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Overview
The Office of the Secretary of Defense has released its first
Transformational Planning Guidance to steer the Armed Forces
through a joint process of transformation. This is a strong step in
the direction of making transformation and innovation visible
parts of the defense planning process, but more is needed. The
planning, programming, and budgeting system (PPBS) through
which the Department of Defense (DOD) prioritizes its programs
and resources has to be restructured to facilitate transformation
and innovation, not to obstruct them. DOD has begun a trial
resource allocation process that will reduce the burden of repetitive
report generation that has drained time and energy away
from innovative, strategic change. This process gives senior leadership
an opportunity to shift its attention from wrestling with
budget detail to developing initiatives to transform U.S. forces.
However, this change will not happen of its own accord. A set of
proposals that would enable senior leadership to move its focus
from the back end (budgeting) of the resource allocation process
to the front end (planning and idea generation) is presented
below. A review of how the PPBS has evolved is presented to highlight
the need to target specific parts for restructuring.
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