A bridge fund can’t solve the Pentagon’s emerging tech problem
Matt MacGregor and I published an article in Defense News outlining five reasons that a bridge fund or prototyping fund won’t solve DoD’s valley of […]
Month: March 2021
STITCHES is getting stymied by the acquisition process
One government-owned program already exists that can enable previously incompatible networks and systems to exchange data without the need for common standards or open mission […]
Acquisition headlines (3/7 – 3/13/2021)
China’s 2nd Type 055 Destroyer ‘Lhasa’ Commissioned with PLAN. (Naval News) “The Type 055 destroyers are the largest surface combatant currently being built in the […]
Bob Work on the role of the JAIC and PPBE reform to success of AI/ML
The department, we think, must ensure it has in place the resources processes and organizations to enable AI innovation. The department needs to establish a […]
The debate over defining “legacy” weapon systems
How DoD defines “legacy systems” will drive tens of billions of dollars of investment, sustainment activities, and force structure. Everyone criticizes legacy systems, and in […]
PPBE reform event: an imperative for winning the great power competition
… in my mind, I equate planning and budgeting and consider the terms almost synonymous, the budget being simply a quantitative expression of operating plans. […]
Defense decision-making beyond neoclassical economics
Well, in the article I caricatured how economists look at preference. So, let me do it in two stages. First, the way economists usually look […]
How can the Pentagon escape its Soviet-style acquisition system?
DoD’s FY21 President’s Budget Request organizes major weapon systems via nine Mission Area Categories (MACs), which can also be viewed as Strategic Capabilities (Figure 4). These provide […]
Podcast: Mission resilience with Trey Herr and Simon Handler
Trey Herr and Simon Handler from the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss how the Department of […]
Acquisition headlines (2/28 – 3/6/2021)
Agile product management: how to build weapons faster and better. (Breaking Defense) “This level of integration introduces complexity to the point where agile software development […]
General Hinote: We ought to reimagine budgeting and oversight
That sector is going so fast that I don’t know what the specific solution set might look like in 2027 when we’re going to be […]
DoD’s attempt at rational calculus may be the height of folly
It is, therefore, an obvious and “rational calculus” to employ a pragmatic and experimental procedure – that is, a policy of redundancy which permits several, […]
Markets rewarded defense industry consolidation and exit well before the “last supper”
Of course defense companies start consolidating after World War II, and then again in the 1970s after the Vietnam War. Many observers see industrial consolidation […]
DIU update: the 2020 annual report
Key statistics from DIU’s 2020 annual report that I compiled: Subject 2020 2019 2016-2020 Projects 23 95 Commercial Proposals 944 466 2,381 Proposals per Solicitation […]
Does DoD turn out good product managers?
You mentioned intuition and I think that can be developed too believe it or not. I’ve helped many product managers develop their product sense. How […]