1. Background and Overview
Military Operations Research Society (MORS)
MORS is a professional society of multi-disciplined Operations Research Analysts to enhance the quality of unclassified and classified analysis related to national security. MORS is sponsored by divisions of the armed services, OSD and DHS.
Special Meeting Purpose
To examine topics, methodologies, analyses, and innovations pertinent to all aspects of analysis for affordability as a function of total ownership cost and system performance
Keynote Speakers
Ms. Katrina McFarland, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition
Dr. Ray O Johnson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Lockheed Martin Corporation
Attendance
154 Total / 58 Government / 69 Industry / 12 Academic / 10 FFRDC / 5 Foreign
Planning Partners
INCOSE, SCEA, NDIA, MAS
MORS is a professional society of multi-disciplined Operations Research Analysts to enhance the quality of unclassified and classified analysis related to national security.
The MORS Sponsors are listed here. They provide guidance to the MORS Leadership through a Statement of Work.
J8 is a past Sponsor, but still a major supporter of MORS, so I have included them here.
For this workshop, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition was the workshop proponent. 1

2. Preliminary Results RESULTS: Key Takeaways
Affordability analysis lacks clarity of definition, sufficiency criteria, and regulatory policy.
Tools and methodologies are not considered problem areas.
Affordability is not an inherent “attribute” of a program or requirement, but an informed judgment when compared to something else.
Two “interpretations” of affordability
“little a” – being frugal, cost efficient in executing programs
“Big A” – for the cost, does the capability provide value in the context of other things needed
Key Takeaways:
Affordability analysis portfolios need to be defined to enable trades across different types of systems.
An affordability analysis process / framework needs to be created
Accountability is needed across the life cycle
Preliminary Results
It was discovered that affordability analysis lacks clarity of definition, sufficiency criteria, and regulatory policy. When one conducts cost or cost-benefit analysis, the process is straightforward; analysts follow established guidelines and principles. When conducting affordability analysis, however, responses vary dramatically. Guidance, processes, and institutional acceptance are needed. Tools and methodologies are not considered the binding constraints at this time.
Unlike cost, affordability is not an inherent “attribute” of a program or requirement, although it is often treated as such. Affordability does derive from inherent attributes of a program or requirement (such as cost), but is an informed judgment—a “relative” comparison of something compared to something else.
Affordability is commonly thought of as a relationship between capability and cost, but there has been no metric or singular set of metrics defined for either. A recommendation would be to resist using the term “affordability” in the sense of an inherent attribute of a program or requirement and the establishment of common measures for both cost and capability and apply them to all programs and portfolios to enable making “trades” among them.
There also seemed to be two “interpretations” of affordability in use.
• Affordability in the “small” means being frugal—being cost efficient in executing a program, from beginning to end and not being extravagant in choosing capabilities and solutions to challenges; getting the most bang for the buck (“little a”).
• Affordability in the “large” means, does this capability, for what it is going to cost (or is costing us), provide sufficient value in the context of all of the other things we need (“Big A”)
Contractors, program managers and others tend to operate in the “little a” realm (i.e., doing things right), while DoD, Congress and Service leadership usually mean “Big A” (i.e., doing the right things). Over-focus on “little a” can lead to being “penny-wise and pound foolish.” Affordability in the large is a judgment call. That judgment can change over the life of a program for many reasons, some of which may have absolutely nothing to do with the “little a” of a program. The nature of analysis to support the “A’s” differs somewhat due to the nature of the associated questions.
As a result of these high level discussions, the key takeaways across the working groups were:
• Affordability levels and portfolios need to be defined,
• An affordability process / framework needs to be established, and
• Accountability for affordability needs to be assigned across the life cycle. 2

3. Preliminary Results RESULTS: Conclusions and Recommendations
Define affordability analysis portfolios
Develop an affordability analysis “how to manual” or framework
Complete the people, authorities, skills, processes, methods, data and standards matrix
Complete the drivers, strategies, information needs, metrics and analyses across the life cycle matrix
Establish a relationship between resources and readiness
Learn other organizations (i.e., FEDEX, UPS, etc.) best practices
Identify accountability across the life cycle
Create dynamic and interactive visualizations to provide a better understanding of the affordability trade space
Preliminary Results
The MORS Affordability Analysis Workshop was timely providing needed discussions from key leadership, organizations, and individuals. However, the workshop discussions and deliverables must not be the end. A small core group, perhaps the core of a new MORS Affordability Analysis Community of Practice, could be established to continue working with the government on the above workshop recommendations.
The top three bullets are the overarching / key takeaway recommendations.
The sub-bullets from the framework come from the following WGs:
People Matrix – WG 1
Driver / Strategy Matrix – WG 3
Resource & Readiness Relationship – WG 4
Best Practices – WG 5
The Development Planning Recommendations come from WG 2. The WG 2 Outbrief was presented in the Development Planning and Early Systems Engineering Track at the NDIA SE Division Conference on 24 October, where members from the government & industry Development Planning WGs were in attendance.
The visualization recommendation was from WG 5. 3