In Investment Strategy for Product Development in the Aerospace Industry, Frank A. Tillman and Deandra T. Cassone introduce a complete process for developing an investment strategy for the Air Force Material Command that develops products for the military aerospace industry. The Air Force has used Tillman and Cassone’s model to help establish goals and objectives, relate them to decision criteria, and use them to analytically prioritize programs and allocate resources. Their model is interesting both for the specific problem it solves and for the example it offers: a model of a diverse set of projects that requires clearly defined goals, objectives, and metrics which can be compared on an “apples-to-apples” basis. It also shows how to capture and integrate the sometimes-differing viewpoints of multiple decision makers in a consistent process that ensures the greatest possible objectivity. The investment strategy outlined here offers a foundation any large organization can use to establish automated structured project prioritization and resource allocation processes for traceable and defensible decision making. It also presents steps and reports that can be used to develop an automated system for efficiently repeating the investment decision-making process in the future.
