ONE ROOF
PORTFOLIOS AND TEAMS TO MATCH McCarthy said that, in developing the portfolios of priorities, “We knew that we wanted to stand up cross-functional teams to support” each of them.
Tat unity of effort is critical, he said, because none of the stakeholders will take the Army seriously if it can’t outline what its No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 priorities are. As long as Army modernization pri- orities are clear to industry and Congress, industry will understand what to invest in and Congress will know what to fund and why.
Te cross-functional teams are intended to bring together “under one roof” all of the stakeholders in the acquisition enter- prise: requirements, acquisition, science and technology (S&T), test and evalu- ation,
resourcing, contracting, costing,
acquisition logisticians and U.S. Army Forces Command, as well as Army ser- vice component commands as applicable, according to the Oct. 6 memo.
Each of the teams is led by a director who is a “post-brigade command-qualified
officer.” Tat means someone at about the level of “a battle-hardened briga- dier general,” as Breaking Defense put it in an article in October, although the leader of a cross-functional team could be a civilian. It also means that the user perspective will be represented on the team by someone who “has led in a tac- tical formation at the O-6 level, is more seasoned,” McCarthy said, adding, “… someone who has deployed recently and understands the key elements of how all of the weapon systems come together in a combined arms maneuver. So they understand not only the trade-offs, but how all the pieces come together like a clock to make it run.”
Cross-functional team leadership rep- resents “that customer view, if you will.” Tis is a significant change for the Army and takes the notion that the user must be involved to its logical conclusion.
PERMISSION TO COMMUNICATE, DECIDE For McCarthy, this is a critical part of the cross-functional team equation. Hav- ing an aviator
lead the future vertical lift team may seem obvious, but having
user-experts run programs is not some- thing that the Army has done a lot of in the recent past.
Tose cross-functional team leaders, he said, “understand how the tactical for- mation runs, but they are also working with each other, because ultimately what they’re doing is putting together the ana- lytical rigor” in requirements, research and acquisition “to examine and decide the types of capabilities that you need within a given portfolio to help inform leadership to make the best decisions possible.”
Te beauty of this, McCarthy said, is that it enables real-time decisions, unlike the bureaucracy-mired, business-as-usual Army that has been the status quo for far too long. For instance, McCarthy said,
“If you had a requirements meeting and the PEOs [program executive offices] aren’t in there—well, they’re either going to get
it verbally [later] or someone is
going to hopefully take very good notes. Tat’s what we have done historically.” With the new construct, however, “now they are all in there at once. You’ve got the screens up and people are beaming
REPEAT AFTER ME
Defense Secretary James N. Mattis formally swears in Ryan D. McCarthy as the 33rd undersecretary of the Army during a ceremony at the Pentagon Sept. 5. The U.S. Senate confirmed McCarthy on Aug. 1, following hearings that centered mainly on the topic of modernization—something that came as no surprise to McCarthy. (DOD photo by U.S. Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith)
22
Army AL&T Magazine
April-June 2018
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