Navy says two programs show the case for ‘colorless’ IT spending

The Navy says it’s seen huge successes in a pilot project that aims to change the decades-old, hardware-centric budgeting model Congress and the Pentagon use to plan and execute DoD’s spending into one that actually makes sense for modern information technology. But proving to lawmakers that it’s a good idea, so far, has been challenging.

The basic idea is to set aside the traditional colors of money DoD uses for various phases of the development of a big weapons platform — R&D, procurement and sustainment — and instead, let IT program managers draw from one bucket of money throughout a program’s lifecycle as they continuously improve what they’re offering.