SHAPING ARMY ACQUISITION
A DEEPER DIVE
George Mason University study seeks to develop playbook for program managers to find best ways to work with innovative industry.
by Michael Bold Dr. Jerry McGinn
Executive director of the Center for Government Contracting
H Alex Gallo
Executive director of the Common Mission Project
ow can DOD and commercial companies work together in the most efficient way possible? Discovering the answer is the yearlong quest of a study launched in January by the Center for Government Contract- ing at George Mason University.
Te goal of the study is to develop a best-practices acquisition playbook for the Information Age that program managers can consult and tailor to work with indus- try partners. Researchers will conduct interviews with government and industry professionals to discover what actually works—and doesn’t work—in the acqui- sition process.
“Our objective is to have this be very practically focused for program managers all around the Army acquisition community as well as the other services,” said Dr. Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Center for Government Contracting, within GMU’s School of Business. “Tat’s where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where the culture gets changed.”
BLUE RIBBONS BE GONE McGinn, who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served as an Army infantry officer, says he has no interest in the study becoming another in a series of blue-ribbon commissions seeking to reform the defense acquisition system. He’s after a change in approach, rather than a new set of reforms. “If you’re reforming something for 50 years, then there’s something fundamentally wrong,” he said.
DOD has created entities such as the Defense Innovation Unit, the Army Futures Command and the Air Force’s AFWERX to discover ways to target nontraditional high-tech companies for partnerships without being bogged down by the Federal Acquisition Regulation. Tey and other programs have
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