The Defense Department’s current budget system plans funding for five years out. Now the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to reform DoD’s planning, programming, budget and execution (PPBE) process.
- Eric Lofgren, senior fellow at the Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, said the PPBE system requires predictions and consensus about future technologies and leads to long lead times for putting something new into the budget or canceling it.
- Lofgren said PPBE aims to reduce duplication and overlap and deviates sharply from current commercial sector practices.
- Many believe PPBE is a major reason for the gap between when a prototype happens and when money is available, known as the “valley of death,” said Lofgren.
