Program offices may face hard choices with Air Force Ventures
Here is Air Force acquisition chief William Roper talking at an Ask Me Anything webinar. He was discussing the pitch day events, which starts at […]
Management
IP rights, enterprise tools, and the new Software Acquisition Pathway
A crucial component of the acquisition strategy is a plan for intellectual property (IP). As the recently released intellectual property policy specified, IP plans emphasize “the criticality […]
Have we reached peak “Chief …… Officer” in the DOD?
DoD leadership should focus on establishing business-reform objectives for each major DoD organization, and then holding leaders of these respective organizations accountable to the achievement […]
General Hyten gives a metric for measuring acquisition success
There’s actually a pretty easy metric if you want to evaluate whether you’ve been successful for not. All you have to do is go out […]
How to maintain innovation in a large-scale enterprise
An organization like the cavalry in 1935 is an interesting example. You had a bureaucracy that used the horse to do the job. That was […]
The most important unresolved aspect of acquisition reform
New guidance for middle tier acquisitions at the Department of Defense looks to clarify the authorities that procurement professionals can use. However, experts like Eric […]
More inklings that OSD will be taking power back from the services
For the past few years, acquisition reform has brought with it a delegation of decisions from the Office of the Secretary of Defense down to […]
New policy may put the breaks on rapid acquisition
USD(A&S), however, can still disapprove any MTA [Middle Tier Acquisition] program, whether major or non-major. With advisers from all around the Office of the Secretary […]
Space Force may have significant autonomy, except in the budget process
The program acquisition strategies developed under a dedicated Space Force SAE [service acquisition executive] will then get fed into the planning, programming, budgeting and execution […]
Is poor software design/testing the REAL cause of the USS McCain crash?
A 19-year Navy veteran, Sanchez had watched as technicians replaced the ship’s traditional steering controls a year earlier with the new navigation system. Almost from […]
One of the last vestiges of central planning left on Earth
Here’s a humorous story shared by SecDef Donald Rumsfeld back in 2001: A man and a boy were walking down the street with a donkey […]
Who’s in charge of US military strategy?
What’s the role of the services these days compared to World War II? In World War II, George Marshall and Hap Arnold on the Army […]
What is the “water-scrum-fall” method, and is it dangerous?
In a previous post, Nicholas Chaillan brought up the term water-agile-fall, or water-scum-fall. This is a situation where an organization that has traditionally worked with […]
Can the Air Force scale small companies into a program of record?
Remember the dreaded “valley of death” in technology transition? The Air Force plans to bridge the valley by progressively scaling up its pitch days. A […]
How should budget appropriations be reorganized?
Congress should reorganize appropriations titles (the “color of money”) to reflect the kind of life cycle a thing has, not what part of the life […]