I'll speak to your point about layers and simplifying or streamlining that.
In the Department of Defense, our program managers, those who are responsible for managing the program as it goes through the process, sought in this last round of acquisition reforms to simplify the layers and to delegate some of the decision-making authority from the highest levels of the Pentagon down to the next-highest levels. Rather than having the Secretary of Defense level making decisions on certain programs, we have now delegated that decision-making authority to the secretaries of the military departments: the Army, Navy and Air Force.
We found that when the program managers had to go all the way up to the Office of the Secretary of Defense for reviews and approvals—of course, going through their respective military service department—it created an additional amount of administrative requirements, justification documents and, frankly, just time in the Pentagon, briefing senior leadership twice: at your service level—in other words, the Navy, Air Force and Army—and then again at the Secretary of Defense level.
We found that great streamlining could be accomplished, and it's currently in progress. We've had that for about six or seven years, and it certainly has decreased some of the time and burden of the process.