Wasteful Defense Spending Is a Clear and Present Danger

[pjmunson]

"Companies that perform studies and analysis for organizations like TRADOC are usually small and specialized, and generally aren't involved on the acquisition side."

Details aside because my example in the post you were responding to is real, the company doing the study is not small, and while it has a specialized analytical branch, evidently, it is heavily involved on the acquisitions side. Again, rational business behavior. Major defense contractors have the influence and economies of scale to operate more efficiently in all modes of defense contracting, plus when they branch out into analysis, they're helping their own cause out. While it may not be direct influence, as I do not know the ethical and legal obligations of fencing off such a study from the other branches of the company, they are at a minimum gaining insight into where DoD is looking for change and can clue their other branches to look for marketable activities there.

[Ron Humphrey]

I do think J Wolfsbergers last

It's your adversarial attitude I'm responding to. Here's some free advice: Stay out of acquisition. If you ever go into the acquisition side with the attitude you've shown here, you will enjoy a self fulfilling prophecy. The only contractors who will want to work with you will be the ones who live down to your expectations.

Is fairly accurate both on the attitude perception side and especially the part about self-fulfilling prophecy.

As a contractor myself I have seen and experienced much of what each of you has mentioned but have to say that in general most of those who work for DOD do not approach everything from a "get everything you can" perspective. This from Ken

Well, I think both of you are correct. You are not
talking past each other but you are focusing, it seems to me, on different aspects and perhaps, as they say the truth is somewhere in between. The process is flawed, we all acknowledge, contributors to problems exist in all categories of persons involved, I think we all said one way or another -- so the problem is that we -- Whoa! I'm retarded, -- YOU are both victims of that flawed process and you're hacked off by it.

I'm not even a victim -- now -- and I'm hacked off. The problem existed back in my day but it has gotten significantly worse in the last few years. It is borderline criminal and it sure needs to be fixed -- for the sake of the contractors, the services and the nation.

absolutely hits the nail on the head.

The larger problem however is that there are problems on the military/ Civilian sides as well which more often than not create that survival of the fittest/ CYA requirement since either of the above on a whim can bring a whole lot of pain for very little purpose other than that they are not happy with some aspect of a given mission requirement or position.

Want to really see what kind of impact this can have look at the current Civilian hire move as defined by those who decided on it and taker a deeper look at how it is being implemented at the lower echelon's.

Long and short, Yes some things gotta change; point is make sure your looking at the entire cycle and all players involved before devolving into the easier bash the contractor only to find in the end that rather then getting things right for the future you instead ended up knocking them back to 6 years ago and have essentially ensured things will stay there for the next ten.

As to this last-

Perhaps it's just my youth and relative inexperience but are you saying that it's a bad thing for organizations which perform services for a customer to actually work hard to know what the client may require for the future and do their best to provide options when and if the time arrives that they are asked for it.

(PS IMHO any good general analyst can have at least a fair idea of what those requirements might be w/o necessarily having the "inside scoop" )

"Companies that perform studies and analysis for organizations like TRADOC are usually small and specialized, and generally aren't involved on the acquisition side."

Details aside because my example in the post you were responding to is real, the company doing the study is not small, and while it has a specialized analytical branch, evidently, it is heavily involved on the acquisitions side. Again, rational business behavior. Major defense contractors have the influence and economies of scale to operate more efficiently in all modes of defense contracting, plus when they branch out into analysis, they're helping their own cause out. While it may not be direct influence, as I do not know the ethical and legal obligations of fencing off such a study from the other branches of the company, they are at a minimum gaining insight into where DoD is looking for change and can clue their other branches to look for marketable activities there.

IF on the other hand your simply saying there are those who stack the deck then OK;Exactly how do you differentiate between the former (mentioned above) and the latter. (your apparent concern)

[Ken White]

I'd hate to shut a good thread down because civility got lost. But I will.

ADDED: Ron's post snuck in while I was typing mine; he seems to be relatively chilled and I think I am...

We all need to remember that this is not a good communication medium, nuances and smiles get missed so one has to be pretty careful how one words things, else something not meant to give offense may not be taken as innocently as it was meant.

[Entropy]

...which feels a lot better than being spun-up!

This thread reminds me of a contracting story told by RJ Hillhouse over at her neglected blog. It contains many elements of dysfunction that we probably all see in the current system. The one that strikes me is the experience mismatch between uniformed, government and civilian acquisitions/contractor personnel. In the Air Force, for example, many of the best acquisitions personnel, particularly the technical and science ones with advanced degrees, leave the service because the Air Force is stupid and doesn't mentor, nurture and promote them as it should. The result is that our supposed technology-focused service drives out the technical experts it needs to understand the technology and explain it to the service leadership who must make procurement decisions. I get the sense that the services often don't have the technical expertise to provide proper oversight and management.

Oh, and the process is probably just a bit overcomplicated. Click on the flowchart on that site - yes, it's one powerpoint slide! Need we say anything else?

[Ken White]

Thanks for the link. I think.

The thing that really irks me is that those yo-yos in Congress, the institution who is responsible for much of this -- acknowledging that services do tend to drive out the really sharp techies who can translate things for those senior but unversed (and that I certainly wouldn't want to be an acquisition guy...) -- will get on their high horse in a fraction of a second over any kerfluffle in the process they created...

The terrible thing is that it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

[J Wolfsberger]

If you want to know why we're having such problems, notice that the final Capabilities Description Document (CDD) appears at the top just before Milestone B, and never feeds back into product development. Add in the "Fundamentals of System Engineering Management" ca. 2000, where System Analysis is redefined as a "management and control activity," and I think we can completely explain why 70 out of 74 major acquisition programs out of the last 10 years have been in trouble (GAO report to Congress).

If we really want to improve the process, we scrap the "V" diagram and "Fundamentals," return to the 1990s version with a traditional waterfall approach to development.

[Entropy]

Thanks for the link. I think.

Did you happen to read the fine print on that flow chart? If not, here it is (emphasis added):

This chart is a classroom aid for Defense Acquisition University students. It provides a notional illustration of interfaces among three major decision support systems used to develop, produce and field a weapon system for national defense. Defense acquisition is a complex process with many more activities than shown here and many concurrent activities that cannot be displayed on a two-dimensional chart. Supporting information is on back of this chart. For more information, see the Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Knowledge Sharing System (http://akss.dau.mil).

So that's the "simple" version!

[Ken White]

a competitive fly/shoot/drive/steam off trial of prototypes and then run competitive bids to build the selected design -- as I've been saying for over 40 years -- not that anyone listened...

That negates a requirement for excessive technical detail in specifications, the factor that increases the cost and the difficulty in spec writing.

[Entropy]

a competitive fly/shoot/drive/steam off trial of prototypes and then run competitive bids to build the selected design -- as I've been saying for over 40 years -- not that anyone listened...

That negates a requirement for excessive technical detail in specifications, the factor that increases the cost and the difficulty in spec writing.

I agree, but that only works when one is building prototypes with mature technology. You couldn't, for example, have a bunch of contractors build a complete FCS prototype for competition - it would bankrupt them.

This points to what is, IMO, the biggest problem with procurement - that it is joined to the hip with R&D. We essentially sign-on to buy capabilities that have yet to be invented and then are shocked to discover inventing those capabilities takes orders-of-magnitude more time and money than originally estimated, nevermind the that the services like to constantly amend requirements, further driving up the cost.

Naturally the contractors and the services (and Congress) are happy to underestimate the costs and difficulty of creating technology from scratch for one program. So ISTM the best thing we could do is put a wall between R&D and procurement so that procurement money is only spend on mature technology and R&D money is only spent on R&D. This would also allow our R&D effort to be more efficient and effective since it won't be tied to one program.

I'm not very optimistic that such changes will ever happen, but ever since my wife agreed to marry me I'm of the mind that anything is possible

[Valin]

Thanks for the link. I think.

The thing that really irks me is that those yo-yos in Congress, the institution who is responsible for much of this -- acknowledging that services do tend to drive out the really sharp techies who can translate things for those senior but unversed (and that I certainly wouldn't want to be an acquisition guy...) -- will get on their high horse in a fraction of a second over any kerfluffle in the process they created...

The terrible thing is that it's likely to get worse before it gets better.

And what about this suprises you?