End the Program Manager Shuffle to Renew DoD Acquisition

The spate of congressional oversight hearings this spring on major defense acquisition programs gives even the casual observer déjà vu. 

A major one can be addressed now: the relentless shuffling of DoD program managers in and out of their posts after just a couple of years in the job. That is typical of military officer career management and may be adequate for traditional unit command and staff positions, but not for overseeing technically complex, multi-billion-dollar defense programs.

Congressman Ken Calvert, the chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, identified the problem precisely during a recent hearing on Air Force and Space Force programs. “Due to the short duration in the job,” Calvert stated, “program managers have only the shallowest knowledge … and are never kept long enough to acquire such skill and knowledge. Before the results are in, the manager will have moved on.” 

The bureaucratic churn means they don’t manage to run projects long enough to achieve mastery for these programs or be held accountable for their fate, let alone see them to fruition. In short, no one is truly in charge.

This means having the achievement of major program milestones, not an arbitrary rotation system, guide these personnel decisions. It also means empowering program managers with consolidated authority, cutting-edge software, and incentives required to succeed.

Efforts to require extended tours for acquisition officers date back decades. As early as 1956, a committee on aircraft development headed by then-Deputy Defense Secretary Reuben Robertson called for a tenure of at least five years. In 1965, the DoD issued a directive that required a minimum of three years for program managers. In 1984, Congress even passed a law that mandated four-year terms. 

Yet by 2008, a survey of major defense acquisition programs found that time in the job for program managers fell to an average of 17 months. Today, it is frequently less. As Eric Lofgren, a defense acquisition expert and now Senate Armed Services Committee professional staff member, has highlighted, “the problem is not limited to PMs, but requirements officers, programmers, comptrollers, contracting officers, and other key personnel that hold sway over PM duties.”

The stakes are high in nuclear, space, and naval production and sustainment programs, in which technical complexity and strategic risk demand deep managerial expertise and continuity. 

One can look no further than the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, urgently needed to replace the aging Minuteman III. $63 billion over budget. Key components delayed while the Air Force again restructures the program. The Sentinel PM, a colonel, was fired in June 2024 after just 20 months in the job for failure to follow procedures. He was replaced with a brigadier general who, in a more rational system, will see Sentinel all the way through to initial operating capability (and perhaps another star).   

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that recapitalizing all our nuclear forces – missiles, submarines, and bombers – will increase in cost by 25 percent over the next decade.  While the contributing factors are several, this abysmal record is also a symptom of a system with a bewildering amount of managerial turnover, bureaucratic layering, and opaqueness—all speaking to the lack of a focal point for responsibility. Placing a premium on giving program managers more ownership could go a long way. 

There is a new openness to such changes. The Secretary of Defense’s Defense Business Board  recommended that the Space Force establish “3-year controlled tours for Materiel Leaders to increase program leadership stability and accountability.”

The precedents for keeping exceptional leaders in charge for extended periods exist and have paid rich rewards. William McClean, the civilian physicist, oversaw the development of the Sidewinder air-to-air missile for more than a decade. Rear Admiral Wayne Meyers served as program manager of the Aegis weapons system for 13 years. And of course, there was Hyman Rickover, the head of naval reactors for three decades (that role blessedly remains an 8-year term to this day).

It was Rickover who advised Congress in 1977 that key program managers “should stay with the job until it is finished.” 

To identify and retain today’s singular leaders (and remove those who fail), we need acquisition standouts in place long enough to build mastery and see programs through critical phases.

It is imperative that Congress and the Department of Defense:

America’s adversaries are not waiting. China has developed an enormous military acquisition system that makes and fields ever more capabilities, unlike our own, which yields ever less. If the United States continues to handicap its programs through the two-year shuffle, no amount of funding or talk about innovation will compensate. No more half-measures. For the sake of national security, let’s give our program leaders the time and tools needed to deliver.

Jeffrey Jeb Nadaner is a senior vice president at Govini, the defense acquisition software company. He served as deputy assistant defense secretary for industrial policy in the first Trump administration.