Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine characteristics of military program management in terms of the qualitative and quantitative responsibilities that a military system program manager must assume. The system program manager operates in an environment and under a management philosophy where conventional organizational theory and practice are inadequate. The problems of producing a weapon system have become so vast anti so demanding that it is impossible for a single autonomous organization to do it alone. Hundreds of relatively independent organizations are required to work toward a common objective. Systems analysis, while employing operations research techniques, is an approach to the broader problems of the technological force structure of weaponry. Operations research is defined as "attempts to do optimization in the small." Systems analysis has a broader orientation: It focuses on alternative objectives and explores the implications of alternative assumptions rather than analyzing in detail a single set of assumptions. It emphasizes basic economic concept. Systems analysis, as used in the management of the Defense establishment, is concerned in the main with the pre-execution phase of management, i.e., the decision process.