HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – The Air Force’s senior acquisition leader outlined ongoing transformational change during an Acquisition Transformation Road Show held here April 15.
William D. Bailey, performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, highlighted the priorities shaping the future of Air Force acquisition and discussed key lines of effort to make the transformation reality.
“We need to make changes in what we’re doing if we’re going to operate at that level of speed and flexibility.” he said to nearly 200 people in attendance, several hundred others watching online.
Bailey spoke about acquisition execution happening in phases, prioritized to deliver the greatest impact for portfolio acquisition executives, or PAEs, with a focus on empowering decision-making at lower levels.
Framing the effort, he emphasized a shift away from top-down reform toward field-driven change.
“What you’re seeing here is work being led by the field, not imagined by a committee in the Pentagon,” said Bailey.
The Air Force’s lines of effort include delegating authorities in the PAE framework; integrating and balancing requirements, resourcing, and acquisition; aligning organize, train, and equip constructs to support the PAEs.
Bailey added that the effort is less about restructuring organizations and more about improving how decisions are made.
“We haven’t focused on reorganizing; we’ve focused on how to make decisions faster and put accountability where it belongs,” he said.
Another key objective in this undertaking is to improve personnel and hiring processes to better align talent with mission needs.
Brig. Gen. Joshua Williams, program executive officer for Cyber and Networks, provided an update on that line of effort, describing challenges with workforce agility.
“The system we have in place is just nonresponsive, it cannot adapt to the need to acquire and move talent at the speed required to deliver mission outcomes,” he said.
Williams outlined five priorities: delegating hiring decisions, reducing layers of business rules, accelerating decision-making, increasing adaptability and being more transparent.
He said the changes are designed to give leaders greater control over workforce decisions.
“That delegation allows us to maneuver based on our needs, because we understand the mission and what we are supposed to deliver,” he said.
He underscored the operational impact of personnel readiness.
“Speed is our mission capability, and if our people aren’t ready when the challenge comes, we’re going to lose the war for talent and give ground to the adversary,” Williams said.
Bailey closed the hour-long session with a challenge to the workforce, calling for a cultural shift to match the structural changes underway.
“Be bold in your actions, it takes courage to let go of the way we’ve done things in the past,” he said.