From our readers - Letter to the Editor

Program Manager, Jan-Feb, 2003

In the September-October 2002 issue of Program Manager, Rear Admiral (Ret) Freeman responded to articles that appeared in the May-June 2002 issue. It is somewhat difficult to tell whether he was responding only to my article ["Evolutionary Acquisition," p. 6, May-June 2002 Program Manager], or to several, but as I was the only author named, I guess it falls upon me to respond.

Please note that this is not a knee-jerk reaction to criticism, I happen to understand and, to some degree, agree with the comments made by Admiral Freeman. He is certainly correct, that 7 of the 8 roadblocks have been around since the '70s. That being the case doesn't change the fact that these remain roadblocks for evolutionary acquisition strategies. In fact, these 7 are roadblocks for almost all types of acquisition strategies.

Admiral Freeman addresses my problem with changing requirements, but may not have fully understood my point. He states, '[W]e still have not learned how to write specifications for a product that remains fixed during the life of a procurement." He is correct that products cannot stand still during the life of a procurement, particularly if the service life of these products lasts 10 years and longer. But that wasn't the focus of my consequence No. 5.

The problem is requirements creep during the development of these products. Again, if acquisition cycles run 7 to 10 years, the problem is obvious; but, if we can shorten these cycles to 1 to 4 years, changing requirements in mid-stream will only push us back to what we had before. The changes in requirements may then be addressed by modifications during production, or by changing the requirements for the next increment of acquisition, which will begin in a reasonable period of time as opposed to decades.

I agree that the lure of new technology tends to take on a life of its own. If we don't need a new widget, we shouldn't buy a new widget. And if a program isn't going to accomplish what it is supposed to, we should shut it down before it wastes a lot of time and resources.

The requirements process does have to change though. Yes, there are many voices involved now in the requirements process. The result is requirements that require 7 to 10 years' development to fulfill. If the requirements process includes a sanity check so that the requirements and acquisitions strategies match up with each other, we can get on with the process of getting the warfighters what they require.

We do need evolutionary acquisition, but it is a tool like any other. It doesn't apply to all acquisitions, but in some cases it can help balance the problems of schedule vs. cost vs. requirements. That is part of the art of acquisition that Admiral Freeman so rightly discusses in his final paragraph.

Admiral Freeman is also correct that we keep changing horses in mid-stream, reacting to the latest crises, or responding to the ideas of a new administration, before reforms have a chance to prove themselves for better or worse. But reforms also fail because people don't give them a chance, preferring to stick with the checklists that they've used since time immemorial.

We need to change, but not for the sake of change. We need to adapt to changing times and conditions. I've been in DoD acquisition since 1983, and we're doing better now then we did back then. But we still have a ways to go. I take my position seriously and view it as my obligation to serve the warfighters and, by extension, this nation, in the best way I know how Most of the people I have worked with over the past 20 years have the same view.

I'm also a working-level grunt, doing the best I can to respond to the shifting winds of acquisition policy passed down by the high-level policy people in OSD and the respective Services. But lately, in my opinion, those winds have started to blow in the right direction. And as a working-level grunt, I greatly appreciate Admiral Freeman's final remarks, "Really train and educate the managers--and then get out the way and let them work."

As to the lack of historical context in my article, well Admiral Freeman was right; there wasn't any But I was trying to make a certain set of points, and the article was long enough as it was. It was not meant to be a scholarly treatise, but an opinion piece.

Alexander R. Slate

Acquisition Center of Excellence Brooks AFB, Texas