Acquisition Talk

In this engaging discussion, Lt. Gen. David Deptula, Dean at the Mitchell Institute and a pioneer in air campaign planning, dives into mosaic warfare. He describes this innovative approach as a way to connect smaller, attritable systems within a broader operational network, enhancing adaptability. He critiques traditional military procurement while advocating for continuous design prototyping. Additionally, Deptula emphasizes the financial realities of military aircraft, urging a national security-centric perspective in budgeting and readiness strategies.

Andrew Hunter, director of the defense-industrial group at CSIS, joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a set of papers on adaptable systems, or systems that are hardware-based but software-defined. One of the defining features of adaptable systems is that they can be upgraded on shorter time frames than the usual 5+ year block upgrade cycle that traditional platforms have gone through. Yet the acquisition system is strained to accommodate agile developments. We discuss challenges including budget flexibility, the requirements process, Earned Value Management, cost and pricing data, the program office structure, and more. The discussion also touches on acquisition reform, including the breakup of the Acquisition, Technology, & Logistics office into two undersecretaries -- one for Research & Engineering and another for Acquisition & Sustainment. Andrew discusses why he was skeptical of the reform early on, and how he thinks it can work out. One issue is the messaging about culture, and how USD(A&S) cannot be thought of as simply cost conscious, but must be innovative as well. Another issue is the idea that USD(R&E) might take over the Milestone A decision initiating prototyping, but doesn't expect much to change because Milestone A is often viewed as optional for starting a new program of record. The podcast finishes up with a discussion of the industrial base. We talk about innovation hubs and whether they are lowering barriers to entry, the decline and now stabilization of new firm entry into defense, the difficulties of small business graduation into larger firms, and how he will keep an eye on further consolidation. I'd like to thank Andrew for joining me on the Acquisition Talk podcast. Be sure to check out his reports available at the CSIS website, including those on adaptable systems here and here and the excellent report on small business graduation. He also has hosted some of the episodes of the CSIS podcast, including one with Dr. William Roper and another on Small Businesses. Andrew is frequently sought out for comment at major outlets, as well at congressional hearings including Shortening the Defense Acquisition Cycle, Contracting and the Industrial Base, and U.S. Ground Force Capability and Modernization Challenges in Eastern Europe. Here is a good video of Andrew discussing Artificial Intelligence. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.

Jim Hasik joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a wide range of topics. He was a former naval officer and long time industry consultant, now with the Center for Government Contracting at GMU and Renaissance Strategic Advisers. During the episode, I ask Jim to reflect on why the Better Buying Power (BBP) initiatives rode into the sunset, how he views the proposed UTC-Raytheon merger, why there is a certain arrogance about "should cost" studies, the impact of Buy American laws such as those affecting the FFG(X) program, how we can bend the cost curve to put an end to one of Augustine's infamous laws, and what Peter Thiel meant when he said "competition is for losers." The episode also features a discussion of the B-21 Raider. Jim says there is not much publicly known about the manned bomber program, but argues that more consideration should have been given to making the system remotely piloted. He discusses the tradeoffs in platform design, and speculates on reasons why the Air Force chose to make it manned. Some issues include targeting mobile objectives, the role of culture, and survivability of remote piloting with the increasing vulnerability of space communications. Jim provides a primer in the challenges of intellectual property as well, a topic which has seen some debate and new policy rollouts in the Army. He discusses three situations in which government may need to purchase intellectual property, including for repair, modifications, and system re-buys. In such circumstances, the original system developer may gain a monopoly position, but not in the traditional sense because it is a regulated monopoly dealing with a monopsony customer (single-buyer). Jim illuminates how a fair deal can be struck because government and contractors have different time-values of money. I'd like to thank Jim for coming on the Acquisition Talk podcast. Be sure to check out his books including Arms and Innovation: Entrepreneurship and Alliances in the Twenty-First Century Defense Industry and The Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare. He has a new book coming out from Texas A&M based on his dissertation, MRAP: Marking Military Innovation. You can find his website/blog here, and he has also been featured on defense outlets like Defense News. Here is Jim on Government Matters discussing the revolving door. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.

I was pleased to have Don Vandergriff on the Acquistion Talk podcast. Don is a prolific educator of military training and strategy, and he has a new book out, Adopting Mission Command. During the episode, we discuss how modern organizations have been built around notions scientific management developed by people like Frederick Winslow Taylor. These methods are great for well-defined problems which can be broken down into sequential steps and optimized. It led to an education system that values checklist procedures and creating interchangeable workers for an assembly line. For many years Don has been at the forefront of pushing military training to go beyond Taylorism. He looks to the wisdom of German methods of mission command, or auftragstaktik, that flourished toward the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The basic idea is to determine commanders intent and allow subordinates to interpret the intent while making decisions which may alter the plan depending on fast changing circumstances. This requires a type of training that produces critical thinkers and decisive decision-makers rather than training that emphasizes process without regard for context. During the episode, we discuss outcomes based training and education, the impact of centralization and hierarchy, how to learn from mistakes, the role of moral courage, why mission command is a two-way street, how difficult it is to write a good intent, and much more. The principles discussed by Don are applicable to defense acquisition as well. Both military operations and acquisition are highly uncertain environments with fast changing information. Building a positive culture based on trust can vastly improve effectiveness by delegating responsibility within the scope of commander's intent -- rather than detailing a laundry list of parameters to be measured by. I'd like to thank Don for joining me on Acquisition Talk. Be sure to check out all of Don's books on Amazon. Here is a good selection of articles and videos, as well as a good article on "The U.S. Army Culture is French!" Be sure to check out his three excellent episodes on the POGO podcast, two of which are with the estimable Bruce Gudmundsson: "Tactical Decision Games," "Military Personnel Reform," and "Mission Command." Don also recommends a book from Martin Samuels, "Piercing the Fog of War."

Senior science policy analyst at the American Institute of Physics, Will Thomas, discusses the history of R&D policy. Topics include military learning, origins of operations research, market in defense, technology readiness levels, similarities between healthcare and defense, debate in RAND, Arrow vs Alchian perspectives, R&D process challenges, centralization vs decentralization, increasing returns to scale, challenges of transferring scientific results, and satisficing vs optimizing in decision-making.

Edward Keating joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to talk about a wide range of issues. He is the Deputy Assistant Director for National Security at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and before that, he was a longtime RAND analyst researching a number of areas including sustainment, shipbuilding, and compensation. Edward provides us insights into the Navy’s 30 year shipbuilding plan, how preventative maintenance can create lasting impacts, whether cost escalation can persistently outpace economy-wide inflation, if defense planning should focus on inputs or outputs, how modern ships are floating computers, why acquisition history is important, and much more. In the episode, we discuss Edward’s excellent article in the Acquisition Review Journal, “Approaches to F-35 Depot-Level Maintenance: Insights from Other Systems.” It showed readiness and cost-per-flying-hour data for a variety of fighter aircraft. We discuss the data, and how there is a great deal of heterogeneity depending on the aircraft model or even the tail number. Edward sets me straight about my characterization of the F-35. Neither is cost-per-flying hour the sole determinate of sustainment costs, nor is the $1 trillion lifecycle figure cited useful for thinking about the opportunity cost. For example, the $1 trillion lifecycle estimate of the sustainment cost includes anticipated inflation, which over many decades amounts to a sizeable proportion of the figure.

Todd Harrison joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a wide range of issues, including how the reorganization of defense space forces is shaping up, why real authority in Washington is budget authority, whether rapid acquisition authorities are here to stay, why the KC-46A tanker program should be considered a success, and much more. The episode features a discussion of the on-going space re-organization. Todd explained how the DOD’s growing reliance on space capabilities is also creating risks. Many other nations are rapidly gaining capabilities to deploy effective countermeasures. The lack of effective responses from the Air Force has brought criticism from Washington. Proponents for a Space Force argue that space is a distinct profession, with its own mission, culture, and technologies. We learn about the various players in defense space and prospects for the future. Todd believes that more of the responsibilities for space, currently spread among out among the services and OSD, should be consolidated into the Space Force. He makes allusions to when the Air Force was separated from the Army, and that the separation of responsibilities perhaps didn’t go far enough. I push back, citing the benefits of diversity and competition. Todd responds that diversity should still exist, but we won’t have the unnecessary duplication of platforms when all that is needed is a new payload. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.

I was pleased to have Bruce Cameron on the Acquisition Talk podcast. He is the director of the System Architecture Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bruce also co-founded a consulting firm — Technology Strategy Partners — where he has worked with many of the leading firms in tech, aerospace, logistics, and consumer goods. In the episode, Bruce tells us about open architectures, how the term modular is used so broadly as to be mean almost nothing, what leads to product lock-in effects, the three lens model of organizations, whether cybersecurity has fundamentally changed anything about architecture, and much more. During the discussion, he tells us about the results of the MIT commonality study. It gives us a more positive framing of the F-35 program. Decreases in commonality from 80 to 90 percent down to 20 to 30 percent is common in joint defense programs and industry platforms. He provides four criteria for judging whether platforms of common parts will succeed. Bruce also describes two of the “big levers” that we can use to improve product developments: quality of people and risk posture of the firm/agency. Without pulling these levers, agile processes cannot be used to a great effect. He also explains whether agile can be used for new systems architecture, or whether it is limited to the development of applications. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.

I was pleased to have Mark Vandroff speak with me on the Acquisition Talk podcast. He served 30 years in the US Navy before retiring as a Captain, with his most recent positions including the Program Manager of the DDG-51 shipbuilding program (2012-2017) and Commander of the Carderock division of the Navy Surface Warfare Center (2017-2019). In the episode, we discuss why scientists and engineers should read the classics, how to manage large and complex organizations, why we must start with the end in mind, whether or not the Department of Defense is risk-adverse when it comes to acquisition, how a working capital fund really works, and lessons Mark learned from Sean Stackley -- including the "Stackley curve." The conversation features an analysis of the "valley of death" problem associated with transitioning new technologies from the labs into an official program of record. Mark argues that the principle cause of the "valley of death" is not the contract process -- which can be alleviated by skipping over the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) using special authorities -- but in fact is traced to the Planning-Programming-Budgeting-Execution (PPBE) process. Mark describes the coordination necessary for a program manager to make changes in the budget through what is called the Program Objective Memorandum (POM). He finds that there is no one responsible for taking new technologies from the lab to the program offices, whose managers couldn't know which emerging technologies needed the funding when their requests went in 3 years before. He argues that there needs to be a mission-based appropriation which provides additional flexibility. Mark warns us, however, not to carry that idea too far. Major new items like ships should still proceed through regular channels. I'd like to thank Mark for joining me on Acquisition Talk. Be sure to check out some of his great material, including articles discussed in the podcast "Power to the Polymath," "Reflections on Tailoring Leadership for a Perfect Fit," and his widely read article "Confessions of a Major Program Manager." Here is Mark providing a great lecture on acquisition using Star Wars as an analogy. Here he is being interviewed on DefenseNews. And I highly recommend listening to both of his episodes on Commander Salamander's Midrats podcast (on USN's Labs, Research Facilities, and Ranges -- and on Confessions of a Major Program Manager). He is also quite active on Twitter, follow him at @goatmaster89. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.

In this episode of Acquisition Talk, we’ll listen in on a panel discussion hosted by the Lincoln Network that focuses on defense acquisition, called, “From the Lab to the Battlefield: maximizing defense innovation.” This event took place during the Reboot American Innovation conference on May 2, 2019. The speakers include Linda Lourie, who is the Associate General Counsel for Acquisition & Logistics –- Pablo Carrillo, the former chief of staff to Senator John McCain and a current counsel for Squire Patton Boggs -- and Acquisition Talk host Eric Lofgren. The panel is moderated by Pasha Moore. This discussion touches on the difficulty of lining up funding for new programs, the successes of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), the roll-out of the DOD's new trusted capital marketplace -- which seeks to identify companies with critical technologies for U.S. investment, bridging the divide between the DOD and tech, barriers to entry for new firms to win major programs, and much more. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.