Throughout the Department of Defense, military and civilian leadership see uncertainty and change. We need new ways to deliver results.

Spending on the defense base budget increased roughly thirty-percent in real terms since 2001 — not accounting for the primary cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the foreseeable future, Department of Defense (DoD) investment choices will be driven by the end of a decade of war, a rapidly changing threat landscape, and a national imperative to reduce our deficit. National interest in the topic of sequestration has plummeted since it was signed into law by President Obama. Given this dilemma, how can our Nation’s leadership adopt new ways of thinking to thrive during a period of austerity? Realign thinking to an outcome-based mindset.

Until recently, the performance of defense programs has been judged largely on a series of inputs, activities, outputs, and meeting budgetary benchmarks. This approach, however, has come into question due to DoD’s Better Buying Power initiative. One of the limiting factors behind many past reform initiatives has been the preoccupation with a maze of processes and guidebooks developed to simply follow rules, lacking clarity about what benefits are actually realized from each taxpayer dollar.

Defense programs are under increasing pressure to produce results. Last week, the House Armed Services Committee heard from former acquisition executives speaking out about the need for reform and will shortly begin to review recommendations from industry leaders. Review of our defense posture recognizes the importance of outcomes for effective and responsible management, because an outcome approach requires a strategic focus on what matters to the warfighter.

Outcome orientation represents a fundamentally different way of thinking and managing programs across all aspects of the defense acquisition system and how it relates to its major stakeholders. To be effective, organizations will need to rethink their current operating model at all levels.

Change of this nature is not easy — both a top-down and bottoms-up approach is needed. Strong and direct support from legislators and program executives will be essential to provide legitimacy and support. But unless there is also support throughout the defense acquisition system — from policy formulation to operational execution — an outcome focus runs the risk of becoming another administrative reporting exercise instead of a substantive change in thinking of how a program is managed throughout the acquisition lifecycle.

To be sure, outcomes are longer term in nature and are typically influenced by a variety of factors, many external to an individual program manager. They tend to be more difficult to quantify than activities or outputs. Given that achievement of outcomes may in part depend upon factors beyond the direct control of a program or its manager, a different approach may be required other than simply measuring inputs or outputs.

Start at the end. To know that you are working toward the right outcome, you need to start with the end in mind. A simple logic model will help provide a visual diagram that depicts the relationships between resources, activities, outputs, and outcomes. It illustrates the rationale behind each activity, process, or investment. Beginning with outcomes, reverse-engineer the model and identify what outputs are required to affect the desired end-state. Continue backward to identify the activities needed to produce those outputs and finally, the inputs needed required by the activities. Through this exercise, a program will be able to identify what is needed to produce desired outcomes.

Strike a balance. Outputs do play an important role in helping measure and track progress toward achieving an outcome; however, if not balanced, the outcome can get lost amid a myriad of outputs. To avoid this fate, determine what outputs produce value-add to the desired outcome. Start by identifying warfighter needs and specifying value from their standpoint. Construct a value-stream map that tracks the information produced by your processes and activities and into final decision making. This will enable you to determine the outputs that are not contributing value to the desired outcome and can be eliminated.

Tailor smartly. Shorten the concept-to-deployment lifecycle by developing a less monolithic strategy. It is clear that there is not one best model that should be applied to all programs. Capability requirements, past history, constituent support, and many other factors require an approach to be tailored to the situation within each program.

In a time of ambiguity regarding the defense budget and policy considerations, an outcomes-based approach offers the government an objective, unbiased perspective to rethink, realign, and then resolve to break down barriers — always focused on the end results. Ultimately, combined leadership in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill will need to challenge the status-quo, lead with innovation, and adopt new ways of thinking to thrive during a period of uncertainty and change.