Observations on the Department of Defense's Fiscal Year 1999 Performance Report and Fiscal Year 2001 Performance Plan

In a letter dated June 16, 2000, the DOD Director for Program Analysis and Evaluation provided written comments on a draft of this report. DOD agreed that its future performance reports and plans could be enhanced. In March 2003, DOD published its fiscal year 2002 performance report, and 2004 performance plan as part of its Annual Defense Report (ADR). By including the performance report and plan as part of the ADR, DOD is able to include a more comprehensive description of outcomes through its risk management framework. The ADR describes DOD's new defense strategy, a risk management framework based on DOD's 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review, and how DOD defines, structures, and supports major defense missions. This provides an executive-level overview of how the Secretary of Defense manages performance to achieve the outcomes required by the defense strategy. The ADR also includes summary descriptions of performance metrics (both qualitative and quantitative) and targets, target status, statements of verification and validation, and a description of results for fiscal year 2002. Additionally, DOD included a new metric to provide explicit guidance for budget and performance integration.