PPBE Reform is getting hot, here are some views
The archaic defense budget process based on five-year plans, long decision making and excessive time to revenue keeps the most innovative companies from ever wanting […]
Blog Posts
DoD programs are over-analyzed, yet decisions remain superficial and shallow
I drop you into an exchange between Senator Scoop Jackson and Alain Enthoven, ASD Systems Analysis and one of McNamara’s ‘whiz kids,’ in a 1967 […]
Aircraft availability and flying hours have been plummeting since 2000
The CBO has a nice, short paper on aircraft availability rates in the Air Force and Navy. Check out the charts. There’s been a general […]
Acquisition headlines (1/3 – 1/9/2022)
Navy, Air Force flight stats have been dive bombing for two decades: CBO. (Breaking Defense) ““In general, fleetwide availability rates have declined for both services, […]
Is a Russian invasion of Ukraine imminent? And when will acquisition get serious?
Here is Dmitri Alpervitch, co-founder of the largest cybersecurity firm in the world Crowd Strike, in a viral twitter thread: There are numerous signals that […]
Podcast: Other Transactions Authorities
In this episode of Acquisition Talk, we listen in on a recent event on Other Transactions Authority hosted by George Mason University’s Center for Government […]
What happened to the guts and vision of Americans to build great things?
Here is Steve Levine on the Realignment podcast discussing the US/China Great EV battery war: The 2020s are lost. Even if a decision is made […]
First DoD Comptroller slams naive reformers who invented PPBS
Here’s DoD’s third Comptroller Charles Hitch testifying to Congress about the need for the new management system he was implementing in DoD: the Planning, Programming, […]
Acquisition headlines (12/27/2021 – 1/2/2022)
National Defense Authorization Act provisions sparked support and skepticism from several experts. (Nextgov) “Several of the officials pointed to the noteworthiness of section 1004 in […]
PMs spend too much time at briefings where no decisions are made
In the early 1970s, the Army took it upon itself to review its acquisition system. The AMARC report found that the Army was “profoundly affected” […]
Inflationary lessons for the Department of Defense
Here’s Friedrich Hayek discussing the negative consequences of economist’s presumption that they can control macroeconomic outcomes — from his 1974 Nobel prize speech The Pretense […]
Will defense tech be able to compete with an innovating enemy?
When a program manager in the Pentagon is getting threat briefs, they’re your best friend before the program starts. They want to hear all about […]
Top researchers spend 50% of their time writing grants, how to fix it, and what it means for DoD
Nearly all academic researchers in the sciences rely on outside grants in order to pay salaries, buy their equipment, and run their experiments. Those grants […]
Acquisition headlines (12/20 – 12/26/2021)
United States approves possible FMS of EMALS and AAG to France. (Naval News) “The Government of France has requested to buy one (1) Electromagnetic Aircraft […]
The state of defense acquisition as 2021 draws to a close
Previously, I discussed the messaging from the Reagan National Defense Forum that “Time is running out with Silicon Valley.” It was intimated that major acquisition […]