From Concurrency to Phased Planning: An Episode in the History of Systems Management
From Concurrency to Phased Planning: An Episode in the History of Systems Management
This chapter discusses the shift from the philosophy of “concurrency” to that of “phased planning,” which is a significant change in the conceptions and processes of systems management. As can be seen here, this shift was a managerial and organizational response to a deeper restructuring of priorities within the United States government. Priorities shifted from a dominant concern with rapid development and deployment of large weapons systems to a concern with their cost, a good example of how an organization translates upper-level decisions and priorities into changes in processes and procedures that, consequently, modify the products they create. Phased planning represented a partial retreat from concurrent methods toward sequential techniques, such as what was done in the air force when it adopted a “sequential” method in the 1960s. The chapter will also discuss this shift in the standard procedure for Air Force Systems Command.
Keywords: concurrency, phased planning, systems management, upper-level decisions, concurrent methods, sequential techniques, standard procedure, Air Force Systems
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