NEWTON, Mass. – This year’s New Horizons event March 5-6 not only brought industry and government personnel together, but showcased the improvements the Defense Department is making to bring capabilities to the warfighter faster.
The assistant secretary of Defense for Acquisition, one of the keynote speakers, told the audience that he understands the frustrations program managers have often experienced in dealing with echelons of bureaucracy, including within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, or OSD. Having spent years working in service-level, Army acquisition programs and a decade as a program executive officer, he often felt those same frustrations.
Now Kevin Fahey tells his staff at OSD that, if they want the services to come to them, they have to be seen as helpful.
“The culture has to be: ‘How can I help the program manager succeed?’” he said.
He also commented on the National Defense Strategy, saying it was refreshing in its simplicity and clarity with just three core focus areas: lethality, partnerships (with allies and others), and reform.
“Obviously we’ve had no shortage of acquisition reform,” he said, but then quickly noted that real delegation might be the most effective reform of all.
“We’ve delegated all but eight or nine programs (to the services),” Fahey said. “The idea is to delegate to lowest level; that’s where work is done and innovation comes in.” However, he noted that if the Department is going to do this, it has to make sure people are qualified. He also made a clear distinction between being “certified,” which he said is where most of the focus traditionally has been, and truly being qualified. Someone can be technically ‘right,’ and still have a failing program, he said, unless they’re properly trained to run programs – not just well versed in rules and regulations.
He spoke about various tools and methods that personnel are using or which can be used to improve the acquisition process, such as middle tier of acquisition and section 804 of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, along with Other Transaction Authorities.
“We’re trying to encourage creative compliance,” he said. “We got too risk-averse.”
Now the Department and the services are looking at the tradeoff of accepting some risk to get products and capabilities in the hands of the warfighter faster.
Another keynote speaker, the director for Information Dominance Programs from the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, also spoke about risk.
“The Secretary of the Air Force has charged us to do faster, smarter acquisition and we’ve taken on that challenge in the acquisition enterprise,” Susan Thornton said. Air Force leadership throughout the enterprise is encouraging personnel to take risks to achieve results. However, she cautioned that it needs to be a deliberate process.
“This is not risk for risk’s sake; we’re not going to run with scissors,” she said. “It is sufficiently understanding risk to make decisions to deliberately pursue a higher-risk path if that path has a high potential for payoff, whether that’s a new capability, speed or cost savings.”
She added that some programs are better suited for leveraging and tailoring existing processes.
Hanscom’s program executive officers from Digital and Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks highlighted some of their innovative approaches during their presentations.
Brig. Gen. Michael Schmidt, PEO for C3I&N, mentioned that his San Antonio-based division is working in partnership with industry to recreate an environment for agile software, focusing mainly on Unified Platform and Joint Cyber Command and Control. There is currently a semi-truck providing an on-the-road training program for DevSecOps for contractors and government personnel who will be involved in the programs. He also mentioned working with the Defense Innovative Unit, or DIU, on an OTA to incorporate more innovative solutions.
The PEO for Digital, Steve Wert, talked about how one of the goals for his organization for the past two years has been “innovation.” And he spoke about agile DevOps, saying it’s not just a marginal change.
“Every acquisition reform until recently did very little to change how we do business,” he said. “The good news is that agile DevOps does change everything; the bad news is it’s a lot of work when you’re changing at this kind of scale.”
Scott Hardiman, the Air Force deputy PEO for Nuclear Command, Control and Communications, told the attendees that even though his portfolio may be a bit more limited in using some of these approaches, it is still looking at OTAs and Broad Agency Announcements.
All three also presented upcoming business opportunities.
During the event, there also was a panel with personnel from DIU, Air Force Techstars and other local organizations that help bring non-traditional suppliers together with the government to address how those suppliers can bring innovative ideas with potential military application to the right personnel. Following, innovative startups pitched technology ideas on a range to topics from cyber and AI to drones and even distance learning.
“What’s important is this mindset to do faster, smarter acquisition, no matter what tool that we’re using,” said Thornton.
The Lexington-Concord Chapter of AFCEA sponsored the event.