COMMENTARY


DONE THAT BEEN THERE,


BEHAVIORAL ACQUISITION


Behavioral biases have played a significant role in acquisition program decision-making, specifically hampering the Army’s ef forts to modernize and upgrade infantry combat vehicles.


by Robert F. Mortlock, Ph.D., Col., USA (Ret.)


This is the second in a series of articles focused on behavioral acquisition—a topic first intro- duced in the Fall 2021 Army AL&T magazine.


B


ehavioral acquisition explores defense acquisition from a behavioral standpoint, including the impact of psychology, organizational behavior and organiza- tional politics on decision-making in acquisition programs that ultimately affect the delivery of capability to the warfighter. Behavioral acquisition stud-


ies how acquisition professionals think, manage and lead acquisition programs—and addresses organizations, hierarchies and the intersection of individual behavior, leader- ship, culture and decision-making.


One aspect in particular, behavioral biases, is the focus of this article. Tese biases have a common root in people’s limited ability to process large amounts of information, result- ing in poor decision-making. Tat, in turn, contributes to acquisition program failures. A case study is the Army’s efforts to modernize its infantry combat fighting vehicles. Te decadeslong effort has shown evidence of multiple decision-making biases: plan- ning fallacy bias, overoptimism bias, recency bias and trade-off bias.


https://asc.ar my.mil 89


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