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I’ve spent the last 30+ years advising the Department of Defense (DoD) on how to make evidence-based, mission-critical decisions. After engagements ranging from multi-billion-dollar strategic-planning processes to decision-management methodologies for the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process, to re-prioritizing investments in response to shifting global powers, I’ve seen firsthand the challenge of operating without a decision framework.
A decision framework acts as a set of guiding principles used to inform and support decision-making across strategic, operational, and resource-related domains. It integrates inputs from stakeholders, aligns on strategy, and ensures decisions are made transparently and in accordance with established priorities.
This is why I was encouraged by the final PPBE Reform Commission report issued in 2024 and the subsequent implementation update provided by the DoD in January 2025. While the reform recommendations have generated positive movement, they lack the teeth to require a consistently rigorous decision-making process.
That’s why it is essential to identify a streamlined approach to collect, aggregate, score, and report data to demonstrate improved alignment with strategy. As House and Senate leadership debate this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), it’s key for policymakers to demand more accountability around how decisions are made—not just what decisions are made. It’s therefore encouraging to see PPBE-reform language included in the Chairman’s markup of the draft bill.
Recognizing the unique dynamics of each military service, the PPBE process was designed to avoid mandating specific approaches for how the services should capture inputs, validate needs, and run analytics to prioritize and establish allocation courses of action that inform decision-making. Although that ambiguity made sense, it has resulted in significant inefficiencies in how plans are assembled, updated, and optimized to achieve military objectives. Each agency ends up developing its own approach to track, evaluate, and decide on resourcing requirements.
In fact, the process often conflates business intelligence (BI) with decision intelligence. Previous attempts—such as injecting BI into the planning process—have made some progress. However, I’ve seen firsthand that while BI systems excel at reporting, they lack the analytical capabilities to support collaborative prioritization, factor in real-world resource constraints and dependencies, optimize resources, and generate thousands of courses of action for truly informed decision-making. The result is a decision process fueled by brute-force spreadsheet jockeying that doesn’t always deliver the best answers.
Fortunately, reform efforts are converging with broader availability of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings built around decision frameworks. These platforms are designed to streamline PPBE planning by providing intelligence across all four PPBE phases.
At their core, these offerings embed a mission-aligned, criteria-based decision framework. They automate phases of PPBE planning and decision-making—from the five-year Program Objective Memorandum requirements process to within-year Unfunded Requirements Planning and Spend-Plan decisions.
Building on those frameworks, organizations with access to modern software tools can leverage advanced algorithms to gather and synthesize inputs from globally dispersed stakeholders—enabling them to define objectives, prioritize options, and evaluate resource strategies using powerful visualizations.
These solutions meet many of the government’s requirements. Instead of requiring years of custom development, they’re off-the-shelf SaaS platforms that deploy rapidly to deliver unparalleled time to value. Unlike giant, monolithic systems, they’re configurable to suit the unique needs of each planning organization. Finally, these SaaS systems are available on existing DoD networks and can connect to systems of record to support planning in both classified and unclassified environments.
So why isn’t the government deploying these solutions already? Cultural resistance to exposing pre-planning processes—and to the risk associated with change—remains high. That’s why the 2026 NDAA must bolster the excellent work of the PPBE Reform Commission and the laudable efforts by the DoD thus far, by demanding that planning and resourcing decisions leverage the best solutions available.
If Congress is serious about modernizing PPBE, it must start by requiring decision intelligence at the core of the planning approach. By mandating change in next year’s NDAA, Congress can deliver on the administration’s desire to leverage rapidly deployable SaaS and ensure the integrity of every taxpayer dollar spent.
Armed with collaborative prioritization, the ability to factor in real-world resource constraints, and advanced scenario-optimization and traceability, planners will be equipped to generate courses of action that lead to truly informed decisions. A consistent approach to criteria development, scenario optimization, and decision traceability will ensure every tax dollar is spent on mission—and will build trust with Congress and the American public.
About Dan Saaty
Dan Saaty is co-founder of Decision Lens, an advanced SaaS platform that enables federal, state, and commercial organizations to automate requirements data management, prioritization, and resource allocation. His expertise in decision-process design and facilitation is widely sought by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff, DoD, NASA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Defense Health Agency, and others.
