How to fix Defense acquisition.

• Author: Windham, Jeff
• Position: Reader's Forum

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 understand; full of caveats, exemptions and waivers; made up of users which immediately and universally try to subvert it; and a huge burden of reports, plans and analysis--most never read.

The advice on reforming this process is do not to attempt to reform it. Start over from a clean sheet of paper and create a radically simplified system.

The acquisition process is defined by DODD 5000.01 "The Defense Acquisition System" and DODI 5000.02, "Operation of the Defense Acquisition System." Some of the requirements in these documents are driven by legislation, some by policy DODD 5000.01 is good as is. DODI 5000.02 needs to be radically simplified and rewritten from a dean start. Some principles to follow in rewriting this new process are to keep it simple and easy to understand and to make it generally applicable...