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Wouldn't that preliminary budget, issued by Congress, be considered meddling? Is it akin to software development managers with the sheerest excuses for domain e

Wouldn't that preliminary budget, issued by Congress, be considered meddling? Is it akin to software development managers with the sheerest excuses for domain expertise accepting whatever budget and mandate is handed down from managers with zero domain expertise, and then they set about browbeating anyone and everyone they can lay their hands on to meet the hazy objectives? This direction of development sounds to me like the reverse of what would really meet the mission objectives when the problem space is so controversial/undefined: find out from the users/stakeholders/beneficiaries what non-negotiables they must have and will not give up without a huge fight, what they lack from the current solution, and what their annoyances-but-will-put-up-with-it issues are today, what evolutions they anticipate in several future timeframes, then with their buy-in build up implementation scenarios with accompanying budgets. But I'm just an outsider with no domain expertise, so all I have are questions. From what I hear as a civilian, armed forces procurement with these big stakes rarely take into account all but the most basic survival needs of the grunts on the front lines, and is more akin to enterprise software procurement than SaaS-with-a-credit-card procurement to fix a point need (CAS in this case, and I might even be wrong characterizing CAS as a well-defined point need). Can someone with direct military procurement experience chime in and illuminate from their perspective what is going on for the civilians in this particular case?

maxerickson 11y ago
As below, I agree that it is subjective as to what is meddling. I think setting a budget based on a high level discussion is what Congress is supposed to be doing. The military side can explain what capabilities they can get with a certain budget, Congress can decide if that is a reasonable level of capability and set the budget at the requested level or lower or even higher.
- yourapostasy 11y ago
  If the DoD gives Congress guidance on budget bands and what capabilities are given up in each band below the "ideal" band, especially in projected political terms, then I can see Congress setting a preliminary budget and finalizing after some more detailed DoD analysis of what is projected to be accomplished under that budget. For example, tell Congress for a $1B ideal budget of a weapons program, a $750-800M budget band would mean response time to deploy the weapon drops from 6 hours to 6 days. Not such a big deal for a littoral combat operations boat, but a huge deal for a cruise missile block upgrade. But we're all outsiders here, and I'd love to hear inside baseball on what the real factors are behind these procurement processes.

maxerickson 11y ago

As below, I agree that it is subjective as to what is meddling. I think setting a budget based on a high level discussion is what Congress is supposed to be doing. The military side can explain what capabilities they can get with a certain budget, Congress can decide if that is a reasonable level of capability and set the budget at the requested level or lower or even higher.

yourapostasy 11y ago
If the DoD gives Congress guidance on budget bands and what capabilities are given up in each band below the "ideal" band, especially in projected political terms, then I can see Congress setting a preliminary budget and finalizing after some more detailed DoD analysis of what is projected to be accomplished under that budget. For example, tell Congress for a $1B ideal budget of a weapons program, a $750-800M budget band would mean response time to deploy the weapon drops from 6 hours to 6 days. Not such a big deal for a littoral combat operations boat, but a huge deal for a cruise missile block upgrade. But we're all outsiders here, and I'd love to hear inside baseball on what the real factors are behind these procurement processes.