DoD’s new Adaptive Acquisition Framework takes new approach to tailoring procurement strategies
Summary
The sustainment piece is a big one, because if we don’t emphasize that up front, it can really drive costs in the out-years.” By the end of 2020, the department had broken 5000.02 into six separate pathways: • Major capability acquisition (the pathway that will handle most of the military’s traditional hardware procurements) • Software (including, in some cases, software that will be part of major weapons systems) • Middle-tier acquisitions that use the recently-enacted “Section 804” authority for rapid fielding and rapid prototyping. “But when it comes to the regulatory requirements, we take what is now a much smaller list of things you’re going to do and then start to add in the pieces that make sense to help manage the risk in your specific program. In tailoring-out, every program started with this enormous list of statutory and regulatory items, and then you pulled out the ones that you didn’t think you needed for your program.” The pathways themselves are meant to be tailorable too, in several senses. Although that pathway is mainly designed for standalone software deliverables, every major modern weapons system also involves millions of lines of code. We also complemented it with what we call powerful examples — lessons learned videos, those types of things — showing programs that are starting to be successful.