Defense business modernization agency wins support

The Defense Department's efforts to modernize its business systems recently have attracted recognition and support from some lawmakers, despite proposed budget cuts for the Business Transformation Agency, where those efforts now reside.

The House Armed Services Terrorism Subcommittee cut $341 million from various Defense IT programs in the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill, including a 15 percent cut in research and development funds for the BTA.

But two House Democrats protested and are pushing to get the funding restored when the bill goes into House-Senate negotiations. While the Armed Services Committee's May 5 report on the bill stated that "too many of the department's IT programs are poorly managed," and said the programs would benefit from "a new way of doing business," it praised the BTA and encouraged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to support the agency.

Paul Brinkley, co-director of the BTA and Defense deputy undersecretary for business transformation, would not comment on budget negotiations, but said he is working through the BTA to make incremental improvements in the department's business processes and is focused right now on sustaining the effort beyond the current Pentagon leadership.

"We set milestones that are achievable and measurable, and we march toward improvement," Brinkley said. "And we will look back five years hence and see that, 'Wow, this thing is so much better than it was.' "

A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO-06-658) found that the department has taken steps over the last six months to address areas that were falling short of the provisions for the business system modernization efforts in the fiscal 2005 Defense Authorization Act.

This is the second report in a row from GAO that cited progress in improving business systems, "acknowledging the department's progress on virtually all fronts of the Defense Business Transformation effort," according to a May 16 agency statement.

Work remains to be done, according to the report, including the creation of milestones for the development of a management plan for the department's business enterprise architecture -- a way of describing the structure of an organization's processes, IT systems and personnel organization.

But Brinkley said such milestones would represent objectives set far in the future that the department may or may not hit depending on leadership's priorities.

"I don't want to create an impression that … 10 years hence, we will have achieved the state of nirvana and all will be well," Brinkley said. "IT and business management best practices are constantly changing. When you set detailed objectives that are too far into the future, you make continuous, incremental improvement difficult, and you set up the organization for perceived failure."

The recently announced process for rapidly reviewing business systems acquisitions that is being tested on three Pentagon IT programs ultimately could result in the withholding of funding for initiatives that fail the assessments, he said.

Brinkley, who co-directs the BTA along with Thomas Modly, Defense deputy undersecretary for financial management, said the agency is ramping up its hiring and expects the staff to remain in place for at least another year before the agency begins dispersing employees to different parts of the department.

According to Brinkley, agency officials have identified and discussed strong potential candidates for a permanent leader, and senior Pentagon officials are discussing the appropriate timing for the hire.