COST IS KEY
“THE GOVERNMENT USED TO BE THE LEADER IN RESEARCH INVESTMENTS, AND YET TODAY INDUSTRY IS SPENDING MORE THAN TWICE WHAT THE GOVERNMENT SPENDS ON RESEARCH.”
a real issue in terms of the experienced people retiring out, and what we’ve been doing is replacing them with interns. So, across the overall federal government, the acquisition workforce, 50 percent of the people—in the case of DOD, 55 percent of the people—have less than five years of experience, but they’ll learn,” he said.
“And these senior people who are retiring,” he continued, “aren’t being replaced by people with experience. …Tat’s clearly saying that we’re not valuing [the work- force] as much as we need to.”
IMPROVING OUTCOMES Te latter half of Kendall’s talk was aimed at ways to improve acquisition outcomes, which mirrored a letter he sent to Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, on June 13 and outlined several steps Congress could take. Te first step, he said, is to “end the threat of sequestration,” a comment that was greeted with loud applause from the audience. “If there is anything that is killing us today, it is the threat of seques- tration. I’ve lived in a nightmare budget environment for the last few years.”
Unfortunately, he said, “It’s coming right back in 2016,” and “we’re going through an exercise this fall where we’re [first] going to look at what [budget] the president is going to submit and [second] something that’s in line with sequestra- tion and see what the damage is. Te damage is huge. You compound that with all the cost-savings we’re asking Congress for [but] they’re not giving us.”
94 Army AL&T Magazine
“Te number one thing that can be done to help acquisition and help the depart- ment is to get rid of sequestration, and we’re going to have to continue to make that case,” Kendall said.
Next on his list was simplification of the rules and regulations surrounding defense acquisition. He
complimented
Rep. Mac Tornberry, R-TX, who is leading the House Armed Services Com- mittee in an initiative to simplify some of the rules, bureaucracy and confusion in the regulations.
“Let’s simplify the rules we have. Let’s not put more in place,” Kendall said. He’s most interested in fixing rules that dictate acquisition procedures or strate- gies and restrict the amount of time an acquisition program must take. “We do such a wide variety of things that we need the flexibility to tailor how we do things to the problem we’re trying to solve. … It’s very important for people to think critically about their programs and tailor them to what they’re trying to do. No two programs are the same.” Avoiding restrictive rules will “let us make the best decisions we can.”
Te next item on Kendall’s list was the need to reduce the counterproductive incentive to obligate funds for fear of los- ing them. “Tis is … the idea that your job is to spend money.” It’s not, Kendall said. “Your job is to get value. If it takes a little bit more time to get value, I want people to take that time. I don’t want us
to get into the situation at the negotiat- ing table where we’re looking at the clock [and] thinking, ‘I’ve got to get this con- tract closed because the comptroller or the Hill is going to rescind my money.’ … I want the other guy to be worried about that, not us.”
Kendall described his last item as “sort of wishful thinking. I don’t think there’s much likelihood that this will happen, but I put it on the table because I think it would be very helpful, and that is to allow or even require services and agencies to hold a management reserve to be applied when problems arise,” he said.
“Development is inherently risky,” he con- tinued, and it’s not possible to budget for risk so that there would never be a cost overrun or delay. “But I want to put rea- sonable pressure on people to do a good job and execute.” With this management reserve, Kendall
said, when there is a
problem, he could apply that reserve effi- ciently and not penalize or kill another program that is meeting its targets to pay for the problematic program. Te devel- opment phases of programs “will get into trouble. Smart program managers always put some reserve in. Tis is a more stra- tegic reserve.”
MR. STEVE STARK provides contracting support to U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center for SAIC. He holds an M.A. in creative writing from Hollins University and a B.A. in English from George Mason University. He has worked in a variety of positions supporting communications for the Army and Navy, and has written about defense-related topics for more than a decade. He was the founding editor of the Program Executive Office Soldier Port- folio and edited the Army’s Weapon Systems handbook for six years.
+ October–December 2014
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