How to fix Defense acquisition.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Date: 01 July 2014
• Author: Windham, Jeff

The Armed Services Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives asked industry for input on the Defense Department acquisition system. Three areas need to change: The acquisition process, the acquisition organization and the requirements generation process.

Any honest analysis of DoD acquisition over the last 20 years can only conclude that successful programs are rare, if you define success as meeting the war fighter's needs on time and within budget. The reality is the acquisition system is failing the war fighter while simultaneously cheating taxpayers out of their investment in national security.

There will be failures in acquisition regardless of the legislative framework, management controls or oversight methodology constructed. Development at the edge of technology is inherently risky Failure in acquisition is not necessarily bad. Taking a long time to fail is definitely had. This is what the acquisition system is delivering today, long lead time failure.

The acquisition system has become a Gordian knot, lacking any logic or sensible construct. If programs are successful today, they are successful in spite of the current acquisition process, not because of it. Why has this happened? Large organizations tend to solve problems by adding complexity--complexity to the process, complexity to the organization, and complexity to reporting. This is rarely the right solution.

The goal of the acquisition process cannot be the elimination of failure. That has been the goal in the past, which has resulted in constant fiddling with the system, the net result being a process which is overwhelming, complex and difficult to...