO, DoD has established policy for
management of information technology by portfolios at the enterprise
level and below. DoD Directive 8115.01, IT Portfolio Management, dated
October 10, 2005, establishes four IT portfolios: Business,
Warfighting, DoD Intelligence, and the Enterprise Information
Environment. The core GIG network and information capability cited in
Appendix III of the draft GAO report (TSAT, GIG-BE, JTRS, NCES and
Cryptography Transformation (part of Information Assurance) are
acquisition programs for which ASD NII/CIO is the principal staff
assistant. DoD Directive 8115.01 requires that DoD perform cross-
cutting management of IT investments, including National Security
Systems, to include integration with JCIDS, PPBE, and Defense
Acquisition cited in the draft GAO report. This portfolio management
approach provides a critical tool with which DoD can improve
integration across these decision systems.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Five Major Acquisitions Related to the Core GIG Network
and Information Capability:
Program or initiative: Transformational Satellite (TSAT);
Purpose: To develop satellites to serve as the cornerstone of a new DOD
communications infrastructure and provide high bandwidth connectivity
to the warfighter. Some of the technologies that TSAT plans to use are
laser cross-links, space-based data processing and Internet routing
systems, and highly agile multibeam/phased array antennas; Manager: Air
Force.
Program or initiative: Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS);
Purpose: To develop family of software-defined radios to interoperate
with different types of existing radios and significantly increase
voice, data, and video communications capabilities; Manager: Joint
service program responsible for the software communications
architecture and waveforms; military service-led programs responsible
for developing radios.
Program or initiative: Global Information Grid-Bandwidth Expansion (GIG-
BE);
Purpose: To provide additional bandwidth and information access at key
military installations within the United States and overseas via a
combination of acquiring bandwidth from commercial providers as well as
extending fiber optic networks to bases and installations that are
located away from commercial networks; Manager: Defense Information
Systems Agency.
Program or initiative: Network Centric Enterprise Services (NCES);
Purpose: To enable network users to identify, access, send, store, and
protect information. Also to enable DOD to monitor and manage network
performance and problems. Is expected to require development of new
capabilities and tools for tagging data so it is useful, providing
users with capability to identify relevant information based on content
and allowing users to freely exchange and collaborate on information;
Manager: Defense Information Systems Agency.
Program or initiative: Cryptography Transformation Initiative;
Purpose: To enable DOD to protect the network and sensitive
information. To provide information assurance and encryption support,
including cryptography equipment (e.g., Internet protocol encryptors),
firewalls, intrusion detection systems, etc; Manager: National Security
Agency, Defense Information Systems Agency, and the military services.
[End of table]
Source: DOD (data); GAO (analysis and presentation).
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Joint Family of Concepts:
In descending order, the joint family of concepts consists of the
following:
Capstone Concept for Joint Operations:
The overarching concept of the joint family of concepts. It broadly
describes how the joint force is expected to operate in the mid-to far-
term, reflects enduring national interests derived from strategic
guidance, and identifies the key characteristics of the future joint
force.
Joint Operating Concepts (JOC):
Describe how a Joint Force Commander will accomplish a strategic
mission through the conduct of operational-level military operations
within a campaign.
Joint Functional Concepts (JFC):
Describe how the future joint force will perform a particular military
function across the full range of military operations.
Joint Integrating Concepts:
Distill JOC-and JFC-derived capabilities into the fundamental tasks,
conditions, and standards of how a joint force commander will integrate
capabilities to generate effects and achieve an objective in 10 to 20
years.
[End of section]
Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Michael J. Sullivan, (937) 258-7915:
Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, staff making key contributions
to this report were John Oppenheim, Assistant Director; Marie Ahearn;
Lily Chin; Joel Christenson; Lauren M. Jones; Ron Schwenn; Jay Tallon;
Hai Tran; and Susan Woodward.
FOOTNOTES
[1] GAO, Military Operations: Recent Campaigns Benefited from Improved
Communications and Technology, but Barriers to Continued Progress
Remain, GAO-04-547 (Washington, D.C.: June 2004).
[2] GAO, Defense Acquisitions: The Global Information Grid and
Challenges Facing Its Implementation, GAO-04-858 (Washington, D.C.:
July 2004).
[3] DOD officials confirmed that most of the difference between the
estimate reported by GAO in 2004 and the $34 billion figure reported
here can be attributed to greater spending for information assurance
activities.
[4] GAO-04-858.
[5] DOD Directive 4630.5, Interoperability and Supportability of
Information Technology (IT) and National Security Systems (NSS) (May 5,
2004).
[6] DOD Inspector General, Implementation of Interoperability and
Information Assurance Policies for Acquisition of DoD Weapon Systems, D-
2003-011 (October 2002).
[7] GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Steps Needed to Ensure Interoperability
of Systems That Process Intelligence Data, GAO-03-329 (Washington,
D.C.: March 2003).
[8] DOD Directive 8100.1, Global Information Grid (GIG) Overarching
Policy, Enclosure 2, E2.1.1.1 (Sept. 19, 2002).
[9] DOD Directive 8100.1, Global Information Grid Overarching Policy
(Sept. 19, 2002); DOD Directive 5144.1, Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Networks and Information Integration/DOD Chief Information Officer
(May 2, 2005).
[10] Joint Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance (Joint C4ISR) Decision Support Center
(DSC), Joint Requirements Acquisition Study, Closeout Report (July 15,
2002), 13.
[11] Defense Science Board. Report of the Defense Science Board Task
Force on Enabling Joint Force Capabilities, (August 2003), 9.
[12] DOD Inspector General, Joint Warfighting and Readiness: Management
of Network Centric Warfare Within the Department of Defense, D-2004-091
(June 22, 2004), 7.
[13] D-2004-091, 13. The management entities are Office of Force
Transformation, Joint Staff, Department of the Navy, U.S. Strategic
Command, and the Defense Information Systems Agency.
[14] GAO, Interoperability: DOD's Efforts to Achieve Interoperability
Among C3 Systems, GAO/NSIAD-87-124 (Washington, D.C.: April 1987).
[15] GAO, Joint Military Operations: DOD's Renewed Emphasis on
Interoperability Is Important but Not Adequate, GAO/NSIAD-94-47
(Washington, D.C.: October 1993).
[16] GAO, Military Transformation: Clear Leadership, Accountability,
and Management Tools Are Needed to Enhance DOD's Efforts to Transform
Military Capabilities, GAO-05-70 (Washington, D.C.: December 2004), 3-
4.
[17] These would include business systems related to acquisition and
contract management, financial management, supply chain management,
support infrastructure management, human capital management, and other
key areas.
[18] GAO, DOD Business Transformation: Sustained Leadership Needed to
Address Long-standing Financial and Business Management Problems, GAO-
05-723T (Washington, D.C.: June 2005), 4; GAO, Defense Management:
Foundational Steps Being Taken to Manage DOD Business Systems
Modernization, but Much Remains to be Accomplished to Effect True
Business Transformation, GAO-06-234T (Washington, D.C.: November 2005),
28.
[19] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction, Joint
Capabilities Integration and Development System, CJCSI 3170.01E (May
11, 2005). The original instruction was CJCSI 3170.01C (June 24, 2003).
[20] See GAO, Challenges and Risks Associated with the Joint Tactical
Radio System Program, GAO-03-879R (Washington, D.C.: August 2003), 2
and 22; Joint C4ISR Decision Support Center (July 15, 2002), iii and
17.
[21] The eight boards are Command and Control, Battlespace Awareness,
Focused Logistics, Force Management, Force Protection, Force
Application, Net-Centric, and Joint Training.
[22] The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the JROC Chairman,
though the functions of the JROC chairman are delegated to the Vice
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The JROC Secretary is the Joint
Staff Director for Force Structure, Resources, & Assessment (J-8).
[23] Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Beyond
Goldwater-Nichols: U.S. Government and Defense Reform for a New
Strategic Era, Phase 2 Report (July 2005). M. Thomas Davis, "The JROC:
Doing What? Going Where?" National Security Studies Quarterly (Summer
1998); Joint Forces Command point paper on combatant command input to
capability development (July 25, 2005). In recent testimony before
Congress, Chief Executive Officer of CSIS and former Deputy Secretary
of Defense John J. Hamre recommended giving representation on the
Council to the combatant commanders: Testimony before the Subcommittee
on AirLand, Senate Armed Services Committee (Washington, D.C.: November
2005), 4.
[24] Offices of the Under Secretary of Acquisition, Technology, &
Logistics; Under Secretary of Intelligence; Under Secretary of Defense,
Comptroller; Under Secretary of the Air Force (Space); and Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration/DOD Chief
Information Officer; Director, Program Analysis & Evaluation; Mission
Requirements Board; the military services; and the Defense Intelligence
Agency.
[25] The Joint Capabilities Document.
[26] The Joint Operating Concepts are currently being revised and are
expected to be submitted for approval by June 2006; subsequently, Joint
Functional Concepts will be revised over the following year. Most of
the more detailed concepts--Joint Integrating Concepts--have also
completed an initial phase of development and also continue to be
tested, but it is not clear when or if they will be further refined.
See appendix IV for a description of each joint concept.
[27] Under JCIDS, the capability-based methodology consists of four
stages: a Functional Area Analysis, which is to produce a prioritized
list of capabilities and tasks needed to achieve military objectives; a
Functional Needs Analysis, which is to produce a list of capability
gaps that require solutions and the relative priority of the gaps
identified; a Functional Solution Analysis, which identifies potential
approaches to providing the capability needed; and a Post Independent
Analysis, which provides for an independent review of the Functional
Solution Analysis results.
[28] Joint Defense Capabilities Study Team (DOD), Joint Defense
Capabilities Study: Improving DoD Strategic Planning, Resourcing and
Execution to Satisfy Joint Capabilities. Final Report (Jan. 2004), iii.
[29] Sections 3013, 5013, and 8013 of Title 10 grant authority to the
Secretaries of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, respectively, to
conduct all affairs of their Departments including recruiting,
organizing, supplying, equipping, training, servicing, mobilizing, de-
mobilizing, administering, maintaining, and military construction and
maintenance.
[30] Initially conceived as a 5-year plan, the FYDP has subsequently
been extended to 6 years and re-designated the Future Years Defense
Program.
[31] Original Major Force Programs were Strategic Forces; General
Purpose Forces; Command, Control, Communications, and Space; Airlift
and Sealift; Guard and Reserve Forces; Research and Development;
Central Supply and Maintenance; Training, Medical, General Personnel
Account; Administration and Associated Activities; and Support to Other
Nations. An eleventh Major Force Program, Special Operations Forces,
was established in response to congressional direction in 1987.
[32] Defense Science Board, Enabling Joint Force Capabilities, 7.
[33] GAO, Best Practices: Better Support of Weapon System Program
Managers Needed to Improve Outcomes, GAO-06-110 (Washington, D.C.:
November 2005), 5.
[34] Stuart E. Johnson, "A New PPBS Process to Advance Transformation,"
Defense Horizons, No. 32 (Sept. 2003). Defense Horizons is a
publication of the National Defense University's Center for Technology
and National Security Policy.
[35] GAO, Future Years Defense Program: Actions Needed to Improve
Transparency of DOD's Projected Resource Needs, GAO-04-514 (Washington,
D.C.: May 2004), 2.
[36] GAO, Information Technology: Improvements Needed in the
Reliability of Defense Budget Submissions, GAO-04-115 (Washington,
D.C.: December 2003), 2.
[37] P.L. 108-136, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2004 (Nov. 24, 2003). The Limited Acquisition Authority is intended to
allow U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) to provide battle management,
command and control, communications, and intelligence equipment, and
any other equipment the JFCOM commander determines is necessary and
appropriate to facilitate the use of joint forces in military
operations or enhance the interoperability of equipment used by joint
forces.
[38] DOD Directive 8115.01, Information Technology Portfolio Management
(Oct. 10, 2005).
[39] DOD's mission-oriented portfolios are Warfighting, Business, DOD
portion of Intelligence, and Enterprise Information Environment.
[40] GAO, High Risk Series: An Update, GAO-05-207 (Washington, D.C.:
January 2005).
[41] GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Major Weapon Programs,
GAO-04-248 (Washington, D.C.: March 2004).
[42] DOD Directive 5000.1, The Defense Acquisition System (May 12,
2003) describes the management principles for DODís acquisition
programs.
[43] The JTRS and TSAT programs are or have recently been restructured
and may be on a path toward a more evolutionary acquisition approach.
[44] GAO, Defense Acquisitions: Resolving Development Risks in the
Army's Networked Communications Capabilities Is Key to Fielding Future
Force, GAO-05-669 (Washington, D.C.: June 2005), 3; GAO-04-248, 27.
[45] DOD defines a system of systems as a set or arrangement of
interdependent systems that are related or connected to provide a given
capability. The loss of any part of the system will significantly
degrade the performance or capabilities of the whole.
[46] GAO-05-669, 28.
[47] The Future Combat System is a large and complex effort to develop
a suite of new manned and unmanned ground and air vehicles, sensors,
and munitions linked by a new information network.
[48] GAO, Military Operations: Recent Campaigns Benefited from Improved
Communications and Technology, but Barriers to Continued Progress
Remain, GAO-04-547 (Washington, D.C.: June 2004), 21-22.
[49] An architecture is the structure of components, their
relationships, and the principles and guidelines governing their design
and evolution over time. An integrated architecture consists of
multiple views or perspectives (operational view, systems view, and
technical standards view) that facilitates integration and promotes
interoperability across capabilities and among related integrated
architectures.
[50] GAO-03-879R.
[51] P.L. 108-136 sec. 213 (Nov. 24, 2003).
[52] Realizing the Potential of C4I: Fundamental Challenges, 20 and
221.
[53] Joint Requirements Acquisition Study (July 15, 2002), 14.
[54] GAO-05-669, 29.
[55] See House Report 109-72 (May 3, 2005), 110.
[56] Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System.
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