During the early 1960s, the US Department of Defense, under Secretary Robert
McNamara implemented for the first time in national government a Planning-Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) in order to improve effectiveness
and efficiency in defence program management. McNamara sought improved
effectiveness through a formal five-year program designed to reduce costs. He
also sought efficient methods of managing joint service strategy coordination,
requirements' analysis and planning, and improved alignment between the
choice of requirements and the size and nature of the acquisition program. The
Australian Defence Organisation (ADO) and the UK Ministry of Defence later
sought to implement their own forms of PPBS. Recently, both have introduced
program management innovations that seek to achieve more reliably effective
and efficient outcomes.
The thesis has reviewed program management theory with a particular focus on
its implementation challenges relating to strategic management, program
review, personnel management and program coordination. It has sought to
answer the research problem: Which specific management designs could offer
better outcomes for Australian defence technological edge programs? The
thesis' central proposition is that the greatest opportunities for improving
defence program outcomes occur when classic PPBS concepts are
implemented within a Program Management System that incorporates Zero-
Base budgeting (ZBB), Management by Objectives (MBO), and Matrix
structural systems. All of these systems, either alone or in combination seek to
enhance program quality, scheduling, financial management and evaluation.
The research used in-depth case study research based on qualitative data found
within a selection of recent Australian National Audit Office reports, and other
public records. The central proposition is subjected to dynamic reliabilityrelated
contingency analysis and evaluation. The thesis concludes with the
proposition that if managers were to implement a contingency based integrated
mixture of the above-mentioned systems they could expect improved
technological edge program outcomes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219204 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | McNally, Raymond Gordon, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Management and Policy |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Raymond Gordon McNally |
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