The House Armed Services Committee in its version of the 2010 Defense authorization says in a summary that it plans to provide the Defense Department with the authority to establish 10 pilot programs to "rapidly acquire" information technology capabilities under an alternative acquisition process.
The summary, alas, fails to define that alternative acquisition process, nor does the full bill. So I guess we'll just have to wait for the report to come out in the next few days.
The bill also streamlines cost, performance and schedule reporting for Major Automated Information Systems, which also qualify as Major Defense Acquisition Programs by allowing Defense to designate a major IT acquisition as one or the other -- a move that I am sure will thrill all the IT policy wonks.
The HASC also backed a project that will allow Defense to engage in what amounts to an exchange program with private industry. That will allow Defense to temporarily assign IT professionals to private industry or vice versa.
The bill did not identify the pay scale for this exchange program, and I don't think it will get many takers if it requires a pay cut.
COMMENTS
This is certainly a step in the right direction, and as mentioned, we will wait and see whatever those steps may be. However, this is a long overdue step. IT systems and weapons systems are completely different animals, and it never made sense to force DoD 5000 processes and the full acquisition life cycle approach on these systems to begin with. Technology evolves much too fast, and requirements become out-of-date quickly because of the glacial pace of the current processes. The BTA has an interesting methodology that I hope is taken into consideration (Business Capability Lifecycle or BCL). This is common-sense; streamlined approach for acquiring technology that I hope resembles the pilot programs.
West J has some very thoughtful comments that also need to be factored in, because pilots are only effective if the lessons learned are incorporated and actively managed by leadership. Also to add is that effective change management strategies are vital to communicate the change and why they are necessary, which also seems to never happen with the end result being business as usual.
Jaime Gracia 06/22/09 12:36 pm ET
I agree with the previous commenter, West J. Hopefully, this time, lessons will be studied from the 10 pilot projects so that they can then be translated into meaningful acquisition process reform steps - whatever these steps may be. We'll have to see what develops. Whatever develops will need to be long-term focused due to the challenges being experienced by today's acquisition workforce. Short-term "fixes" that are not undergirded by adequately empowered, skilled and experienced staff will not achieve the required results .
Petert G. Tuttle, CPCM 06/22/09 08:33 am ET
I have participated in several special interest pilot projects designed to streamline the acquisition process in years past. Although, the pilot projects were relatively successful (mainly because of the authority and visibility they commanded) the lessons learned did not translate very well to other non-pilot programs. This is because once the focus is off and the authority level settles down to the appropriate level the needed waivers don't happpen. Everyone closes ranks around the policies, statutes and regulations upon which their organizations were established, i.e., Small Business, Competition Advocate, Legal, System Engineering, Test & Evaluation, Acquisition, Logistics, etc., etc.
To streamline the acquisition process you need to replace regulations, policy and statutes with technical competency, common sense and integrity. All of which are difficult to mandate with more policy and regulations.
westj 06/18/09 08:30 am ET