Navigating the Digital Environment: A Program Manager's Perspective. Report of the 1995-1996, DSMC Military Research Felllows.

This report provides a comprehensive examination of efforts to exploit the digital information environment, and their application within Defense acquisition programs. While relevant to the entire Acquisition Community and their industry counterparts, the target audience is the Department of Defense DoD Program Manager PM and Program Management Office PMO. They have the ultimate responsibility of meeting the needs and achieving the goals of an acquisition program, but have not been well prepared to capitalize on the emerging information age. In this research, we develop the concept of an Acquisition Programs Digital Environment APDE to describe a cross functional integrated digital information infrastructure that supports a DoD acquisition program. The APDE links the entire acquisition program team, to include not only the PMO and prime contractor personnel, but also subcontractors, vendors, suppliers, support agencies, and end users. An APDE can take many forms, depending largely upon the extent to which an acquisition program is able to exploit digital information technology and integrate processes efficiently and effectively. If increased productivity and substantive cost savings through process improvement and reengineering are program objectives, evidence shows that such a digital environment is a key enabler and a necessary precondition for success.