Rep. Mike Gallagher on multiyear procurement, budget, and oversight
Here’s a slice from a great episode of Hondo Geurts and Lauren Bedula’s Building the Base podcast with Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI). The Pentagon doesn’t […]
acquisition reform
Three steps to help defense innovation break free from its shackles
Jerry McGinn and I provide three recommendations for the congressional commission on PPBE reform in a Defense News article: Be bold in vision. The DoD’s industrial-age […]
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 […]
All that acquisition reform, and scaling programs still looks like the old system
When we think of alternative acquisition, that tends to be other-transaction authority and middle-tier acquisition. For [Jonathan] Etherton, these prototyping mechanisms amount to a […]
How can the Pentagon escape its Soviet-style acquisition system?
DoD’s FY21 President’s Budget Request organizes major weapon systems via nine Mission Area Categories (MACs), which can also be viewed as Strategic Capabilities (Figure 4). These provide […]
Are we at a crisis point in acquisition reform?
Francis Rose: Every uniformed official that I ever hear anything from talks about speed… When there’s legislative language that proposes exactly the opposite, is working […]
Startups won’t scale in defense without budget flexibility
These challenges can be met. But the concept still requires a major feat. Congress must amend the budget process so that relatively big dollars can […]
Will there be a new and streamlined milestone process?
Not later than February 1, 2020, each Service Acquisition Executive shall recommend to the Secretary of Defense at least one major defense acquisition program for […]
Podcast: Andrew Hunter on software-defined, hardware-based adaptable systems
Andrew Hunter, director of the defense-industrial group at CSIS, joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a set of papers on adaptable systems, […]
4 recommendations from George Stigler on weapons acquisition
1. No organization can achieve or maintain efficiency in structure or operation by having a critical review made by expert outsiders once each five or […]
Lessons from France on fixed-price contracting
There is much to like about how the French do weapon systems acquisition, and we in the US need to pay more attention: In the […]
Thorny questions about Air Force’s pronounced 100 years of savings
The U.S. Air Force has stripped 100 years out of the schedules of its acquisition programs, the service’s top civilian announced Thursday. “The Air […]
Bruce Gudmundsson on learning by decision-forcing cases
Bruce Gudmundsson joins me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the great work he is doing down in Quantico putting together case studies on […]
Fahey plans reforms to the 5000 series
The Defense Department is undertaking a comprehensive rewrite of its main acquisition guidance and that revision work will have a heavy emphasis on software development, […]
The imperative of an acquisition theory
Conversations over several years tended to reinforce the impression that there was weak, but nonetheless real and expanding, disgruntlement with Defense Acquisition’s inability to provide an account of how it worked and a justification as to why…