DREAMING OF A STRATEGY
OPEN FOR DISCUSSION
Hallock addresses attendees at the Services Acquisition Roadshow held at U.S. Army Materiel Command (AMC) headquarters at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, in May 2016. Hallock designed the event to give acquisition professionals the opportunity to hear from DA representatives and speak candidly about the acquisition process—“a way to pull the curtain away from the nebulous DASA(P) and help [acquisition professionals] do their jobs better.” (Photo by Doug Brewster, AMC)
In 2013, as the deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement (DASA(P)), I was asked to join a group of “visionary” acquisition leaders across government, industry and academia to discuss the future of acquisition. I did, and we spent more than a year launching a federal- wide concept that involved developing a common vision and a usable framework with steps for guiding strategy, provid- ing a road map and organizing data—all to inform investment decisions, measure progress and provide transparency with an eye toward an improved future for government acquisition.
Tis grass-roots movement is called Acquisition of the Future (AOF). Its par- ticipants believe acquisition is the most powerful and underused lever in the federal government for finding efficien- cies and driving results. We have tried to think beyond the existing state of federal acquisition and consider what could be possible in an ideal state. In other words, the AOF movement is “daring to dream.”
AOF and the 809 Panel, as it is commonly known, share a common set of goals that include making acquisition more efficient and effective by looking at the future through the lenses of all stakeholders
134 Army AL&T Magazine January-March 2017
and breaking down barriers that impede progress. I consider potential Section 809 policy changes as a practical application of AOF transformational thinking. And what better legacy can any of us leave for Army acquisition than a living vision for a better way of doing business?
While the 809 Panel is just getting started, three principal ideas that I and others have been promoting are a focus on outcomes, streamlining processes and overcoming workforce challenges.
FOCUS ON OUTCOMES Congress has told us in recent legisla- tion that it wants DOD to have an agile acquisition process that provides the warfighter with the best capabilities pos- sible. Agile contracting is a concept the department has been slow to adopt, how- ever, probably because it would require us to create an entirely new contracting model—scary stuff in a bureaucracy as big and complex as the DOD acquisition system, with its many stakeholders. Hav- ing said this, one idea that the 809 Panel is considering involves the government and contractors forming a partnership, a term of art that largely fell out of favor a few years back, to converse informally and share ideas about a better, more
inclusive way of generating requirements. We would focus on the entire acquisition team, which includes contractors, and on outcomes, even at the expense of strict adherence to process.
Adopting such an approach would require stakeholders to collaborate early in the planning stages of an acquisition as requirements are being developed and put in a format that can be put out for bid. Program executive offices and requiring activities would have to engage with industry via one-on-one and mul- tiple vendor collaborations early enough in the process to submit well-thought-out requirement packages. (See “Recalibrat- ing Requirements,” Page 26.) Tat, in turn, would allow sufficient time for the iterative process needed for success- ful, agile contracting while realizing the need to look at organizational conflict-of- interest issues associated with this type of early collaboration.
In my more cynical moments, I have
been known to opine on Army leadership treating the contracting process as a “nec- essary evil” that requiring activities must tolerate to get a product or service to the Soldier. In reality, when requirements are well-planned and executed, contracting
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