Use of Exit Criteria for Major Defense Systems

摘要

Milestone decision authorities use exit criteria to establish goals for major Defense programs during an acquisition phase. Exit criteria are program-specific accomplishments that program managers must satisfactorily demonstrate before a program can progress further in the current acquisition phase or transition to the next acquisition phase. By satisfying the exit criteria, the program manager demonstrates to the milestone decision authority that a program is on schedule to achieving its final program goals. To perform the audit, we selected nine major Defense programs for review that the program offices estimated to total $78 billion in development and procurement costs. The milestone decision authority for three of the major Defense acquisition programs included in our sample was the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, while the milestone decision authorities for the remaining six programs (three Army, one Navy, and two Air Force) were the Component Acquisition Executives or their designees. Objectives. The audit objective was to evaluate milestone decision authorities use of exit criteria to track program progress in important technical, schedule, and management risk areas. Specifically, we determined whether milestone decision authorities use exit criteria to track acquisition program progress in meeting program goals and to aid in deciding whether programs should continue within an acquisition phase or progress to the next acquisition phase. In addition, we evaluated the management control program as it relates to the audit objective.