If a company brings a new technology or solution to the Department of Defense, officials have few sources of funding that allow them to capitalize on the opportunity. Less than 1 percent of the defense budget is available to transition new projects without getting in line for the next Program Objectives Memorandum (POM) cycle that can take two years or more.
Join us for a webinar event hosted by Mason GovCon on Monday, December 12 at 1:00pm ET to discuss solutions to this challenge that has created the much maligned “valley of death.” I will be hosting a panel that includes:
- Christopher O’Donnell, the Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Acquisition;
- Katie Wheelbarger, Vice President of Global Program Support at Lockheed Martin; and
- Elaine McCusker, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former Acting Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller).
We’ll spend a lot of time in Q&A, so come and ask your questions of these leaders! Register here.
Of course, when people talk about the “valley of death” they are often touching different parts of the elephant. The term is attributed to Geoffry Moore’s book Crossing the Chasm in 1991. Since that time, the term’s usage has exploded across a wide range on industry contexts. The defense community has used the term in a number of valid ways as well:
- The handoff from S&T to a Program Office
- Reaching the next milestone decision
- Passing test & evaluation
- The time to a SBIR Phase III award
- Transferring research into a proof of concept
- Time to get accredited or an ATO
- Getting to TRL 6-7+
In the Center’s recent paper, Execution Flexibility and Bridging the Valley of Death, we argue that the most important issue is the cycle time between evidence of a desirable effort and allocation of funds to a program of record.
This focus on lining up funding through PPBE was emphasized in the 2022 DoD Prototyping Handbook. Here are some of our lessons learned:
- “Valley of Death” has many valid meanings, but the focus for defense acquisition is on funding flexibility.
- Niche funds and stopgaps have not bridged the “valley,” only delayed it.
- Commercial companies build, deploy, and fundraise within the multi-year cycle time of DoD resource allocation.
- There is no definitive answer to the question, “how many projects actually died in the valley of death?”
Be sure to join us at the event as we discuss what steps DoD is taking to implement portfolio management, the ways companies can get projects from IR&D into programs, and things Congress can do to help.
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