The damage to R&D caused by bureaucrats planning the creative process
Here’s a letter from Bill McClean, chief at Navy’s China Lake and led the Sidewinder development, to the deputy chief of Naval Operations: We find […]
requirements
Why is defense innovation so slow?
If a clever engineer imagines a new weapon for the Air Force, and if the research-and-development office specializing in that class of weapons approves of […]
Navy research chief’s take on what’s slowing down the fleet’s transformation
Here is Rear Adm. Selby, chief of naval research, speaking with Vago Muradian: I’m really pushing back at the idea of requirements. I think the […]
The “valley of death” is but one symptom of the broader governance problems found in PPBE
The PPBE was really a revolutionary and radical idea. One of the things it was trying to do was reduce duplication and overlap. You might […]
GMU Playbook: Make market research a core and continuous organizational capability
In this week’s blog post on our acquisition playbook study, we discuss a recommendation to make market research a core and continuous organizational capability. No […]
GMU Playbook: Make room for opportunities in program requirements
George Mason University’s Center for Government Contracting is actively gathering feedback on its recently released draft playbook. Over the next several weeks, we will provide […]
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 […]
Podcast: eVTOLs, Agility Prime, and AFWERX with Col. Nathan Diller
Colonel Nathan Diller joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the Agility Prime line of effort that seeks an innovative acquisition approach to […]
DIU update: the 2020 annual report
Key statistics from DIU’s 2020 annual report that I compiled: Subject 2020 2019 2016-2020 Projects 23 95 Commercial Proposals 944 466 2,381 Proposals per Solicitation […]
Why the Army ditched its organic design for OMFV
The Army’s decision to not submit its own design bid for the restarted Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle (OMFV) prototype competition was to remove concerns over […]
Moving from opinion-based to evidence-based requirements
Business models for developing technologies for a profit are end-to-end solutions that cannot be adopted by the Army acquisition enterprise for several reasons, not the […]
Podcast: Digital acquisition with Bryon Kroger and Matt Nelson
Bryon Kroger and Matt Nelson joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to talk about digital transformation in the Department of Defense. They are the […]
The Air Force ‘Internet of Things’ program gets reorganized
According to a memo sent from Roper to the Air Force’s acquisition workforce Tuesday, the chief architect will remain responsible for codifying ABMS [Advanced Battle […]
Defense R&D remains constrained to specific requirements
The prospect of technological advances still persuades planners and decisionmakers to seek increased performance, greater precision, added function capability, and thus more complexity, all of […]