A Comparative Analysis of the Cost of Oversight of Major Defense Acquisition Programs Strictly Under the Direction of the Department of Defense 5000 Series of Instructions

<p>The United States Department of Defense has been caught in a continual cycle of acquisition reform since its inception over two hundred years ago. The goal of acquisition reform has always been to find the perfect balance between the amount of program oversight and the amount of flexibility in which program managers are allowed to manage their programs. The only truth learned throughout this process is that defense acquisition does need oversight and that there is no cookie cutter pattern for oversight that will fit all types of acquisition programs equally well. That being said the focus of this thesis will be to explore the foundations of oversight for programs following Department of Defense Directive 5000-the defense acquisition bible and employ Delphi survey techniques to then develop an estimate for the actual cost of oversight for defense acquisition programs that are under the guidance of the DoDD 5000. The real value in this research will then be to compare the oversight cost estimate for programs under the DoDD 5000 to oversight cost estimates developed using the exact same methodology but examining programs with different types of oversight. Specifically space acquisition and communications acquisition have been operating under a different oversight format over the last few years and the interest is in determining if the changes have made defense acquisition any more efficient and any less costly.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>