COMMENTARY
TECHNOLOGY TRANSITION FOCUS AREAS, RECOMMENDATIONS In today’s fiscally constrained environment, prioritization of efforts remains critical throughout the technology transition and development decision process. PEOs and project manage- ment offices can leverage the following focus areas to help ensure successful technology transition and avoid the valley of death:
• Establish a 6.5 RDT&E funding line. A dedicated 6.5 RDT&E funding line provides the project management office with the flexibility to choose which efforts to fund across its portfolio based on maturity, schedule, require- ments and impact to the warfighter. As new capability gaps and potential solutions are identified, funding can be adjusted much faster with 6.5 funding than it can by creating a program-specific funding line.
• Assess the type of transition. What is being tran- sitioned? Is it only knowledge, or is the transition a physical or virtual product that fills a critical capability gap? Tis consideration can be useful in determining an S&T effort’s return on investment beyond 6.4 RDT&E funding.
• Plan the transition path. Is the technology being tran- sitioned via the TEM or the S&T pathway? Which path reduces risk the most or could be more impactful in the prioritization of future efforts? Are there other transition pathways that could be taken or created? As additional transitions occur across the PEO, is there a more proven path that could provide capabilities to close critical gaps?
• Limit salami slicing. Rather than partially funding multiple projects, fully fund one effort before funding the next. Tis does introduce risk in the unfunded proj- ect becoming technically obsolete if it is deferred to a later year, and there is risk in going all in on the funded project and it failing to fully transition into production. However, failing early can be useful to the Army, as seen in special operations acquisition, which uses a fail faster approach to make informed decisions much earlier in a project’s life cycle. Showing that a project management office can successfully transition an effort by demon- strating the integrated system within an operational environment, may improve the likelihood of funding in the future, versus the salami slice approach where efforts may never fully mature.
• Mature the Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL). Much of the PM Tactical Network portfolio includes
the integration of commercial off-the-shelf products that are already in production and have a high MRL. With planned technology transitions, renewed and increased focus should be placed on assessing and maturing MRL concurrently with TRL to ensure the production process is established and prepared to meet Army production requirements.
• Determine the Transition Confidence Level (TCL). Recent program reviews by PEO C3T, the Network Cross-Functional Team and the C5ISR Center have identified the need for metrics concerning the success and confidence levels across the technology transition community. Te TCL, as discussed by Anthony Davis and Tom Ballenger in their January-February 2017 arti- cle in Defense AT&L, is another metric that should be adopted by project managers to assist with prioritizing efforts across the portfolio (Figure 4).
CONCLUSION Army network modernization stakeholders will continue to streamline and optimize the technology transition process using these and other technology transition focus areas and processes. Forward thinking, analysis, planning and leveraging lessons learned will prepare project management offices for adapting near- term 6.4 RDT&E efforts and follow-on 6.5 RDT&E systems. PM Tactical Network and PEO C3T are working closely with Army network modernization stakeholders to plan and imple- ment the successful transition of development efforts from the S&T community and industry to fielded Army programs. Tese efforts will help ensure the latest technologies reach U.S. forces as rapidly and effectively as possible, enabling decision dominance and mission success in multidomain operations against increas- ingly sophisticated enemies.
For more information, go to the PEO C3T website at http://
peoc3t.army.mil/c3t or contact the PEO C3T Public Affairs Office at 443-395-6489 or
usarmy.APG.peo-c3t.mbx.pao-peoc3t@
mail.mil.
TYLER J. COOK is the assistant product manager for S&T integration, assigned to PEO C3T’s Project Manager for Tactical Network, Product Lead for Unified Network Capabilities and Integration. He holds an M.E. in systems engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Penn State University. He holds the DAWIA Practitioner certification in engineering.
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