As someone who works in the unmanned systems space as a one-man shop helping start-ups and smalls mostly, I see this as just more moving the deck chairs (but only select ones, given the exceptions in the document) vice steering the ship out of danger (by saying "services you had your chance and you have systemically failed to deliver on the promise"). I read the memo when it came out and saw nothing to convince me that anything useful would come out of it.
Trying to re-organize on the fly in a piecemeal fashion, without assessing the "how" of getting the entire community of interest (government, industry, and academia) on board makes it confusing to external agencies who are trying to help. It simply exacerbates the confusion down at the edge where industry is trying to help, but it is literally unclear who they need to talk to, how to contact that person/office, and that person/office is empowered to solve the problem.
Absent precise clarifying language on processes and effective communication to the COI on those processes and who does what to whom, this is simply another cog inserted into an already confusing, inefficient, and ineffective "modernization machine."
I think good leaders and potential centralized should not by default think they're subordinates are making dumb decisions, though we all make bad calls [sometimes] and cultures can lock-in mistakes.
Instead, the reason for higher authority levels should often be collective action problems. Programs managers, for understandable reasons, have incentives that underweight sector or enterprise-wide benefits.
Which collective action problems are most important depends on where you sit and your larger strategic analysis, and there are a range of potential approaches to solving them and [well] established risks in trying to solve too many at once.
PAEs are promising because portfolios are a good unit of analysis for trade offs.
But as one part of my job within A&S I am working with my Service colleagues on Modular Open System Approaches not because program officials are unwise, but because they are constrained and face rational pressures to defect. I think I have a chance of success because the people I work with see the merit and just need facilitation to be able to get after something many of them want to do anyway.
Mine is still a high modernist outlook at risk of ignoring important details about local conditions, but a quality bureaucracy should understand that the interplay and competition of different incentives is driven by the complexity of the problems we face. I am generally most hopeful for acquisition reforms that clearly grasp the trade offs and risks they accept. I am most skeptical of reforms that seem to assume that predecessors or subordinates are dumb.
Greg - solid points. From many years in A&S, my view is for OSW is to operate above and across the Services and Agencies to maintain a Department-wide perspective. The emphasis should be on empowering the Services and programs to succeed by ensuring they have the resources, authorities, and support they need. This includes actively fostering collaboration and, where appropriate, alignment across organizations so that teams gain visibility into one another’s efforts and can tackle substantive challenges such as MOSA together.
Some leaders readily embrace this enabling model and drive meaningful, positive change. Others default to a more traditional bureaucratic approach: requiring subordinates to complete paperwork in triplicate, only to criticize them for using the wrong cover sheet.
There is a natural tension like this in any major organization like DoW, the IC, DHS, and Fortune 500 companies.
As someone who works in the unmanned systems space as a one-man shop helping start-ups and smalls mostly, I see this as just more moving the deck chairs (but only select ones, given the exceptions in the document) vice steering the ship out of danger (by saying "services you had your chance and you have systemically failed to deliver on the promise"). I read the memo when it came out and saw nothing to convince me that anything useful would come out of it.
Trying to re-organize on the fly in a piecemeal fashion, without assessing the "how" of getting the entire community of interest (government, industry, and academia) on board makes it confusing to external agencies who are trying to help. It simply exacerbates the confusion down at the edge where industry is trying to help, but it is literally unclear who they need to talk to, how to contact that person/office, and that person/office is empowered to solve the problem.
Absent precise clarifying language on processes and effective communication to the COI on those processes and who does what to whom, this is simply another cog inserted into an already confusing, inefficient, and ineffective "modernization machine."
I think good leaders and potential centralized should not by default think they're subordinates are making dumb decisions, though we all make bad calls [sometimes] and cultures can lock-in mistakes.
Instead, the reason for higher authority levels should often be collective action problems. Programs managers, for understandable reasons, have incentives that underweight sector or enterprise-wide benefits.
Which collective action problems are most important depends on where you sit and your larger strategic analysis, and there are a range of potential approaches to solving them and [well] established risks in trying to solve too many at once.
PAEs are promising because portfolios are a good unit of analysis for trade offs.
But as one part of my job within A&S I am working with my Service colleagues on Modular Open System Approaches not because program officials are unwise, but because they are constrained and face rational pressures to defect. I think I have a chance of success because the people I work with see the merit and just need facilitation to be able to get after something many of them want to do anyway.
Mine is still a high modernist outlook at risk of ignoring important details about local conditions, but a quality bureaucracy should understand that the interplay and competition of different incentives is driven by the complexity of the problems we face. I am generally most hopeful for acquisition reforms that clearly grasp the trade offs and risks they accept. I am most skeptical of reforms that seem to assume that predecessors or subordinates are dumb.
Greg - solid points. From many years in A&S, my view is for OSW is to operate above and across the Services and Agencies to maintain a Department-wide perspective. The emphasis should be on empowering the Services and programs to succeed by ensuring they have the resources, authorities, and support they need. This includes actively fostering collaboration and, where appropriate, alignment across organizations so that teams gain visibility into one another’s efforts and can tackle substantive challenges such as MOSA together.
Some leaders readily embrace this enabling model and drive meaningful, positive change. Others default to a more traditional bureaucratic approach: requiring subordinates to complete paperwork in triplicate, only to criticize them for using the wrong cover sheet.
There is a natural tension like this in any major organization like DoW, the IC, DHS, and Fortune 500 companies.