The Joint Program Dilemma: Analyzing the Pervasive Role That Social Dilemmas Play in Undermining Acquisition Success

Abstract

In the face of both declining budgets and growing interoperability requirements, the military increasingly wants to consolidate multiple needs into single systems to be developed jointly. Unfortunately, the track record for joint system acquisition programs is mixed, and programs often follow a familiar downward spiral: The stakeholder programs that depend on a joint system may be skeptical, fearing the needed capability will neither meet their needs, nor be delivered as promised. Stakeholders pressure the Joint Program Office (JPO) to accommodate individual requirements, and the JPO may reluctantly agree, driving up cost, schedule, complexity, and risk thus realizing the stakeholders worst fears. These performance issues encourage stakeholders to leave the joint program, potentially rendering it both operationally unattractive and financially infeasible. This exemplifies a classic social dilemma called the Tragedy of the Commons. Much work has been done on mitigating social dilemmas, but a solution's success depends on its context. This paper describes the modeling of organizational decision-making in a joint acquisition program using system dynamics. This permits future work to analyze the effectiveness of different social dilemma mitigations within the context of joint programs by using system dynamics.