Here’s Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper making a very nice distinction between a “requirements” and an “opportunity” approach to defense programs. At the Strategic Capabilities Office, he led the fielding of 53 capabilities and “not a single one was requirements driven.”
… There’s often a discussion when the iPhone first came out or the smartphone generically, no one knew they had a requirement for this. What does it look like in deep tech to maybe identify those things the warfighter may not know they may not know they have a requirement? How does that change the structure of our capability development the way we think about doing capability development in the Department of Defense? The acceleration of these partnerships with the companies doing deep tech, great question, right now we’re driven from a requirement to a solution so a war fighter says “I need a thing. It flies that fast, it goes this far, it carries this much,” and we build it so it’s based on the warfighter understanding of what they need and telling us.
With technology changing so quickly, it doesn’t make sense anymore. Our process working with you [industry] should shift from being requirements-based to being opportunity-based. If we design systems that are open, that you can change technology continually, then I don’t have to have a requirement. I just need a mandate from our war fighters to bring them opportunities. Things they didn’t even know they needed, like that iPhone. What I have experienced about war fighters throughout my entire career in this building, if you bring them an opportunity, they will find a way to fight and win with it.
In fact, the the years that I ran the Strategic Capabilities Office, which was for a long time the classified system that the Department didn’t talk about — I think I created about 53 or so capabilities — not a single one was requirements-driven. They were all opportunities that were either produced within industry or produced by some strategists and then we found industry that could make them. We took it to a war fighter and they said absolutely. So that’s how this process will work. The great thing about opportunities is that you don’t have to wait on us. You can bring them to us and pitch them to us. So I’m also excited about AFWERX doing the open topic solicitation as the standard way to get us ideas.
Got to love it. This is the same framework Armen Alchian used in the 1950s. As Alchian expressed it: “Research and development decisions are those of the Chef, who concocts new dishes and plans a menu of available alternative dishes, from which the Gourmet at a later time has the privilege of choosing in light of his tastes, companions, and income. A good Chef proves a broad menu–thereby assuring the Gourmet the opportunity to make the best selection.”
In my mind, the “opportunity approach” has to be more than SBIRs/STTRs. It should apply to all of RDT&E, as Alchian implied. Some organizations seem to be better suited to that opportunity approach, like the Strategic Capabilities Office that Roper led. I suspect some of that has to do with the fact that both SBIR/STTR and the SCO had most of their funding through a single budget line item, providing them flexibility in executing a portfolio of projects.
I’m reading Skunk Works and thinking there’s no way Lockheed would bring the design for a high-altitude reconnaissance plane to the government today. I think the U-2, SR-71, and F-117 are more apt ‘opportunity-based’ examples than the iphone. Maybe Dr. Roper should use one of them.