How the Army will balance contingency and long-term needs

“We're frequently working on three budgets at the same time” – Douglas Bush, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology 

On April 20, Tom Temin of Federal News Network spoke with Douglas Bush, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology. Mr. Bush’s main priorities in his role are all focused on maintaining the armed services’ strategic advantages. To achieve this, he will focus on:  

1. Establishing a more rapid and repeatable process  
2. Improving the process for how the Army acquires software 
3. Systemizing a way to push prototypes into production at scale 

These goals are often difficult to achieve due to the nature of the Defense Department’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) process. The current PPBE process can be inflexible, challenging to navigate due to different colors of money, and requires working on multiple budgets for various years at the same time. 

However, to maintain our advantage the Army requires more flexibility than the current process affords. Modernizing the PPBE process is now a major focus of government with a Congressional commission recently established to study reform. 

While they await the interim report from the commission, leaders across the DoD are preparing for transformation. Their efforts include understanding, organizing, and unleashing their data to improve planning and decision making in the first step towards more effective integrated planning. 

Decision Lens is already being deployed amongst many forward-leaning leaders who recognize the need to modernize how government prioritizes, plans, and funds. The result has been the ability to make better, faster decisions leveraging real-time data delivered through cutting-edge software. 

The complete interview with Douglas Bush can be found at Federal News Network.