Defense Informations Systems Agency Cooperative Review
Abstract
Business Executives for National Security, BENS, in cooperation with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), reviewed several procurements of an information technology (IT) capability or service with a goal of identifying and quantifying legislative, regulatory, cultural and organizational impediments that contribute to the breakdown in the overall acquisition system. DISA was a particularly apt target for this pilot project because IT is a distinct and different subset of all the Pentagon's procurements and because DISA operates in a joint environment managing acquisitions for all the military services. Five programs were reviewed. BENS produced a working draft that detailed five major sources of instability in the acquisition of IT process. These sources are considered by many to be at the core of instabilities hindering the DoD acquisition process as-a-whole. BENS then attempted to trace the proximate and ultimate causes of these instabilities to their sources in the law, regulation, culture and/or organization of the acquisition framework. The procedures developed and lessons learned from the pilot project with DISA are intended to inform a broader BENS effort on reforming defense acquisition law & oversight. We want to encourage the next Congress and Administration to confront the challenge of changing two decades of accumulated defense acquisition law, regulation and policy that have defined a culture and created an organization described as "distorted, inefficient, and ineffective."
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA506791
Entities
People
- Paul Taibl