U.S. Air Force

In spring 2002, Gen. John P. Jumper, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, identified a new priority for the service: develop the optimal investment decision-making process—one that would capture the complex interconnections of different program budgets, systems requirements, and warfighting capabilities so that investments could be synchronized and aligned with the strategic objectives of the Department of Defense. Rather than focusing on specific weapons systems or programs, the Air Force would be allocating resources wherever they would have the most impact on combat capabilities.

General Jumper wanted to transform a decades-old way of doing business and see results within the current year’s budget cycle. As part of this effort, he selected Lt. Gen. Leslie Kenne to be the new deputy chief of staff for Warfighting Integration. The mission was to integrate existing and future weapons systems in order to reduce the cycle time of the “kill chain” (find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess).

“This was a brand new organization that I had to try to gel,” says Lieutenant General Kenne. “We had to draw together a number of different systems and operational needs across the Air Force and figure out how they could all work together. When you set up a new organization at that level of the Pentagon you’d better hit the ground running, because you’re expected to produce immediately. I needed a plan and a team. I had to get people on the same sheet of music as quickly as possible. I knew Booz Allen had the experience we needed.”

Booz Allen assembled a team to match the scope and significance of the challenge, combining experts in operations, analytical methodology, and technology, as well as a deep understanding of the Air Force organization and capabilities. Throughout the project, Booz Allen consultants worked alongside Air Force staff across different organizations and functional communities.

For 60 years, the Air Force resource and investment process had focused on individual weapon systems, such as the F-22 fighter or the C-17 transport aircraft. Decisions that affected multiple programs were addressed through a corporate process, but there was no analytical framework to examine the impact of one decision on all related programs. As a result, investments were not optimally synchronized.

For example, it was possible for an air or space system to be fielded before the ground infrastructure was in place to enable full benefit of its capabilities. As advances in information technologies allowed the networking of intelligence gathering sensors, command and control facilities, weapon delivery platforms, and the weapons themselves, Air Force leaders realized they needed a new way to assess and align the investments so that true combat capability was achieved as quickly as possible.

This new way of thinking would necessitate changes in organizations, processes, and decision-making tools. Booz Allen helped the Air Force design and implement its first Warfighting Integration 500-Day Plan. The purpose was to jump-start Lieutenant General Kenne’s new organization, to demonstrate benefits to senior leadership, and to achieve rapid buy-in from individual program advocates to the new approach. The Booz Allen team helped the newly formed Air Force integration staff balance near-term demands of the Department of Defense’s ongoing resource allocation process while the organization was still developing its organizational structure and defining its longer-term goals. We then proposed, developed, and executed new Air Force–wide processes, supported by automated tools that address combat capabilities through an analytical framework of architectures.

Integrated Capabilities

This assignment highlights Booz Allen’s ability to integrate deep domain knowledge with highly technical functional expertise, in order to solve our clients’ toughest challenges. Over a period of two years, the experts in both domain and functional areas worked closely with the Air Force leadership to significantly advance the use of architectural analysis within the Department of Defense. Currently this approach is defined by four related analytical processes:

Integration Needs Analysis to target investments in systems integration
Functional Needs Analysis to develop investment strategies in systems and functionalities
Capability Needs Assessment to identify risks to concept execution and alternative investment strategies to achieve capabilities by “trading” investments in one program for a more effective and efficient investment elsewhere
Capability Evolution Management to align programs and investments in order to better deliver operational capabilities.

Each of these processes takes information from a variety of different, static sources, and transforms it into a concise, intuitive, and relevant visual executive summary, providing decision makers with both the big picture and “detail-on-demand.” This enables drill-down traceability from the top level summary into the supporting detail and analysis that substantiates the top-level findings. These processes are now being institutionalized in Air Force directives.

The goal is to develop responsive and secure command, control, communications, and computer (C4) systems, tied to a network of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance sensors and analysis engines to unleash the power that comes from controlling the flow of information from sensors to decision makers and to personnel operating fighter and bomber aircraft.

“The Air Force will be able to make smarter investment decisions up front to get better capabilities in the end,” says Ken Mills, who shared program management responsibilities with fellow Booz Allen Senior Associate Bob Penna.

Since the early 1990s, the Department of Defense has sought to evolve out of a Cold War, threat-based planning and acquisition framework into a more agile strategy, focused on executing the full range of responsibilities inherent in national security. The project has placed the Air Force on the leading edge of that transformation, sparking a new way of thinking about how to make capability-based investment decisions.

Throughout this assignment, working with Lieutenant General Kenne’s group, Booz Allen developed processes, decision support tools, and intellectual capital, which are transforming Air Force resource allocation processes and which are applicable across the Defense Department, intelligence community, and other federal departments and agencies. Together, we jump-started a new Air Force-wide capability assessment process, and enabled Lieutenant General Kenne to reallocate US$435 million, inside the FY04 budget cycle, within two months of her arrival in the Pentagon—a rare accomplishment.

“We grew our processes and architectures, and we scored quick victories, such as influencing the resource allocation process by making an objective case to balance intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance collection and dissemination,” says now-retired Lieutenant General Kenne. “The result is increased capability without spending a dime more!”

story posted July 2005