The end of accounting, and why cost-based pricing loses relevance in the innovation economy
Interviewer: Are you familiar with the economic theory of the bootleggers and the baptists? It explains the notion of why prohibition was able to last […]
Blog Posts
How cost-plus contracting slowed space technologies, and the shift back to mission-based specs
It starts back in the 1960s with the Apollo program being successful. The way that space used to work back then was that everything was […]
Acquisition headlines
How Lockheed Martin Ventures manages its early-stage $200M fund. Was established in 2007, returning $80M on the first $100M invested. A slice: “We started realizing […]
Air Force struggles to develop a fighter for over a dozen years, circa 1971
Here is Senator Stuart Symington lambasting the Air Force in December 1971 about their inability to develop new fighter aircraft: I have pictures which prove […]
Static program baselines and rethinking contract mgmt systems
Traditional acquisition metrics can be a major problem for adaptable systems. The Earned Value Management System (EVMS) is a common tool for measuring progress in […]
If you try to maintain initial trust by covering up mistakes, then you lose trust when they catch you
Harry: You say: “If soldiers trust the general, communication will be vastly more efficient.” What are your biggest lessons on how to create an environment […]
Should companies doing large and complex R&D not perform production on their designs?
A fairly common pattern in the past and the present has been the carrying out of development even of a fairly exploratory nature by the […]
Loose cultures, tight cultures, and the USD(AT&L) break up
Loose cultures have a great benefit in terms of creating ideas but they’re not necessarily great at implementing them. So you think of innovation, it […]
Agile, modular, and digital engineering — Roper’s tenants for the fighter-building business
But how we build aircraft, that doesn’t make sense. Approaching NGAD [next-generation air dominance] the way we did the F-35 would put us at great […]
Acquisition headlines
One view of the F-35: Pentagon And Lockheed Martin Agree To Big Cost Reduction On F-35 Fighters. A slice: “The most common variant, to be […]
Eisenhower’s appeal for increased efficiency and economy — the Single Manager Plan
Today, most of our defense funds are appropriated not to the Secretary of Defense but rather to the military departments. The Secretary of Defense and […]
How has DIU performed in transitioning technologies?
Since 2015, millions of dollars have been invested in the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, the agency watched as some of its projects fell flat, and […]
Navy found $126 million in parts it didn’t know existed, and what that says about oversight
Navy aircraft were sidelined as they awaited parts last year that the service actually had in a warehouse. The problem? They didn’t even know the warehouse […]
Time to award a defense contract and the growth of regulation
In 1947, the “Bible” of the nation’s military contractors—Armed Forces Procurement Regulation—was a slim volume of about 100 to 125 pages long. Today, the A.F.P.R., […]
A small business view of FedRAMP; over 100 DevOps reqts involved
In the system where EverLaw tracks the features and whatever the engineers were working on, there were over 100 tickets in there — or feature […]