Fixing Acquisition
The DoD Process Simplified I ran across an article from the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) the other day by Sandra Erwin on Congressional frustration on how the Pentagon buys things. Not being satisfied with the progress being made by the DoD Acquisition guru’s, Congress has decided that more legislation is needed to fix things (Really? Congress is going to fix something?). The Congress has asked nine of the industry associations around the Beltway to provide comments on how to make it better, with inputs due in July....
read moreDemographics and Aging Systems: At the Confluence of Change
by John Radford, Former Oregon State Controller; Chair of the Institute for Modern Government, Willamette University; Senior Advisor, Executive Team, H.J. Steininger PLLC I’m as frustrated with the pace of change along with everyone else in the country, but as a retired government employee, I know and understand it’s not the employees; it’s the overwhelming lack of consistent applied research and development in core government-systems that is at the heart of the problem. Efforts to modernize government typically run into the financial...
read moreWhat to Drive today? Porsche or Maserati?
Let’s see…..What do I drive to work this morning? My Porsche or my Maserati? Gosh, it’s such a tough choice. When I read all the rhetoric coming out of the Pentagon theses days about the tough choices they are making over there, I tend to think that’s their definition of a “tough choice.” Granted they do make a few hard choices, but none of them are the budget choices they are making for the FY15 budget that’s on the Hill right now. They have so much money to deal with that the normal ways in which...
read moreCyber- Jabber
In a previous article, Cyber-Too Big Not To Fail, I provided some comments on the recently signed Improving Cybersecurity and Resilience through Acquisition . This document lists six recommendations for doing just that. As I mentioned in the article, it’s very hard for a “cyber-outsider” to understand much of what it is saying (which is part of the problem IMHO). It does however prioritize the recommendations and pushes for tackling Recommendation 4 as a first step. Recommendation 4 is this: Institute a Federal...
read moreBrackish Water
There’s lots of hot air blowing about on the subject of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) inside the Beltway. I thought I put a few points out there as food for thought. First of all, a quick explanation of the BRAC process is in order (Here’s a link to the 2005 BRAC web page). BRAC is the process by which the Defense Department determines what US bases and facilities are no longer needed or facilities which should be repurposed, obtains Congressional approval to close those bases and goes about closing the bases The determination...
read moreSend up the count!
“Send up the count.” I remember those words from my Second Class summer training as a midshipman. We were spending a week in Quantico learning about the Marines by pretending to be Marines. I remember our little band of about 15 mids crawling through the tick-infested forests around Quantico, being lead by none other than Captain Oliver North, USMC. We thought this guy was God. He introduced himself to us by repelling out of an H-46, decked out in camo paint and blowing up a bunker full of bad guys. In order to keep track of...
read moreRisky Business
After getting wrapped around the axle yesterday on the tried and true budget method of “Salami Slicing” I never got around to opining on risk, so here goes! During much of my early career, risk didn’t enter into my decision making process, at least not consciously. Of course, flying from aircraft carriers is all about risk and how to manage it, but risk management is already baked in. The “powers that be” know that if you have a certain number of practice landings, maintain technical currency in your aircraft...
read moreThe DoD Budget Deli: A Slice of Salami, Please.
There were several good articles in the papers regarding the DoD budget over the weekend. The Washington Post had a good one that provided a pretty good summary. As an old Intruder guy I have to point out that the article notes the cancellation of the A6 Intruder, with a nifty link to some information on the Venerable Intruder. It’s not often one gets to scoop the vast reporting resources of the WaPo so here goes: Dear WaPo Editorial Board, The Intruder was retired on 28 February 1997 and most of them are either in an underwater reef...
read moreTop Shoe
I was very pleased to see a piece in San Diego Union-Tribune this morning about the establishment a Top Gun-type school for our Surface Warriors. VADM Tom Copeland, Commander of Naval Surface Forces established “Top Shoe” (my term, not his) to foster a generation of young surface warriors who really know their craft, not just their weapons systems. For those outside of the Navy, there are a few terms which you should probably know. Aviators are know as “Brown Shoes” because they wore brown shoes with their working...
read moreWas the QDR Written by a Presbyterian?
I commented last week on my expectations concerning the QDR and I wasn’t disappointed when I got around to reading it yesterday. After reading it through a couple of times (available here), I was still pretty much confused about what it was trying to say. And it didn’t look much like a strategy document to me…mostly filled with budget numbers and reasons why we couldn’t do this or that because of it. In the end, it’s definitely a document very much “informed” by the realities of the budget. I came away...
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