DISCONNECTED FROM THE FRONT LINES: LACK OF WARFIGHTER EXPERIENCE IN ACQUISITIONS YIELDS UNACCEPTABLE END STATES
Author
Kunz, Thompson E.
Pawlak, Adam R.
Westfall, Wayne
Date
2022-06Advisor
Dunlap, Jeffrey R.
Second Reader
Mortlock, Robert F.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Over the past few decades, the Defense Acquisition System (DAS) has been under constant fire by Congress, taxpayers, and warfighters for unacceptable cost, schedule, and performance outcomes. This plague has been well documented, discussed, and many potential corrective measures implemented over the years with futile results. This leaves the warfighter with delivered capabilities not meeting actual operational needs, routinely late to field, yielding them irrelevant, and coming with unrecoverable cost overruns. One significant area of the acquisition process, the focus of this research, has the most impact on a program’s outcome yet had the least amount of change: who represents the warfighter during requirements generation and management throughout the life cycle. A program’s requirements establish the end cost, schedule, and performance thresholds that, once a program matures, are extremely difficult to change without a sizable penalty. This research documents a correlation between troubled programs and poor requirements support due to an operational knowledge gap caused by a lack of proficient end-user warfighter representatives involved and empowered in the process. Related, due to the inherent differences in views, experience, and expectations between a career acquisition professional and a warfighter, data shows a need for a blended professional within the DAS. The research shows failure to bridge this personnel gap will predictably yield the same unacceptable results.
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Related items
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