As of December 2014, DOD’s portfolio of major defense acquisition programs included 78 programs with a total estimated acquisition cost of roughly $1.4 trillion. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics is the defense acquisition executive, and for 38 of these 78 programs, the Under Secretary is the milestone decision authority, responsible for making decisions at major program milestones. These programs are referred to as Acquisition Category (ACAT) ID programs. For the remaining 40 programs, most of which are in production, the Under Secretary has delegated milestone decision making authority to the cognizant military service acquisition executive; these programs are referred to as ACAT IC programs. DOD also has programs that have not entered the engineering and manufacturing development phase. These programs are not yet part of the portfolio, but are expected to enter soon. For these programs, the Under Secretary is normally the milestone decision authority. In DOD’s acquisition process, weapon system programs typically proceed through three major milestones—A, B, and C—where program offices provide information to the milestone decision authority in order to make a decision on whether the program is ready to transition to the next acquisition phase. The milestones normally represent transition points in the overall acquisition process where there is a marked increase in the resources required for the program. Milestone A is the decision for an acquisition program to enter into the technology maturation and risk reduction phase; Milestone B is the decision to enter the engineering and manufacturing development phase; and Milestone C is the decision to enter the production and deployment phase. Figure 1 depicts DOD’s acquisition process. DOD’s acquisition process is managed and supported by officials at different hierarchical levels. Weapon system program managers typically report to program executive officers in each military service who are charged with overseeing the execution of a portfolio of related systems such as fighter aircraft or ships. Program executive officers, in turn, typically report to a military service acquisition executive, who reports to the defense acquisition executive. As part of the milestone decision process, programs are reviewed at each level before reaching the milestone decision authority. Figure 2 shows the different levels. Statutes and DOD policy require the documentation of specific information on major defense acquisition programs at each acquisition milestone. Our review focused on the information required at Milestone B, most of which is also expected at Milestone C. Appendix II includes a list and description of these information requirements. While several different Office of the Secretary of Defense organizations and other organizations have responsibility for compiling and documenting the information, the majority of the responsibility rests with the program office managing the acquisition. For nearly 20 years, GAO has examined the best practices for product development from over 40 commercial firms to identify potential opportunities for DOD to adopt and implement those practices. For this review, we visited five leading commercial firms that follow a gated or milestone process in developing new products. While their business models are different than DOD’s, and often their products are less technically complex, commercial firms share a common goal with DOD in delivering their products to their customer on time and within cost estimates. Leading commercial firms can provide alternative approaches for milestone decision processes. Programs we surveyed spent on average over 2 years completing the steps necessary to document up to 49 information requirements for their most recent acquisition milestone. This includes the time for the program office to develop the documentation and for various stakeholders to review and approve the documentation. These 49 information requirements also took, in total, on average 5,600 staff days for programs to document. However, on average, almost half of these requirements, 24 of the 49, were not highly valued by the acquisition officials we surveyed. Four major defense acquisition programs we examined illustrate the challenges in completing the milestone decision process. Programs can spend a significant amount of time documenting up to 49 information requirements in advance of a Milestone B or C review. The requirements cover a vast array of program information, such as information on the overall acquisition strategy to justify the business case for a program; detailed implementation plans, such as those for systems engineering and testing; informational reports, analysis, and assessments; and decisions and certifications. We surveyed 24 program managers that held a milestone B or C decision since 2010 and found that it took them over 2 years on average to complete the entire set of documents needed for the milestone decision. The program managers, as well as other acquisition officials we surveyed, considered on average about half of the information requirements as not highly valued. Figure 3 provides a summary of this information. More details about the survey results are presented in appendix III. Programs spent an average of about 1 year to complete each information requirement. However, as shown in figure 3, there was a wide range in the length of time it took to complete documentation, as some took almost 2 years to complete and some took less than 6 months. About half of the time for each information requirement was spent documenting the information and the other half for review. These 49 requirements also took, in total, on average 5,600 staff days for programs to document. We did not ask programs to provide data on the staff days needed to review and approve the documentation because they do not have access to data on the amount of time officials at levels above them spend completing this process. As shown in figure 3, acquisition officials on average considered 24 requirements as providing high value to their organization’s role in the milestone decision process, 20 requirements as providing moderate value, and 5 requirements as providing less than moderate value. Information requirements considered high value by stakeholders include a program’s acquisition strategy, sustainment plan, and information related to planned technologies, cost, and testing. Several senior acquisition officials we met with considered many of these requirements as critical to the program’s business case,the capabilities required of the weapon system, the strategy for acquiring the weapon system, and the cost, schedule, and performance baselines. which typically includes documentation on Information requirements valued the least (less than moderate value), on the other hand, include such documentation as the benefit analysis and determination for potentially bundling contract requirements; the Clinger- Cohen certification for information technology investments; the corrosion prevention control plan to assess the impact of corrosion on cost, availability, and safety of equipment; the item unique identification implementation plan for managing assets; and the replaced system sustainment plan for documenting the estimated cost to sustain a system until the new program is fielded. One service acquisition executive, for example, stated that program managers should not have to develop an item unique identification implementation plan because government contractors put the unique identification numbers on parts. Another senior official stated that the Clinger-Cohen Act requirements are geared towards the acquisition environment of the 1990s. This official believes the requirements should be updated to reflect the current environment for procuring information systems. As part of the process of documenting the information required at the milestones, program officials brief cognizant officials responsible for the different functional areas, such as test or systems engineering, as well as senior leadership and the milestone decision authority on specific aspects of the program’s overall plans. The briefings, done in parallel with the actual process of documenting the required information, are used as a forum for DOD to discuss the information and to determine a program’s readiness for the milestone decision. Program offices can spend a great deal of time and effort briefing the different officials and senior leaders in advance of the milestone decision. Data provided by 9 of the programs we surveyed that recently had a milestone B decision showed that programs provided an average of 55 briefings over a period of just over a year and a half leading up to the milestone. We examined four major defense acquisition programs, at least one from each military service that recently held a milestone decision, to get more specific details of the time and effort expended by programs to complete the milestone decision process. All four programs needed about 24 months to complete the process. While the number of documents varied for each program, it took an average of over 13 months to complete each document based on three programs that could provide data. Two of these programs used contractors to provide assistance in completing the documents. Figure 4 provides a summary of the overall effort required of these four programs—two of which were preparing for milestone B and the other two were preparing for milestone C. Two of the programs that tracked the staff days required to prepare the milestone documents told us they spent 3,800 and 9,867 staff days, respectively. These same programs also used contractors to assist with the documents. A primary reason it takes over 2 years to complete the information required for a milestone decision is the large number of stakeholders that review the documents at the many organizational levels above the program office. We found that stakeholders in many different offices among 8 different levels can review the information and documentation needed to support a milestone decision. According to the program offices we surveyed, these reviews added only moderate or less value to most documents. DOD recognizes that it has too many levels of review and has several initiatives to eliminate the acknowledged bureaucracy, but has had limited success implementing changes to reduce the time and effort needed to review documentation. The information and documentation required at milestones can be reviewed by as many as eight different organizational levels before a decision is reached on whether a program is ready for the next acquisition phase. In general, the information is reviewed at each level to gain approval before the program provides the information to the next level. This is done serially, which takes more time. Eventually, the defense acquisition executive and other senior executives review the information and determine whether the program is ready to proceed to the next acquisition phase. Figure 5 shows the multiple levels of reviews. Many different functional organizations within each level review the information before the document is approved. The number of organizations conducting reviews varies depending on the information included in each document. A few documents that include a wide breadth of information can be reviewed by many offices at each level. For example, Air Force acquisition strategies, that on average took over 12 months to complete for the programs we surveyed, can be reviewed by 56 offices, some more than once, before being approved.