Roper on opportunity- vs. requirements-based contracting
Here’s Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper making a very nice distinction between a “requirements” and an “opportunity” approach to defense programs. At the Strategic […]
requirements process
Podcast: SOFWERX, innovation, and early adoption with Tambrein Bates
Tambrein Bates joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss his role in helping build an ecosystem of over 40,000 innovators in support of […]
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 […]
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, […]
Podcast: Todd Harrison on the military space reorg. and everything else
Todd Harrison joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a wide range of issues, including how the reorganization of defense space forces is […]
Is requirements stability the problem?
Question: We all know that what drives our cost estimates is not better CERs, or better data bases, or better mathematics, or better communications. In my […]
The upside of capture
In a previous post, I described how Luigi Zingales’ framework of regulatory capture also applies to the defense industry. I will here try to describe […]
What causes buy-ins on production?
When people in defense talk about “buy-ins”, they are talking about a contractor who purposefully under-bids on a competitively awarded contract. Instead of expecting losses […]
The innovator’s dilemma of weapon systems
Let’s say the Government has awarded R&D work to a contractor. During the course of the contract, the engineering team spontaneously generates new insight. The […]