Reflecting Warfighter Needs in Air Force Programs

Prototype Analysis

Paul K. Davis, Richard Hillestad, Duncan Long, Paul Dreyer, Brandon T. Dues

ResearchPublished Jul 23, 2010

A concern within the Air Force is that headquarters-level program decisions sometimes fail to give sufficient priority to requests important to meeting warfighter needs. This technical report documents a phase-one effort to develop new methods to help ensure that warfighter needs are adequately represented as the Air Force manages its programs and budget. Drawing on previous RAND work on capabilities-based planning and portfolio management, the authors outline a method that considers measures of combat effectiveness, as well as cost-effectiveness from multiple perspectives, to compare composite options — that is, options involving multiple platforms and capabilities — for accomplishing a given mission. The authors illustrate the method by applying it to the mission of close air support, using notional data.

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Davis, Paul K., Richard Hillestad, Duncan Long, Paul Dreyer, and Brandon T. Dues, Reflecting Warfighter Needs in Air Force Programs: Prototype Analysis. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2010. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR754.html.
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The research described in this report was sponsored by the United States Air Force and conducted by RAND Project AIR FORCE.

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