DoD Mentor-Protege Program: the department's small business incubator

Defense AT&L, July-August, 2004 by Wynne

The Missile Defense Agency has an example of a marvelous systems engineering approach. Now they did it, by the way, by declaring a national need and assembling quite a few brains that they call the 'national team,' which really is almost a not-for-profit that's been contributed by all of the major players. Their sole role is to advise, provide advice, and sole counsel to the program office in the way that we should have had all along inside the program office. I really do appreciate the laydown that they showed me because I asked them and demanded, 'How are you doing this?' because it really is a very complex program. I also sent folks over to look at their software programs, to do an audit, to see if they were good. Turns out the systems engineering master plan flowed right into their software development. I think if we had implemented that, we would have had a lot easier time in some of our other programs. That's where we're headed. Thanks for your question."

Wynne is the acting under secretary of defense (acquisition, technology and logistics). Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon. Washington. D.C.