New White Paper Identifies How to Make it Easier to Transition Defense Technologies to Production and Avoid “Valley of Death”

Fairfax, Va., September 5, 2024 – The George Mason University Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting today released a new white paper examining the impact of the Department of Defense (DOD) Planning, Programming, Budget, and Execution (PPBE) process on the development of defense technologies. The researchers developed six case studies and made more than a dozen findings and recommendations for how to transform the PPBE process to make it easier to transition defense technologies to production.

PPBE is the calendar-driven process used by the Department of Defense (DoD) to allocate funding in support of defense capabilities.

"While there have been numerous articles decrying the ‘valley of death’ problem in the DoD, there is little empirical evidence or root-cause analyses,” said Jerry McGinn, Executive Director of the Baroni Center. “This new white paper provides six real-world case studies and identifies what can be done to improve the PPBE process so that breakthrough technologies can be more easily transitioned to production. To understand the impact of the PPBE process on technology development, it was vital to go directly to the program offices and organizations it is impacting. Their participation grounded our findings in real life technology development outcomes that we provided to the PPBE reform commission and were included in their final report.”

Six Case Studies

The paper, entitled PPBE Impact on Technology Transition, examines the experiences of four program offices and two organizations directly responsible for transitioning technology to defense capabilities including:

• The Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft;
• The Space Development Agency;
• The Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell;
• The Army Robotic Combat Vehicle;
• The Army Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node; and 
• The Navy’s Large and Medium Unmanned Surface Vessels

This work was conducted by the Baroni Center in support of the Congressional Commission on PPBE Reform, which was established by Congress in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to assess budgetary processes affecting defense modernization.

Findings

Based on analysis of existing legislation, policies, open source data, and first person interviews with program office personnel, Baroni Center researchers found technology adoption programs can be successful in navigating the PPBE process when:

• The program is championed by senior leaders;
• The program sees informed Congressional engagement;
• There is coordination and collaboration between stakeholders internal and external to the program’s specific military service;
• The program is affiliated with a prior existing program; or
• The program implements authorities or innovative practices suited to creating new capabilities.

Alternately, the Baroni Centers research found technology adoption programs can become a casualty in the PPBE process when:

• Technology transition program investment is displaced by existing programs which are defended by established stakeholders;
• New technology programs are vulnerable in budget execution, when their need for fiscal flexibility is greatest to accommodate events and rapidly respond to opportunities and challenges; or
• Disruption or delay by legislative and policy barriers to transferring funding within programs or between interdependent initiatives, despite their budget plans being created years before execution.    

Recommendations

Ultimately, the Baroni Center research team – including Executive Director Jerry McGinn, Senior Fellow Ed Hyatt, Senior Fellow Jeff Kojac, and Research Associate Olivia Letts – make the following recommendations to support the implementation of the PPBE Commission’s final report:

• Increase the use of consolidated budget structure, which benefits offices responsible for the adoption of new technologies by allowing rapid reallocation of funding within a program;
• Raise the thresholds for reprogramming requests to Congress;
• Allow program funds to carry over into the next fiscal year if they are spent before the next year's appropriations are enacted;
• Allow the reallocation of money among appropriations categories within programs;
• Alter the Continuing Resolution prohibition on new starts to answer urgent and emerging needs;
• End the practice of imposing linear obligation benchmarks on programs;
• Increase program office coordination and collaboration with Congress and external entities;
• Programs should harness existing rapid acquisition authorities and contracting strategies intended to assist technology transition; and
• Institutionalize PPBE workforce training.

“The Baroni Center is glad to have been a trusted partner in the Commission on PPBE Reform’s research and analysis,” said Jeff Kojac, Baroni Center Director of Studies and lead researcher. “Our findings and recommendations underscore the importance and plausibility of updating DoD’s budget process to more effectively adopt and integrate new technology solutions.”

Activities Supporting PPBE Research

The PPBE Impact on Technology Development white paper is the latest in a series of activities  by the Baroni Center on the PPBE process. The case study findings and recommendations included in the paper and provided to the Commission are distilled from the Baroni Center’s report, Case Studies of Technology Transition (McGinn, Hyatt, Letts, & Kojac, 2024).

Additional PPBE-related research reports and webinars from the Baroni Center include:

• Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Process Research (McGinn, Davis, Everhart, Kojac, Letts, 2024)
• Supplemental GMU Research to Support the PPBE Commission (McGinn, Everhart, Kojac, Rivers, 2024)
• On-Demand Video: Congressional PPBE Commission Report Final Report Rollout
• On-Demand Video: Improve the Alignments of Budgets to Strategy

To learn more please contact Matthew Bowen (matthew@vrge.us).

Download the White Paper.

About the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting

The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting is the first-in-the-nation university center to address the business, policy, and regulatory issues in government contracting. Under the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, the Baroni Center is uniquely positioned to lead this effort by virtue of the composition of our faculty and students, as well as our geographic co-location with the federal government and many headquarters and major facilities of companies that make up the $700 billion government contracting industry. Activities to implement the Center's vision focus on three lines of effort: Research; Education and Training; and Collaboration. To learn more, visit https://business.gmu.edu/centers/center-government-contracting

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