EXIT STRATEGY


and other major efforts that directly touch Soldiers and Soldier capabilities.


So it is a strange space to operate in—but, in my view after 18 months on the job, an unequivocally necessary one. Te Army has learned the hard way what happens when we deliver capabilities in stovepipes: higher costs, more training time, more field service representatives and more Sol- diers struggling to use our systems to the intended effect.


Te acquisition community owes them a better approach, one that is synchronized up front across PEOs and portfolios to develop, evaluate, deliver and support capabilities as a whole. We’ve made prog- ress, but we’re certainly not


there yet.


Long after I disappear into retirement, that is the central mission that will drive SoSE&I’s continued evolution as an enduring Army resource.


FINDING A VOICE To understand SoSE&I, you have to understand its roots. While the system- of-systems engineering methodology has long existed in the military and industry, the Army embraced it full-scale in the early 2000s with Future Combat Sys- tems (FCS), the dazzling modernization program that combined a fleet of light- weight, electric-powered combat vehicles with a wireless communications network, drones, sensors, ground robots and other technologies into a complete package for brigade combat teams (BCTs).


FCS was cancelled in 2009 by DOD, which concluded that


the FCS vision


had not kept up with the lessons of counterinsurgency and close quarters combat


in Iraq and Afghanistan. But


several technologies and concepts were salvaged—including the importance of the system-of-systems approach, where the Army imposes engineering discipline


144 RECONNECTING


Fahey speaks with leadership from SoSE&I’s Capability Package Directorate about new vehicle designs enabling expeditionary command posts during a September 2015 visit to the Network Integration Evaluation (NIE) 16.1, Fort Bliss, TX. Stepping away from the “bureaucratic churn” and spending time with Soldiers in the field helps refresh and refocus, Fahey said. (Photo by Vanessa Flores, SoSE&I Public Affairs)


to emphasize interoperability through- out the capability development process, rather than building systems indepen- dently and integrating them after the fact.


After FCS, this engineering and integra- tion mission fell to the newly created PEO Integration, which ASA(ALT) soon absorbed as a headquarters function known as the System of Systems Integra- tion Directorate. Te organization later combined with the existing ASA(ALT) team for engineering oversight, thus forming SoSE&I.


As this slightly convoluted history lesson shows, there hasn’t been a natural and longstanding home in the Army for what we do. Tere is widespread agreement that cross-portfolio system-of-systems engineering and integration is required to deliver our best products to the Soldier. Te questions arise in the details of what that encompasses and how we accom- plish it.


When I arrived at SoSE&I, I sought to understand the same thing by complet- ing an excruciating troop-to-task effort, stretching across our four major work- force locations of Fort Bliss, TX; Warren, MI; Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD; and the National Capital Region. Tis restructuring produced an organization better aligned to execute major Army priorities such as NIE, CS fielding, COE and Force 2025 and Beyond.


To keep ourselves honest—and frankly, to satisfy my own curiosity as a former PEO—I also used the troop-to-task exercise to explore whether any of the functions of SoSE&I would be better performed by the PEOs. But the more I looked at it, the more the answer was no. Te PEOs do an excellent job precisely because they are so focused on execut- ing within their portfolios and areas of expertise. Tis natural bias makes it hard for any single PEO, even with the best of intentions, to execute system-of-systems tasks that cut across several PEOs. I


Army AL&T Magazine


January-March 2016


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