The Secretary of the Air Force’s Bending the Cost Curve (BTCC)
initiative recognizes that weapon system cost and schedule over runs are
ubiquitous and unsustainable. It asks the question “is there dumb stuff we
can beat out of the current approach?”
The Plug Fest Plus (PFP) is the subset of BTCC focused on
Open System Acquisition (OSA).
Fixing broken Defense weapon system acquisition generally,
and information systems acquisition in particular, has been tried before… We’ll
need to find some pragmatic answers to some basic questions if we’re going to
make more progress this time…
How will we experiment with better acquisition
processes? We will apply the scientific
method and pose and test the following hypothesis
If we incentivize industrial innovation by streamlining the
procurement process and lowering barriers to entry via vehicles such as Other
Transaction Agreement wherein the industrial “performer” is actually a not
for profit consortium open to any and all potential solution providers…
…and…
We provide a readily accessible developers virtual,
distributed “sand box” that provisions
processes and tools for agile “plug-and-play” open system engineering, testing,
and certification.
…then…
We will steadily, and measurably, increase ROI per defense
dollar invested.
Many enlightened government studies, roadmaps, and watchdog
reports clearly articulate the issues associated with Defense acquisition. These studies typically also clearly identify
the desired improved to-be state. They
even describe the steps necessary to get from the as-is to the to-be. However, they inevitably assume that the
required remedial action can take place within the same Pentagon processes that
created the problem in the first place.
This satisfies Einstein’s definition of insanity.
“You cannot solve
a problem with the same thinking that created it”
- Einstein
(1879-1955)
This time around we will carefully analyze both past
successes and failures. We’ll learn
lessons from the success cases, and we’ll apply them to avoid stepping on the
same rakes we’ve stepped on in the past.
It’s not all bad news.
Throughout history, Government has frequently had profound success in
influencing industrial innovation to support policy objectives. For example:
ü
The IRS spawned a thriving on-line marketplace
of tax services by giving away computerized tax codes, and providing low barrier
certification against IRS eFile
open standards to service providers.
Taxes get filed and refunds get received measurably faster, better, and
cheaper than ever before.
ü
The National Weather Service (NWS) has catalyzed
a market
of value-added weather service providers by investing in meteorological
research, and freely providing the resulting trusted data in open standard
formats.
ü
DARPA invented and shared the technology, and
supported the traditional-bucking community, that launched the open-standard-based
Internet.
ü
In a truly Joint effort, the DoD invented the
Global Positioning System (GPS).
Enlightened federal policy makes trusted
GPS precise time and position data ubiquitously available in open standard
formats for commercial use.
Study of these and other success cases reveals a pattern
of effective governmental behavior as follows:
- Invest
in basic research of the hard problem of interest to the government.
- Make
the resulting intellectual property broadly available to potential
industrial innovators
- Reduce
industrial risk through some government stamp of approval that has the
effect of a metaphorical “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval”
What will we measure?
Utility-per-cost-per-time… where…
Utility = demonstrated improvement
over baseline values of operational capability.
Cost = lifecycle cost
Time = development time + testing
time + certification time + deployment time.
We will define the appropriate measures of effectiveness and
measures of performance for all of this, and use it as the basis of PFP
solicitations.
How will we measure? We
will adapt best practices from commercial processes like Apps Store developers’
portals and bake them into a virtual distributed plugtest system
I.e., the PFP plugtest system will be informed by successful
commercial rapid evolutionary plug-and-play “product
line” approach to crowd sourcing technological innovation used by, for
example, Apple Apps, Android phones,
and Microsoft
Windows.
Certainly this commercial product line approach includes
ruthlessly enforcing compliance with open standard technical interfaces. We’ll do that too. However, in successful IT product lines, the
specific choice of IT standards follows careful business case analysis aimed at
optimizing objectively defined, customer-centric value chains for the
enterprise of interest. Those choices
are different for Apple, Microsoft, and the New York Stock Exchange -- because
business models are different.
Further, before would-be IT solution engineers log into
commercial application developers’ environments, they must agree to specified
standard intellectual property rights agreements, standard profit sharing
models, and standard security domains.
In this way, as soon as a technology is successfully verified and
validated as “pluggable” into the technical and business architecture, the
provider can deploy it and start making money, and consumers can start using it
and harvesting value.
Government “open standard” IT initiatives inevitably fail to
address these hard-nosed business issues built into the “app store” model. Rather, they apparently count on the mere
existence of new, abstract, open standard philosophies to inspire good outcomes
within the old acquisition processes.
The PFP plugtest approach follows the successful commercial techniques
by specifying “plugs” that address open standard business process as well as
open standard interoperable technology.
So ….PFP plug tests will answer these questions
1. Does it Plug-and-Play?
ü Interoperability?
ü How
long does it take to configure?
ü Does
license model support sharing?
ü Sustainability?
ü What
are lifecycle cost?
ü Will
technology be regularly refreshed?
ü Does
government retain appropriate IP rights?
ü Security?
ü Does
it inherit reciprocal IA and CDS controls?
ü Is
the software assured?
2. Does it improve operational outcomes?
ü Better
probability of detection?
ü Better
probability of interdiction?
ü More
accuracy?
ü Shorter
planning cycles?
ü Less
logistic delay time?
Again….PFP OTA’s will pay for crowd sourcing of requirements
broadly across innovative COTS communities, and demonstrated improvement in
utility-per-cost-per-time. That is, the
“performer” on PFP OTAs will be not-for-profit consortia open to any qualified
vendor with low barriers to membership…
So, having defined the measurable and testable parameters
associated with any particular PFP solicitation…
… And having provisioned the virtual, distributed, plugtest
system that is readily accessible to OTA consortium members….
PFP sponsors will use objective plugtests to down-select the
most qualified vendor teams, set targets for incremental capability
improvement, and will then immediately execute funding via pre-greased OTA
fiscal process. This process will take
days and weeks rather than months and years…
We will learn by crawling before walking before running,
that is…
Initially, PFP has identified a single capability
requirement and modest funding to support it. The first solicitation will use an existing Army
Contracting Command (ACC) OTA vehicle and consortium, namely the C5 OTA and C5
Technologies Consortium. The first award
will be made using a prototype version of the distributed plugtest system in
May of 15. More RFPs will be announced
at the event accompanying that first award.
The second batch of PFP awards will be made using an
incrementally improved plugtest system in August. Again, more RFPs will be announced. By then
the Air Force will have created its own tailored OTA…which will be available to
accept end-of-fiscal year 15 funding…
Meanwhile the capability developed under the first award
will be deployed, at least as an operational prototype…
We’ll iterate a few more times…
By the end of FY 16 the PFP process will be well established
as a preferred option for program managers across the USAF and joint
acquisition community.
What does PFP success look like?
… A thriving subset of the COTS IT marketplace aligned with
the highest priority USAF information sharing requirements!
USAF funds issued via OTA will incentive COTS developers to
evolve their next releases to include features identified by USAF operators as
the most potentially useful…
Plugtests will validate and verify those COTS products per
functionality, interoperability, sustainability, and security targets.
Technology gaps will be identified in this process… Larger
S&T projects designed to develop big bang game changers will be spawned…
Meanwhile…
Successfully V&V’d incrementally improved products get
placed on “Approved Product Lists”…
These products become readily available via low barrier
procurement vehicles such as the GSA schedule…
Pre approved products, i.e pre-certified products, that are
easily procured get reused by other programs and other operational folks…
Operational folks share new great ideas, which spawn new
solicitations…
… And the virtual cycle continues!
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