ARMY AL&T
Our new S&T vision talks about empowering, unburdening, and protecting our Soldiers. It talks about technology-enabled capabilities being the key product we deliver.
together. Instead, we will now focus on technology-enabled capabilities, and that substantially changes the structure of how we put together programs.
Let’s start with looking at the puzzle that we’re trying to put together. What is the capability we’re looking at? Technology Enabled Capabilities [TEC] programs will still be objective-oriented, have milestones, and constraints; but they’re going to be focused on deliv- ering capabilities by a predetermined timeframe, and we are going to bring those ideas and programs to the Army leadership in a timely fashion.
To generate the ideas around which the TEC programs will be formed, we’re going to have a “Big Ideas” workshop. We’re going to have top-down leadership, from TRADOC, PMs and PEOs, G-8, and the Army S&T community partici- pating in that workshop. Our objective is to generate five to 20 big ideas. The question will be, “What are the big problems the Army can’t solve today, that technology can help us solve?”
The focus will be on closing gaps—not just addressing them. I use the example of lightening the load as one potential big problem. We know this is a prob- lem. We’ve got Soldiers carrying 130 pounds. So, in this Big Ideas workshop, we might come out with something that says, I want you to give me a program that lightens the load for a Soldier or a small combat team through offloading or load redistribution, achieving a reduc- tion of, for example, 25 to 30 percent for certain team positions and/or specific scenarios where loads may be extreme. We might set a goal of three years to demonstrate decreased load for equal or
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better capability than they have today, against a preselected baseline. This sets a quantifiable goal or challenge around which a program can be constructed.
Army AL&T: Are you saying that improved capability is to be fielded in three years?
Freeman: No. This is to have things at Technology Readiness Level 6; however, we’re going to get together a list of about 20 of these things, and we’re going to say to the senior leader- ship, “Here’s our list. Do you agree that these are the Army’s top priorities, the big issues that you’d really like to have solved? If so, we ask that you prioritize them 1 to n.” We have never created a prioritized list of big S&T issues before, nor focused on delivering new capabili- ties in a specified timeframe. I believe we have to do this to be relevant in this environment. It will give the S&T community what we need to focus our efforts for the near- and mid-term.
Army AL&T: The community being all the labs, all of your experts, your staff, everybody in Army S&T?
Freeman: Yes. My director for strategic plans and program planning is going to help the community come together to come up with viable solutions. For the example I just gave you, you’re going to have to have people who know how to work Soldier weapons, communica- tions, power and energy, armor, and other pieces of Soldier gear whose origin could be any number of facilities across the Army S&T enterprise. I expect them to work together to bring four or five pieces of this puzzle together in a synchronous manner to achieve the
goal. If they cannot meet the desired end state (because of technological chal- lenges or funding shortfalls), they plan a program to get as close as possible in the timeframe set, and the remaining chal- lenges become those we must work in other parts of the portfolio.
That starts setting up the next set of things, the enabling technologies, which are typically our applied research (6.2-type efforts) that we need to be working on. It also gives them a pri- oritization. In this case, we may need a breakthrough in science, and it helps us establish a guide and direction for future investment.
If funding shortfalls are the prob- lem, then because we have leadership buy in on the priorities, we now have an opportunity to go into the POM [Program Objective Memorandum] process and more effectively compete for dollars. We have never had this capability before. We’ll be better pre- pared, ahead of the game, because we won’t just be looking one year out, and we will have Army leadership awareness and support. So when I say turning S&T upside down, this is what I mean. You have activities that are generating ideas and getting ahead of the “bow wave.” Now we really can have a stra- tegic view and a road map of where we need to go.
Army AL&T: Is there a single factor, or multiple factors, in modern warfare that drive the concern about closing gaps? What’s the picture of warfare that you’re working against?
Freeman: What we’re really working against is persistent conflict and full- spectrum operations. You don’t want to fight the last war all the time. But you have to be able to fight the last war and be able to figure out where you’re going in the future war. That, frankly, is our partners’ job to figure out, which is why we have to be working with them.
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