Lecture Examples

DRMI Course Lectures

The syllabus of the Defense Resources Management Course (DRMC) contains the following classes. Similar subjects are also presented in the International Defense Resources Management Course (IDMC) and the Senior International Defense Resources Management Course (SIDMC).

The Tempo Military Planning Game
Assigns course participants to teams which make a series of resource allocation decisions during a one-day (first day of the course) exercise. The game illustrates many of the basic concepts involved in modern defense management such as opportunity cost, quantitative analysis, alternatives in decision making, marginal analysis, cost-effectiveness, and others.

The Game and Defense Management
Develops a conceptual framework that relates the TEMPO Military Planning Game and the curriculum to the challenge of defense management: the efficient use of scarce resources to provide for a nation's security.

Organizations and Systems for Defense Management
Examines the development of defense organization and management systems within the DoD and relates them to the problem of efficient and effective allocation of resources.

Resources Allocation Perspectives
Explores the various perspectives on resource allocation that will be developed throughout the course.

Global Political Environment of Defense Management
Provides a framework to evaluate the major factors that are influencing change in the international system and affecting defense management.

Systems Analysis and Decision Making
Provides a historical perspective on the development of analytic thinking and introduces the methodology used in analysis of decisions.

Models and Model Building
Introduces the mathematical model as the principal tool of analysis. Reviews the process by which a mathematical model is constructed, paying special attention to the crucial step of model formulation.

Quantitive Reasoning
Discusses what may be gained through the use of mathematical modeling via a simple application.

Formulating Decision Problems
Presents an approach to decision problem formulation that permits systematic assessment of how much is known about a decision problem. Introduces the basic matrix of model of a decision problem.

Economic Environment of Defense Management
Introduces the subject of economics, indicates that defense resources allocation is an economic problem of choice, and examines the external economic environment of defense.

Resources Available for Defense
Emphasizes the increased pressures on defense agencies for greater efficiency and economy in the use of scarce national resources.

Decisions Under Certainty
To illustrate the structuring and solution of a resource allocation problem normally characterized by many alternatives, a single objective, and multiple resource constraints. This problem structure ignores uncertainty based on the assumption that it is not a major concern to the decision maker.

Economy and Efficiency
Presents a model of optimal resource allocation.

Decision Making at the Margin
Introduces concepts of marginal reasoning, demonstrates the relationships between total, average, and marginal values, and presents two fundamental resource allocation propositions that utilize marginal values.

Defense Resources Management
Provides perspective on defense resources management and the course.

Decisions Under Uncertainty I
Presents a variety of strategies, techniques, and decision rules for dealing with decision problems under uncertainty.

Production and Unit Cost Analysis
Develops the economic logic underlying production -- the transforming of resources into outputs, and shows how the understanding of this logic can help defense managers be aware of the most cost-effective level of operations.

Unit Cost Analysis
Uses marginal concepts and the isoquant-isocost curve techniques to demonstrate the logical process of seeking economy-efficiency solutions in productive activities, and shows the usefulness of this approach in defense resource decisions.

Probability
Presents the basic concepts, rules, and uses of probability. Attention is focused on how probabilities are used in quantitative analysis.

Decisions Under Uncertainty II
Introduces some basic concepts in statistics and illustrates how they are used to aid decision making under uncertainty with complete information. Criteria such as expected value and maximum likelihood are discussed.

Models of Uncertainty I
Develops theoretical models for probabilities in decision problems with a finite number of future conditions. Introduces and illustrates the concept of a discrete valued random variable.

Models of Uncertainty II
Develops theoretical models of probabilities in decision problems with an infinite number of future conditions. Introduces the concept of a continuously valued random variable.

Specifying, Collecting and Using Data
Discusses the importance of data specification and collection methodologies in analysis, and examines the problems inherent in the process of generating information useful in analytical decision making.

Estimation
Introduces the basic elements of statistical inference and the concepts of estimation. Point estimates and interval estimates are introduced and their value in decision making is discussed.

Cost-Output Analysis
Summarizes economic and quantitative concepts. Examines the role and usefulness of cost-output analysis in resource allocation situations, and extends the discussion of cost-output to cost-effectiveness.

Testing Assumptions
Presents the basics of hypothesis testing as they support decision making. The concept of an hypothesis is introduced and its construction is discussed. The influence of errors is considered and different types of error are examined.

Risk and Variability
Develops a quantitative notion of riskiness that allows for an objective treatment of risk in decision problems. Decision making is shown to be a choice between distribution functions over the pay-offs.

Simulation Modeling
Presents the fundamentals of simulation and discusses its use in support of decision making.

Risky Business
Discusses the notion of acceptable risk and some approaches to managing riskiness in decision making. Issues in risk identification, assessment, and management are considered.

Cost Concepts and Analysis
Discusses the importance of cost estimates as a vital part of the information needed by decision makers and outlines basic concepts used in estimating costs.

Cost Accounting and Analysis
Discusses the major elements and concepts of cost accounting and describes the use of cost accounting information to control costs and manage operations.

Present Value Analysis
Discusses the role and importance of the time dimension in decision making.

Limits to Rationality

Regression Analysis
Demonstrates the usefulness and limitations of simple linear regression and correlation analysis.

Cost Estimating Techniques
Discusses the rationale for and usefulness of cost estimating relationships in the determination of systems cost.

Introduction to Mulit-Objective Decision Making
Introduces a framework for analyzing decision problems which have multiple goals and objectives. Discusses how objectives and their related effectiveness measures are defined in a multi-criteria decision problem.

Quantifying Decision Maker Preferences
Introduces the concepts of preference and indifference and illustrates how they are used to quantify the decision maker's values in a multi-criteria decision problem.

Effectiveness Analysis
Examines how to value individual attributes so that they can be combined with the decision maker's preference weights to obtain an overall effectiveness measure.

Cost Effectiveness Analysis
Demonstrates how measures of effectiveness and the decision maker's preferences can be integrated into a solution methodology for multi-criteria decision problems.

Management Control Techniques
Introduces the basic concepts of management control, and examines the value of network analysis in management control.

Defense Industrial Organization
Provides an overview of the structure, performance, and efficiency of US defense industries.

Defense Acquisition Process
Outlines the current process for management of the development and procurement of major defense systems in contrast to other historical approaches, and examines their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Game Theory and Decision Making
Provides a methodology to examine the choices faced by decision makers when the outcome depends on the actions of other decision makers.

Contract Bidding Game Analysis
Discusses the application of game theory to a contract bidding exercise. Demonstrates how the structure or rules of the game might influence decision maker choices.

Evolution of Federal Budgeting
Traces and interprets the history of U. S. federal budgeting as a basis for understanding its present status and probable course of future evolution.

Program Budgeting
Surveys the three major approaches to budgeting for public purchase programs.

Budget Systems Design

Unit Cost Budgeting
Provides a conceptual framework for understanding the uses of unit cost budgeting.

Defense Working Capital
Discusses the concept of working capital funds and applies it to improved management operations in DoD.

Planning, Programming, and Budgeting in DoD
Describes the component parts of the PPB system in DoD and the current annual PPB cycle. Emphasis is placed upon the unique flexibility of PPB in dealing with changes in the military resource allocation environment.

Systems Analysis and Strategic Planning
Reviews the role of systems analysis in defense decision making, and provides an example of the application of analysis in the strategic planning process.

View of Work and Human Performance
Describes individual and group processes of learning and motivation, and explores how characteristics of work settings can facilitate or impede these processes.

Organizational Change
Describes systematic approaches to "significant" organizational change.

Congressional Budget Reform
Examines the federal resource allocation environment leading up to the Congressional Budget Reform Act of 1974, and discusses some of the implications of its ongoing implementation.

Problem Sets and Case Studies
The concepts introduced in lecture are examined through the application of illustrative problems and case studies, including:

  • Resource Allocation
  • TEMPO Military Planning Game
  • Marginal Analysis
  • Navy Recruiting Problem
  • Cost-Output Analysis
  • Airborne Detection Capability
  • Effectiveness Analysis
  • Interim Army Anti-Tank Missile Case
  • PPBS/Analysis
  • DRMECIA Exercises

The International Defense Management Course (IDMC) consists of the core concepts found in the four-week DRMC. The 11-week time frame, however, permits greater depth and scope to be given to these themes. In addition, a comparative examination of management systems in the second half of the course includes supplementary lecture subjects and case studies. IDMC participants also go on one or more informational trips.

The four-week Senior International Defense Management Course (SIDMC) also includes a short informational trip. As such, the basic lecture package is somewhat compressed in content and depth of examination.