ARCIC director, said that the Army just did an initial capabilities document for mobile protective firepower. Some of the things you’re describing are milestones. Are you talking theoretically about a new system, or are you talking about looking at current systems and then picking and choosing and trying to apply those in the requirements for new capabilities—in other words, a better path to success?
Wins: It’s not just new requirements. It can in some cases be a requirement we’re making a modification to. Te idea of the first ROC drill, as it turns out, focused on a new requirement. So we did one on a new combat platform we’re going after, which we believe is probably going to require development of an initial capa- bilities document. And so that was one we wanted to look at first. But we also want to go back and look at an example of where we were not successful or [had] a bad expe- rience, and [also] one where we were very successful in delivering a capability.
I think we’re going to pick and choose ones we actually were successful at because we went from the requirement document all the way to the acquisition delivery. But it may turn out the requirements document for that successful developmental system didn’t start with an initial capabilities document. It’s kind of a little technical nuance, but the bottom line is, we’ll look at all of it in order to determine what our best practices were, but also where we might make changes to our internal or external processes.
Army AL&T: When ARCIC articulates a requirement, what’s the mechanism by which you ensure that the acquisition community is interpreting and execut- ing it correctly? You put it out there, but what are the checks and balances as far as ARCIC is concerned?
Wins: For the requirements
that get
developed, first of all, it’s where they start. Tey start down in the centers of excel- lence within the CDID, the Capability Development Integration Directorate. And they typically have TCMs, TRA- DOC capability managers. Tose TCMs should be very much in tune with, or very much committed to, collaborating and working with program managers [PMs] and product managers to properly under- stand and shape the requirements.
Te idea is that as they’re writing the requirements and forming parameters and the attributes from the very begin- ning, they are having a constant dialogue about what’s in the art of the possible and what would amount to overreaching. Tey ought to be having a dialogue on what you can measure effectively or how it translates from a KPP, or key perfor- mance parameter, or KSA, a key system attribute, into the technical specifica- tions that a PM will have to write, so that when he puts out the performance work statement to industry, they can say, “Oh, yeah, we understand exactly what it is that you’re looking for.”
So it starts at that basic level. Te require- ment gets written, but it still must be validated, and that is where ARICIC and my directorate become the first gate. And for that validation, my organization is that first line. But we don’t do that work in isolation either. We make sure that as a part of the collaboration we lead, we’re talking to HQDA from a resourcing per- spective, we’re talking to HQDA in terms of overall Army priorities for moderniza- tion. And we’re talking to the ASA(ALT) people at the secretariat level to make sure that there is a common understand- ing of what we’re trying to get, when we’re trying to get it, and what the most essential and most important features are that we need in a system.
Army AL&T: As you describe it, it sounds like the capability portfolio review.
Wins: Te capability portfolio reviews are a little different. What I’m really talking about is how we do things like participate in ASARC, the Army Sys- tems Acquisition Review Council, configuration steering boards (CSBs) and requirements-to-resources forum (R2R) with the G-8, for example, where we discuss the status of requirements and how we ensure that the most important requirement documents can make it into the headquarters in time for a POM [program objective memorandum] delib- eration. Because everything must run on that track, where at some point you’ve got to be able to match money to the require- ment you need to deliver. So, for getting a validated requirement to resources, there is a General Officer Steering Committee to move Army requirements along.
Another vehicle that we use is what we call a JCIDS reconciliation, which is done in collaboration with the G3/5/7. It’s a simi- lar approach to R2R, but it’s intended to make sure the Army requirements docu- ments are also getting pushed through to the joint level when it’s needed.
But we still have to make sure we discipline ourselves in terms of how we write our requirements, discipline ourselves in terms of how we build our requirements.
ASC.ARMY.MIL 17
ACQUISITION
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