The much anticipated Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) v1.0 has been released! It “contains five maturity processes and 171 cybersecurity best practices progressing across five maturity levels.”
New procurement blog from the excellent Ben McMartin. “What you can expect from this BLOG is an Ex-PCO/AO, Ex-PM’s perspective on doing business with the Government from my new role as a startup technology owner, entrepreneur, and industry consultant.”
The Hilarious and Totally Real Reason the F-22 Can’t Be Hacked. “No one in China knows how to program the ’83 vintage IBM software that runs them.”
Dan Wang’s 2019 Letter on Tech, China, and more. Recommended. A slice: “In fact, I suspect that Chinese firms should be considered underperformers as a whole. “
Captain obvius. Esper: Culture Change in DOD Needed to Improve Acquisition Process.
DoD Community of Practice for Modern Software has reached over 400 members. Article by Carmela Rice — the Software Pathway lead for the Adaptive Acquisition Framework, and Sean Brady — DAU Software Acquisition Learning Director.
A vision for how DoD can achieve its own moonshot by transforming the world’s biggest bureaucracy.
The Space Launch System is an irredeemable mistake. Here’s the calculation: “This $110 million price tag [for SpaceX Falcon Heavy/Starship] is less than an eighth of the cost of an SLS launch,while transporting a payload of three times as much mass, a 24-fold improvement in launch efficiency.” Read the whole thing.
DoD’s top IT official talks AI, JEDI, and how to win over the commercial tech community. On JEDI: “[We’re] getting ready to stand up our unclassified environment, which we hope will be ready by mid-February. Then our secret environment is approximately six months thereafter.”
How corporate defense venture funds fit into the VC ecosystem. Where are the big bucks? “Lockheed Martin Ventures, for example, has invested only $190 million since 2007. Boeing’s equivalent has made 25 investments, all less than $10 million, since forming in early 2017.”
GSA officials rethink ATO [Authority To Operate] process. CSO Chaillan makes it seem that using enterprise tools like Platform One will automatically provide continuous ATO. I think they’re still working on figuring out a streamlined ATO process, leaving alone continuous ATO.
Techstars Grooms 10 Tech Startups For Air Force. Winners listed. Subtitle: “Of 20 commercial startups the Techstars Air Force Accelerator has helped, 19 have gone on to win a collective $20-plus million in DoD Small Business Innovation Research contracts.” In 2018, Lockheed Martin chewed through an award that size every 10 hours on average for the entire year!
More problems with Air Force’s new tanker could put the squeeze on the Pentagon’s refueling capabilities, TRANSCOM chief says. “The tankers were also subject to a three-month ban on flying with cargo and passengers in late 2019.” Another problem TRAMSCOM finds is sealift.
ComNavOps: The Navy Way vs. Common Sense. Former SecNav Spencer on sealift: “I can’t afford a lot of $600-million [logistics] ships. I can’t really afford a lot of $400-million ships, when I can go out and buy used [roll-on/roll-off ships] for $35 to $40 million.”
The best thing Congress could do for a while is stop passing new legislation [on acquisition reform]. “The FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, contains over 3,400 pages of law and explanation of law… On average, each of the last five NDAAs contained 79 acquisition provisions.”
Industry shares perspectives on rapid acquisition.
New book [available in PDF for free!]: The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies. I’m excited to give it a read.
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