By Elizabeth Newell
The Defense Department's chief acquisition official is reinforcing a policy to make leadership continuity a top priority for weapons programs, in the wake of an annual report that cited frequent management changes as one cause of cost overruns and delays.
John Young, Defense undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, said at a media roundtable on Friday that the department has been working on an initiative to reduce turnover by requiring program managers to sign service agreements. Under these agreements, program managers serve three or four years or to the nearest milestone in the contract. They also delineate cost, schedule and performance expectations for the length of the agreement.
The department has had a policy of service agreements for program managers on the books since December 2005, soon after a Government Accountability Office report identified management instability as a hindrance to the progress of weapons programs. A follow-up report in November 2007, however, showed that Defense still was working to implement tenure requirements. As recently as May 2007, the department was issuing memos on program manager agreements clarifying what exactly they would include, when they would be signed and by whom. GAO's recently released annual report on weapons programs showed the problem to be persistent.
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