How should the Navy hedge their bets if carriers prove vulnerable?
Today the Navy has aircraft carriers, submarines, surface combatants, aircraft, and sensors under the sea and in space. Our plan to counter to China can […]
agile
How Saab uses agile principles to develop the Gripen fighter
Agile has virtually taken over IT departments, themselves the source of countless innovations. At last count, 85 percent of software developers use agile techniques in […]
GMU playbook: Agile contracting
In this week’s blog post on our acquisition playbook study, we discuss agile contracting. When technical solutions are uncertain, it is wise to provide room for […]
Mac Thornberry backs NSCAI recommendations on budget reform
Mac Thornberry is on point in his article, How Congress must reform its budget process to compete against China in AI: The Biden administration’s 2022 budget proposal includes […]
Army IVAS HoloLens program shows DoD how to do iterative requirements
Soldier input directly shaped many of the headset’s key features. Early prototypes included a HoloLens headset that engineers had affixed cameras to, goggles with weights […]
Podcast: Next steps in acquisition reform with Dan Ward, Pete Modigliani, and Matt MacGregor
I was pleased to have an impressive trio from MITRE join me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the future of acquisition reform. Dan […]
To compete with China, DoD requires a new paradigm for budgeting
The U.S. military’s lack of adaptability also puts DoD at a disadvantage against its primary competitor, China’s People’s Liberation Army. Unlike the Pentagon’s attempt to […]
Sustainment planning gets an overhaul in FY21 NDAA
Section 802 of the FY 2021 NDAA is called “Improving planning, execution, and oversight of life cycle sustainment activities,” but really it has dramatic effect […]
On the question of planning in agile development
There are many misconceptions organizations fall prey to as they move from traditional predictive project management practices to agile product delivery practices. Some of these […]
Are Appropriators blocking defense transformation?
I recommend reading a nice Breaking Defense article, Senate Appropriators Cut R&D To Buy More Weapons. The SAC-D recommended that the Air Force and Navy […]
Why I push back on the “colorless” appropriation for software
One of the hot topics in defense reform is the new Budget Activity 6.8 (or just 8), a “colorless” appropriation for Software and Digital Technology […]
The DoD acquisition is deterministic — it needs an overhaul
One of the things that the Department has an issue with is putting something out there really fast and really bad just because we need […]
New defense policy released for Software Acquisition Pathway – DoDI 5000.87
Programs executing the software acquisition pathway are not subject to the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS), and will be handled as specifically provided […]
Throw out the linear model of innovation for tinkering at the frontiers
One of the posts I wrote was a case study of the transistor. The transistor was invested at Bell Labs in the semiconductor research group. […]
Should the DoD be picking winners and losers?
“The DoD was capable of picking winners and losers, and that’s what stopped in the 70s. A bunch of us in the startup world think […]