GMU Playbook: Make room for opportunities in program requirements
George Mason University’s Center for Government Contracting is actively gathering feedback on its recently released draft playbook. Over the next several weeks, we will provide […]
Month: June 2021
Measuring the impact of unexpected inflation on DoD budgets, and other economic issues
Talking with Eric Torenberg, Noah Smith says “The Fed will not stick to any rules that it officially adopts.” (minute 32) “The Fed will always exercise […]
Acquisition headlines (6/21 – 6/27/2021)
Electronics manufacturers send warning shot across CMMC’s bow. (Federal News Network) “DoD’s own cost analysis estimated the cost of a CMMC Maturity Level 3 (ML3) […]
The Pacific Deterrence Initiative, not what the commanders ordered
Congress established the Pacific Deterrence Initiative in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act to improve the posture and readiness of U.S. forces in the Indo-Pacific region. However, […]
How DoD’s innovation fund can avoid becoming a slush fund
Back in March, Matt MacGregor and I wrote an article with the provocative title, A bridge fund won’t solve the Pentagon’s emerging tech problem. While […]
Putting the scale of DoD acquisition into perspective
In the United States, proposals to centralize acquisition usually translate to combining the present procurement organizations of the military departments and creating an analog to […]
GMU Releases Draft Acquisition Playbook, Invites Your Feedback
George Mason University is developing a playbook to help government work with innovative industry partners. After more than 70 interviews with expert practitioners, the Center […]
Acquisition headlines (6/14 – 6/20/2021)
Opinion: Why are US defense prime growth expectations so similar? (Aviation Week) Byron Callan: “First, if everyone is well positioned, no one is well positioned… […]
Army IVAS HoloLens program shows DoD how to do iterative requirements
Soldier input directly shaped many of the headset’s key features. Early prototypes included a HoloLens headset that engineers had affixed cameras to, goggles with weights […]
Why DoD needs more uncorrelated experiments
The thing that I will cry from the rooftops is that we just need more uncorrelated experiments. If you spend all the money in the […]
Podcast: Next steps in acquisition reform with Dan Ward, Pete Modigliani, and Matt MacGregor
I was pleased to have an impressive trio from MITRE join me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the future of acquisition reform. Dan […]
Who spends more? The debate over military budgets in the US and China
In essence, the CIA was using what today we would call PPP to compare the budgets of the two superpowers, a concept that Bill Greenwalt […]
Acquisition headlines (6/7 – 6/13/2021)
The pitfalls of factoring in security and CMMC costs. (National Defense Magazine) “Up to [CMMC] Level 3 will be included in your indirect rates. So, […]
Is the US military in a bubble, unfit for attrition warfare?
If you look back historically, there are very few situations where one side has a big enough technology advantage that it actually causes a win-loss […]
Was the Soviet aircraft industry marked by profit-motive capitalism?
One of the major differences [in Soviet aerospace industry] is that the research institutes, the design bureaus, and the manufacturing plants are all under one […]