Managing Today's Defense Budget Downturn Successfully

As the federal budget battle wages on in the Congress, the national security community is bracing for unavoidable and potentially significant spending cuts. The Department of Defense faces extremely tough decisions as it seeks to balance acute national security needs with harsh budget realities and determine which programs stay and which programs go. The challenge is to deliver better value to the taxpayer while providing strong capability to the warfighter through greater efficiency. Greater insights and understanding of the tradeoffs between cost and risk during the early stages of either program development or deconstruction provide a more realistic foundation for program management. Integrating accurate cost estimates throughout the systems engineering process is essential to ensure that the correct decisions are made from the beginning. The kinds of tough, budget-cutting decisions leaders face today have been made historically with a focus on specific programs that could or should be cut.