Second Generation Reusable Launch

Vehicle (2GRLV)

The Second Generation Reusable

Launch Vehicle (2GRLV) will replace

Space Shuttle as nation’s space transportation system.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:

PERFORMANCE -BASED METRIC

TOOLS FOR PROJECT

MANAGEMENT

DAU DEVELOPS NE W ONLINE

CONTINUOUS L EARNING MODULES

DAU COLLABORATES WITH NASA 

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Implementing Front-End

Logistics Support for NASA

Program

P ROGRAM M ANAGER

DAU ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 20T H ACQUISITION

SYMPOSIUM SET FOR JUNE 17-18, 2003

DAU to Host 15th International Acquisition/Procurement Seminar—Atlantic

Program Manager Interviews Deidre Lee, OSD’s New

Director, Defense Procurement & Acquisition Policy
2

PM Magazine Interviews Deidre Lee

Program Manager Interview

Deidre Lee, OSD’s New Director, Defense

Procurement & Acquisition Policy, brings

her priorities and programs for 2003 and

beyond to Program Manager readers.

38

Transforming Technology, Acquisition,

and Sustainment

Leon Reed

The 12th Program Executive Officer/Systems Command (PEO/SYSCOM) Commanders’ Conference focused on the acquisition warrior—today and tomorrow. 

14

Implementing Front-end Logistics

Support for NASA Program

Gary McPherson

Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (2GRLV) will replace Space Shuttle

as nation’s space transportation system.

20

DAU Collaborates with Local Organizations to Create Two New Continuous

Learning Modules

Kelly Nieves

Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) Program

and Cost as an Independent Variable are

two of DAU’s newest online modules.

58

DAU Collaborates with NASA

Todd Post

Sharing stories with like-minded leaders

in program and project management

76

DAU Hosts WACUC Learning Symposium

Sylwia Gasiorek-Nelson

Building Bridges—Pursuing Partnerships.

Vol XXXII, No.1, DAU 172

A B IMONTHLY M AGAZINE O F THE D EFENSE

Some photos appearing in this publication may be digitally enhanced.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 1

26

Fourth International

Acquisition/Procurement Seminar—

Pacific (IAPS-P)

Christina Cavoli

Concepts for developing a strong international defense industry.

32

Leveraging Fidelity of PerformanceBased Metric Tools for Project

Management

Scott S. Haraburda

Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility Project Management Team using performance-based metric tools for managing the project’s more critical areas.

A CQUISITION U NIVERSITY

ALSO

Legislative Update........................................................................................................................................................10

Fifteenth Annual International Acquisition/Procurement Seminar—Atlantic ............................13

DAUAA 20th Annual Acquisition Symposium...........................................................................................19

DAU & DMO Sign Statement of Principles.................................................................................................35

AT&LKnowledge Sharing System—AKSS....................................................................................................37

Defense Honors Manufacturing Technology Achievements..............................................................37

DAU and University of Alaska Anchorage Sign MOU............................................................................45

Defense Threat Reduction Agency Supports DAU Coursework.....................................................54

“Itinerant” Painter Adds 18th Century Charm to DAU Cafeteria .....................................................56

Pentagon Outlines Missile Defense Program..............................................................................................57

Micromanagement Reduction Plan .................................................................................................................62

Four Defense Leaders Answer Questions in Pentagon Forum.......................................................64

DAU South Region Reatured in AL&T Magazine.....................................................................................65

DAU Adds New R-TOC Module to Continuous Learning Center Web Site..............................65

‘04 Budget Request First to Incorporate Bush Priorities.....................................................................66

Acquisition Chief Discusses Transformation.................................................................................................67

Navy DACM Retires....................................................................................................................................................72

Navy Appoints New Director, Acquisition Career Management ......................................................73

DAU West Region and DCMA San Diego Form Strategic Partnership .......................................80

DAU South Region and HMIRA Form Strategic Partnership.............................................................82

PSA Honors Terry Little with William J. Perry Award..............................................................................82

DoD Acquisition Office Recognizes Transformational eBusiness Working Group.................83

New System to Provide Effective Defense for Ships, Sailors .............................................................85

Surfing the Net .............................................................................................................................................................87

PM Writer’s Guidelines............................................................................................................Inside Back Cover

Published for the

DEFENSE

ACQUISITION

UNIVERSITY

President

Frank J. Anderson Jr.

Commandant

Col. Ronald C. Flom, USA

Director, Operations Group

Col. Ronald J. Hayne, USA

Director, Visual Arts and Press

Greg Caruth

PROGRAM MANAGER

Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Collie Johnson

Chief, Layout and Design . . . . . . . . . Paula Croisetiere

Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sylwia Gasiorek-Nelson

Letters to the Editor and other correspondence

are welcome and may be mailed to the address shown

below or sent by e-mail to collie.johnson@dau.mil . Article preparation/submission guidelines are located on

the inside back coverof this issue or may be downloaded from our Web site at http://www.dau.mil/pubs/

pm/articles.asp. Inquiries concerning proposed articles

can also be made by phone at (703) 805-2892/

3364 or DSN 655-2892/3364. 

Program Manager (ISSN 0199-7114), published

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eign national subscribers. Postage is paid at the U.S.

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Program Manager is a vehicle for transmitting information on policies, trends, events, and current thinking affecting program management and defense sys -

tems acquisition. Statements of fact or opinion

appearing in Program Manager are solely those of the

authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the DoD

or DAU. Articles may be reprinted. When reprinting,

please credit the author and Program Manager.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

PROCUREMENT AND POLICY

PM Interviews Deidre Lee

OSD’s New Director, Defense

Procurement and Acquisition Policy

2

Q

Ms. Lee, what leadership challenges as well

as opportunities for synergy do you see in

your new combined responsibility for both

Procurement and Acquisition Policy? 

A

DPAP has broad responsibility for acquisition policies. Combining these two

organizations results in a very talented

group of people who will focus their energies on constantly reexamining our

policies and procedures for improvement and simplification. 

Q

What can be done to improve the effectiveness of the acquisition process through

this policy integration effort?

A

We think we need to focus on developing a more integrated approach to acquisition policies. This means coordinating several steps: identifying

opportunities for acquisition policy improvements; developing improvements

in an open process; preparing for training the acquisition workforce as policy

changes are developed; communicating

revised policies to people who impleRob Leibrandt, DAU liaison and policy analyst in the Office of the Director, Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Office of the Under Secretary of

Defense (Acquisition, Technology and

Logistics), interviewed Deidre Lee on

Jan. 22, 2003, to bring her priorities

and programs to Program Manager

readers. Lee now heads an office that

combines her former duties as Director of Defense Procurement with the

added responsibility of Acquisition

Policy. 

Photos by Richard Mattox

“We always have to remember that

the basic purpose of the acquisition

system is to provide for the needs of

warfighters; get them what they

need, when they need it, at an affordable cost. Our credibility suffers to

the extent that we fail to meet this

basic responsibility.”

Rob Leibrandt, DAU liaison and policy analyst, interviews Deidre Lee, Director, Defense

Procurement and Acquisition Policy, OUSD(AT&L), on Jan. 22 in her Pentagon office.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 3

ment the policy; and monitoring the implementation of revised policies to ensure improvement actually occurs.

In practice, this means that people in

DPAP who review acquisition strategies

need to communicate problems they

identify in acquisition policies and participate in developing policy changes.

Also, by conducting more outreach, acquisition professionals in the field will

identify problems in our policies that

we can address. 

The development of revised policies

needs to be done in an open, transparent manner. For example, we have

started publishing not only our proposed procurement rules but also public comments submitted on the rules.

This will shed greater light on all the

comments we receive and will hopefully

better explain the resolution of the comments.

At the same time that policies are being

developed, we will coordinate with the

acquisition training community to develop training for the new policies. This

will help identify potential implementation problems, but more importantly,

means that training will be available for

people in the field at the same time that

we publish new policies. 

Finally, we will monitor the implementation of new acquisition policies. Having responsibility for the full spectrum

of improving acquisition policies, including monitoring the implementation

of new policies, means that one organization can be held accountable for ensuring the new policies result in a more

efficient and effective acquisition process. 

Q

How has your previous position as the Administrator for the OFPP [Office of Federal Procurement Policy] affected your view

of Defense procurement? How are they the

same and how are they different? What

could DoD and the Federal Government

learn from each other? 

A

My previous position at OFPP (as well

as my position at NASA) kept me closely

involved with Defense procurement. As

you are aware, OFPP is responsible for

procurement policy on a governmentwide basis, including DoD. So, I was

not unfamiliar with Defense procurement or with the highly regarded professionals involved in working DoD-specific issues. At OFPP, I was conscious of

including the views and concerns of the

smaller agencies that could be overlooked if one has a predisposition toward DoD based on size alone. I found

that the issues facing the civilian agency

procurement officials were as equally

challenging as those faced by DoD procurement officials.

I am a strong supporter of working issues with my counterparts at the civilian agencies. For example, I am a member of the PEC [Procurement Executives

Council], which is comprised of senior

procurement executives assigned

throughout the Federal Government.

Among other things, the PEC is chartered to: create an environment that promotes innovation, empowerment, and

risk-taking in accomplishing the government’s business; explore methods to

streamline and improve existing

processes; and share ideas, practices,

and experiences among agencies. My

involvement with the PEC and the FAR

Council ensures DoD is in a position to

guide, support, or challenge initiatives

that cut across agencies. 

Q

From your perspective as principal advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for

Acquisition, Technology and Logistics on

major weapon system contracting strategies and advisor to the Defense Acquisition

Board on procurement matters, how has

the new threat of international terrorism

and the need for rapid deployment affected

contracting strategies?

A

One great lesson for us that arises from

the events of the last year and a half is

the overwhelming need for flexibility.

We can no longer reasonably expect to

be able to predict what the threats will

be over an extended period of time, nor

can we expect to know precisely what

will be needed to counter those threats. 

This need for flexibility is pervasive

throughout the acquisition process, from

requirements generation through acquisition planning, contracting, development, production, and sustainment.

From their inception, systems have to

be developed with the capability to

evolve in the face of rapidly changing

needs. We are doing a number of things

in AT&L to promote this flexibility.

For several years now, we have been

strongly promoting evolutionary acquisition and spiral development. These

concepts not only allow better management of technical and cost risk, they

“One great lesson for us

that arises from the

events of the last year

and a half is the

overwhelming need for

flexibility...This need

for flexibility is

pervasive throughout

the acquisition

process...From their inception, systems have

to be developed with

the capability to evolve

in the face of rapidly

changing needs.” 
preserve the ability of systems to be

adapted to changing needs.

More recently, we have undertaken a

complete rewrite of the 5000 series of

policies. This whole initiative arose from

a growing belief that the old 5000 series

was too prescriptive and did not provide

an environment conducive to innovation and creativity. To a great extent, the

documents had come to be used as a

“cookbook” for acquisition planning, to

the detriment of new, potentially beneficial approaches. It is not true that innovation and creativity were not allowed

under the old documents, but it is true

that we didn’t see much of them, probably because it was hard to be creative

and still fulfill all the prescriptions.

So, the approach to the new documents

is to remove the prescriptions to the greatest degree possible. The old documents

required that acquisition planning meet

all statutory requirements and demonstrate in particular ways that the acquisition is planned to best meet the program objectives. The new documents still

require that all statutory requirements be

met, and demonstrate that the acquisition is planned to best meet the program

objectives. It is in the “hows,” not the

“whats,” that the documents truly differ.

The general thrust of this work is to allow

the program manager to be innovative,

creative, and flexible in planning the program. The old 5000 series was very prescriptive regarding how a PM had to

demonstrate that the program had a coherent, intelligent acquisition strategy.

The new series allows the PM to demonstrate this in ways best suited to the individual program.

Our expectation is that this flexibility in

documentation will further promote the

flexibility required throughout the acquisition process. This change will have

some profound effects on the acquisition planning process. It will require program managers to really think through

their strategies, not just complete a

checklist of documents. It will also require better and earlier coordination between programs and the MDA [Milestone Decision Authority] staffs, so

4 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

DEIDRE A. LEE

Director, Defense Procurement & Acquisition Policy

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense

(Acquisition, Technology & Logistics)

D

eidre A. Lee assumed her position

as Director of Defense Procurement and

Acquisition Policy on

Nov. 3, 2002. Before assuming this position,

she was the Director of

Defense Procurement for

two years. Lee is responsible for all acquisition and procurement

policy matters in the Department of

Defense. She serves as the principal

advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and

Logistics and the Defense Acquisition

Board on acquisition/procurement

strategies for all major weapon systems programs, major automated information systems programs, and services acquisitions. 

Additionally, Lee is responsible for

the acquisition workforce career development and training as well as

AT&L’s external electronic business

efforts, including support to the Financial Management Modernization

Program. She is leading the Department’s transformational policy initiatives in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), Defense FAR

Supplement (DFARS), and the DoD

5000-series acquisition regulations.

She is DoD’s advisor for competition,

source selection, multiyear contracting, warranties, leasing, and all international contracting matters. 

Prior to joining the Department of

Defense, Lee served as the Administrator for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy from July 1998 to

June 2000. From March 1993 until

July 1998, she served as the Associate Administrator for Procurement at

the National Aeronautics

and Space Administration. Prior to that, Lee

served as the Deputy Associate Administrator for

Procurement and the Executive Officer to the

Deputy Administrator of

NASA. She rose through

the ranks to become

NASA’s senior acquisition

official and has a distinguished record as a reformer and innovator. 

From 1984 until 1990, she worked

at the Johnson Space Center, as Chief

of the Space Shuttle Procurement Division, Chief of the Orbiter and STS

Integration Procurement Branch, and

Chief of the Data Systems and Aircraft Operations Branch.

She was awarded NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal and Exceptional Achievement Medal. In 1996

and 2001, she was a recipient of the

Senior Executive Service Presidential

Rank Award. In March 2001, Lee received the Honorable Elmer B. Staats

Award for Accountability.

Lee began her career with the Department of Defense where she served

in various procurement-related positions that included base procurement

in Okinawa, Japan; systems acquisition at Hanscom AFB, Mass.; and logistics procurement at Hill AFB, Utah.

She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Central

State University, Edmond, Okla., and

a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

strategies will be well understood ahead

of time and not derailed late in the game.

Finally, the changes will require some

changes in the way MDA staffs evaluate

strategies, forcing a renewed focus on

the real content of the strategies, not just

their form.

Q

The aging workforce is a topic affecting

DoD’s corporate knowledge base. How do

we revitalize the remaining workforce and

attract highly qualified replacements with

the right skills? 

A

President Bush has said that we need to

get the right workforce with the right

skills at the right place with the right

pay. We are working on all these areas

to address our aging workforce.

Right Workforce. We are using Human

Capital Strategic Planning to look at the

workforce we have today, the workforce

we need in the future, and the actions

we need to take to get from here to there.

Right Skills. We have transformed the

Defense Acquisition University to take

our training to where our customers are;

we are in the midst of transforming the

certification training for each of the

AT&L disciplines, concentrating on PM,

Contracting, and Logistics; we are examining how to recognize commercial

professional certifications (such as those

given to logisticians, project managers,

and contracting officers) so that we can

attract people from industry at the journeyman level.

Right Place.We are piloting a branding

campaign at Edwards Air Force Base to

attract, hire, and retain people so we can

replace those who have served us so well

and have earned their retirement. We will

use the knowledge we gain at Edwards

to expand the campaign Department of

Defense-wide.

Right Pay. The Acquisition Workforce

Demo has developed and implemented

a pay-for-performance system along with

pay bands. We plan to expand the Demo

to the entire DoD-wide AT&L workforce. 

Q

Your new organization directs the Defense

Acquisition Regulations Council and develops policy for contract pricing and financing, contract administration, international contracting, and training of

contracting personnel. What policy improvements have been made recently? What

can we expect in the future?

A

Within the past few months, we’ve issued a number of changes to the FAR

[Federal Acquisition Regulation] and

the DFARS [Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement] that are

geared toward improving the way we

do business. Some of these changes include: strengthening of requirements for

competition in the placement of orders

for services under Federal Supply Schedules and other multiple award contracts;

adoption of “best value” procedures for

the acquisition of commercial software

and related services through the use of

Enterprise Software Agreements with

contractors who offer favorable terms

and pricing; providing foreign military

sales customers more visibility into the

development of contracts that we award

on their behalf; and exception from the

Buy American Act for acquisitions of

U.S.-made end products in acquisitions

subject to the Trade Agreements Act. 

Some of the changes that we’re presently

working on include: requirements for

contractors to submit, and DoD to

process, all payment requests electronically; and requirements for more upfront review of acquisition strategies to

prevent unnecessary or unjustified contract bundling. We’ve also initiated a

DFARS “transformation” project, which

will involve a comprehensive review of

the DFARS to identify opportunities for

reducing procurement cost, cycle time,

and administrative burden. We’re planning an aggressive schedule for completion of the review and for subsequent

use of the results to transform the

DFARS into a more effective document.

A lot of our current work in the International area is focused on Domestic

preferences in one way or another. Let

me say right off that we do not oppose

any of the current statutes per se. We

are interested, however, in clarifying

some aspects of the statutes and in getting some flexibility into the process.

Also, through the establishment of reciprocal MOUs with individual countries,

we are working to open up trade in Defense in both directions. We expect that

these efforts will promote interoperability and standardization, increase

competition, and increase U.S. access

to foreign markets. 

Q

You often say that Defense Procurement

“works” for the field contracting officer.

What tools and policies are working? What

is still needed? 

A

Communication is key—we want to

make things better for our people in the

5

“My goal for DPAP is to

facilitate the

innovativeness of the

people in the field. We

want to hear their ideas

and concerns and take

action. The biggest plus

is that we can change

things—the minus is the

time it often takes to

make these public

policy changes.”
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

field. Working on the right things—issues of importance to them. The first

step is outreach. An example of our virtual outreach program is the new Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy Web site [http://www.acq.osd.mil/

dpap]. The site contains links to Acquisition Today, which provides real-time

notice of policy changes that affect field

personnel. Personnel can sign up to automatically receive the notices. About

85,000 people receive notices this way.

In addition to this virtual presence, the

DPAP staff maintains a very robust

speaking schedule that is not limited to

the Washington D.C., local area. Every

year we try to reach out to acquisition

and contracting personnel worldwide.

At each speaking opportunity we ask

the audience to describe any barriers

that prevent them from doing their jobs.

Those become action items for DPAP

staff—and the field activity gets an answer back as to what we are going to do

about eliminating the perceived barrier.

The last outreach and communication

area that I want to mention today is ensuring all new initiatives are clearly communicated to field activities via organized, structured, focused presentations.

We have begun writing training materials at the same time that changes in

acquisition rules are developed, with

the intent of having good training modules ready for deployment when the rule

changes become final. We have established quite a portfolio of free online

training modules that are available at

the continuous learning DAU Web site

[http://clc.dau.mil/kc/no_login/portal.

asp]. These modules are available to anyone, including our industry counterparts!

In order to ensure that the training materials resonate with the field personnel,

we are in the process of conducting

focus groups to understand how to better describe the impact of the changes

and how to better connect with midlevel personnel who have completed

their basic training courses.

Continuous feedback from our customers is vital to ensure that we provide effective and timely training—

thus fulfilling our goal of having the

best trained contracting and acquisition workforce in the world. A well

trained workforce with the right

business tools at their fingertips is

vital for ensuring our soldiers, sailors,

airmen, and Marines get the most out

of every defense dollar.

Q

If we recognize that Defense industry deserves to make reasonable profits, how can

the acquisition process be improved to increase the attractiveness of the government

as a customer? What is a reasonable profit

and who decides that? 

A

When discussing contractor profit, it is

important to remember that about twothirds of what we buy is bought competitively. We are also relying more and

more on commercial items to fulfill our

needs. For competitive and commercial

items, we rely on the marketplace to

generate fair and reasonable prices. Contractors are assumed to have priced a

reasonable profit into their prices, based

on market conditions. Thus, for competitive and commercial items, we don’t

examine costs and profit; instead, we

look at price.

For the remaining sole-source, non-commercial items, we employ a structured

profit policy that is designed to ensure

an integrated assessment of the business, technical, and financing risks associated with each contract. It provides

contracting officers with a structured

way to consider profit by focusing on

the factors that DoD believes are most

appropriate for each contract. We have

made adjustments to those factors over

the years when necessary to address

changed conditions in the defense industrial base. For example, in the year

2000 we introduced a technical risk factor that allows contracting officers to

recognize higher profit objectives for

those contractors that are incorporating

state-of-the-art technology into our requirements.

In the past, since profit objectives are

based on costs, when a contractor proposed a reduced cost base we often reduced our profit objective. This made

no sense. In effect, we punished the contractor for becoming more cost-efficient. 

We therefore revised our profit policy

about a year ago to create a new costefficiency factor that enables contracting officers to increase profit objectives

by up to an additional four percent for

contractors who have a proven track

record of reducing costs. We also increased the relative weight we accord to

the technical and management risks associated with contract performance.

These adjustments to our profit policy

will enable us to retain and attract vendors capable of addressing our need to

obtain cutting-edge technology at prices

we can afford.

Q

The Honorable Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge,

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,

Technology & Logistics, outlined five major

goals for acquisition. In your opinion, on

his first goal, how can we show Congress

that we are credible and effective in executing the acquisition and logistics process?

Where have we failed in the past and where

can we do better?

A

We always have to remember that the

basic purpose of the acquisition system

is to provide for the needs of warfighters; get them what they need, when they

need it, at an affordable cost. Our credibility suffers to the extent that we fail

to meet this basic responsibility. 

There are a number of things being done

that greatly enhance our prospects for

success. One of these is the emphasis

on evolutionary acquisition and spiral

development. We all know the old saying, that “better is the enemy of good

enough.” Through evolutionary acquisition we can provide significant capabilities sooner, rather than not providing anything until all of the Weapon

Systems requirements are met. Risk

management and cost estimating are

also enhanced.

Along these lines, we are now insisting

on using the most realistic cost estimates

6
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

available for budgeting purposes, so that

programs will have the resources necessary to succeed. There is one other

very important thing we could do to

help programs succeed; impart real stability to the program. This applies in

two areas—cost and requirements. Once

a program is on contract, we should insist that the Services fund it as initially

planned. This would at least allow the

program a fighting chance at performing as expected.

Similarly, requirements changes should

be severely restricted, at least within an

ongoing spiral. Rather than disrupting

ongoing development efforts, emerging

requirements should be held for the next

spiral. There is wide agreement that

these initiatives will greatly improve our

ability to execute acquisition programs

more successfully. However, problems

do arise in practice. Due to heavy demands on scarce resources, there is always a temptation to take money out of

a program for other uses. We must

maintain strong discipline in resisting

these temptations.

Q

Secretary Aldridge’s fifth goal aims to leverage technologies to “create the warfighting

capabilities, systems, and strategies of the

future.” Can you describe efforts you and

your staff are making to help the acquisition community support this goal? 

A

My staff is working hard to address this

goal. To transform how the Department

acquires weapon systems, goods, and

services to support warfighting strength,

technological capabilities and efficiencies must be brought to bear to a far

greater degree than in the past. Electronic business or eBusiness implements

business technologies and transforms

business processes. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics directed the establishment of an eBusiness office within

AT&L to be the engine of change. The

eBusiness office focus will be twofold—

external and internal. 

The external focus eBusiness office,

under my purview, will lead the transformation of the acquisition/procurement business environment of the AT&L

enterprise and external business partners through electronic business governance, the application of technology,

and alignment within the Department’s

business modernization programs and

within CIO [Chief Information Office]

initiatives. The office will support the

President’s Management Agenda and

eGovernment initiatives, including the

Federal Acquisition environment. It will

establish:

• eBusiness guidelines and standards to

create an accessible, efficient, effective, seamless, and collaborative acquisition process.

• The governance of eBusiness across

the DoD acquisition community to

support the integrated acquisition end

state and the forthcoming Federal

Management Enterprise Architecture.

• The review, approval, and enforcement of standards, constraints, guidelines, processes, and products for use

within the acquisition community.

Much of the effort required of the acquisition, technology and logistics workforce in supporting this goal involves

understanding what tools, programs,

and policies are already in place to help

them. There are a number of tools that

we have fielded under eBusiness. 

The Standard Procurement System is

one that we are working hard to improve while we continue to implement

it. Wide Area Workflow is a tool for electronic invoicing that helps speed the

process of paying vendors for goods and

services that they have delivered. Beyond these examples of tools that directly help our people in the field, we

have several projects that operate behind the scenes making the eBusiness

systems work better. Everything we do

is oriented to supporting our workforce.

In early November last year, my staff

jointly conducted a workshop with the

Director, Defense Research and Engineering called “Leveraging Technology

in an Evolutionary Acquisition Environment.” The workshop objectives

were to obtain feedback from DoD and

industry participants on the draft version of our soon-to-be-published guide,

A Managers Guide to Technology Transition in an Evolutionary Environment: A

Contact Sport, and to identify and develop recommended actions addressing

significant issues associated with the

technology transition process.

The workshop was a huge success and

the guide was published on Jan. 31,

2003. An outreach and communication

strategy was developed and training objectives targeted as follow-on efforts to

7

“My office is pursuing

expanding our central

referral system for

open critical

acquisition positions in

OSD and the Defense

Agencies...to all

acquisition,

technology, and

logistics positions

DoD-wide. We are also

looking at several

different intern and

rotational programs to

provide developmental

opportunities across

the Department.”
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

support the release of the guidebook

and further help the workforce. There

is a great deal of interest in the technology transition area, and we are committed to supporting the workforce with

the tools necessary to help make the

process better.

Q

Secretary Aldridge mentions access to better training opportunities and more movement among the Services and between the

field and headquarters staffs as being keys

to success. Would you care to comment on

your role in this?

A

I am working closely with DAU to ensure that our training products are global

in their reach and focused on careerlong learning. We coordinate the education of over 129,000 students worldwide. DAU has responded and has

forward-deployed over 260 faculty positions into five regions near our customers’ work centers. The university has

also established strategic partnerships

with over 44 organizations, institutions,

and private associations to help meet

customer total learning needs.

DAU is now providing targeted performance support with subject matter expertise to major weapon system program

offices such as: Joint Strike Fighter, Future Combat System; DD-X; Precision

Munitions; and Missile Defense. Technology has not only expanded the reach

of training, but also enabled the AT&L

community to have access to some 40

continuous learning modules, numerous

communities of practice linking experts

and best practices, and an AT&L Knowledge Sharing System (AKSS). All of these

have become integral parts of our total

learning solutions in support of the learning needs of the workforce.

For years DAU has provided certification and assignment-specific training

for our workforce. That training has

been successful—and DAU is building

on that success by moving to emphasize critical thinking skills and casebased training. But, we need to go beyond certification to provide Web-based

continuous learning so that our workforce, both those who have been certified and those who are not in certification disciplines, can keep current with

the Department’s emerging policies and

new initiatives. 

My office is responsible for developing

some of that continuous learning training as part of our outreach and communication process. In addition, my office is pursuing expanding our central

referral system for open critical acquisition positions in OSD and the Defense

Agencies (where employees can see positions in other agencies and apply for

those positions) to all acquisition, technology, and logistics positions DoDwide. We are also looking at several different intern and rotational programs to

provide developmental opportunities

across the Department.

Q

Secretary Rumsfeld often says that preparing for the future requires transforming the

operational force and the way it operates.

Is it necessary to transform the existing acquisition workforce to be successful in the

transformed future Rumsfeld foresees, and

if so how do we determine the new skill requirements?

A

Today’s acquisition workforce is dedicated and talented, and everyone recognizes that changing mission and program requirements associated with

transformation impact the capabilities

needed in the future workforce. The

forecast of increased retirements during

the next five years exacerbates the impact. We view the intersection of these

two events as an opportunity to shape

the acquisition workforce to add even

greater value to the changing missions

and programs. 

Two years ago, we began focusing leadership attention and resources on human

capital strategic planning—the component of organizational strategic planning

that focuses on the workforce. Human

capital strategic planning enables leaders to identify the workforce capabilities (characteristics such as occupations,

academic disciplines, and level of experience; behaviors, such as innovation

and risk-taking; and values, such as willingness to take risks, and fortitude to

speak truth to power) that the leaders

believe their organizations need to accomplish their mission or programs—

their strategic intent; and contrast the

future desired distribution of the needed

capabilities in the workforce with the

current inventory projected into the future, assuming continuation of current

human resource management policies

and practices. That comparison enables

them to identify gaps between what they

need and what they will have by default. 

8

“The old 5000 series

was very prescriptive

regarding how a PM had

to demonstrate that the

program had a

coherent, intelligent acquisition strategy. The

new series allows the

PM to demonstrate this

in ways best suited to

the individual program.

Our expectation is that

this flexibility in

documentation will further promote the

flexibility required

throughout the acquisition process.”
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Finally, human capital strategic planning identifies an aligned set of human

resource management policies and practices, and resources and authorities that

leaders believe will close the gaps and

produce the workforce they need to accomplish their strategic intent. We call

this a business case analysis of the workforce needed to accomplish the leaders’

strategic intent. Human capital strategic planning is a radical departure from

the way we do the people business today,

and we are in the early developmental

stages of a time-phased plan to develop

a mature human capital strategic planning capability. 

Q

Secretary Rumsfeld expects the Department to develop a culture of innovation—

a willingness on the part of commanders

and subordinates to take risks and try new

methods and ideas to be successful in the

future. What is being done to develop this

culture of innovation within the acquisition

workforce?

A

Changing culture is one of the most difficult leadership challenges. It is particularly difficult for a large and complex

organization like the Department of Defense. As I mentioned earlier, we are focusing leadership attention on human

capital strategic planning, and cultural

shaping is one aspect of it. Again, this is

a new organizational activity and we are

in the early developmental stages on a

long path to developing a mature human

capital strategic planning capability.

Our time-phased plan focuses on identifying the competencies needed to conduct cultural shaping and developing

those competencies in small teams next

year. Developing a culture of innovation

will require extensive, unrelenting senior

leadership attention and devoted resources. 

Q

Are you expecting any legislative changes

that will help the DoD AT&L community?

A

We have several very bold legislative

proposals and a supportive leadership.

They have not yet been cleared, so I cannot discuss them in detail. These proposals are designed to increase flexibility by minimizing prescriptive practices,

encouraging innovative solutions by our

acquisition professionals, and rewarding success. Stay tuned.

Q

You rose through the ranks to become

NASA’s senior acquisition official and you

have a distinguished record as a reformer

and innovator. What has allowed you to be

a successful innovator and reformer and

what are the pluses and minuses of this role? 

A

I thoroughly enjoy my contracting career. Working in a number of different

locations on a broad array of programs

was a terrific opportunity. I cannot tell

you the number of times something

would come across my desk and I would

ask, “Why do we do this?” and the answer was less than satisfying—“That’s

the way it’s always been done,” or “See

the 1969 memo.” Yet, I quickly learned

that these things could be changed, and

a proactive contracting officer could really make a difference.

My goal for DPAP is to facilitate the innovativeness of the people in the field.

We want to hear their ideas and concerns and take action. The biggest plus

is that we can change things—the minus

is the time it often takes to make these

public policy changes.

Q

What can DAU do to better serve the needs

of the DoD AT&L community?

A

DAU is providing learning resources 7

days a week, 24 hours a day—the concept of anytime, anywhere learning or

getting the right information to the right

employee at the right time. This concept helps new employees gain job-critical skills and provides current employees with the new skills necessary to

meet the challenges of tomorrow.

DAU re-engineered its curricula to take

advantage of today’s e-learning practices

and technology. They have optimized

certification training, performance support, communities of practice, and continuous learning opportunities. DAU is

now transforming Contracting training

to provide the right mix of case-based

training and critical thinking to replace

“cookbook” answers. 

Through the CLC [Continuous Learning

Center], DAU provides a “toolbox” of

electronic performance support that provides access to the “right” knowledge to

perform in a rapidly changing workplace

with flexible and adaptable solutions. 

In FY 2003, DAU is reengineering its logistics and sustainment curriculum along

the tenets of the FLE [Future Logistics

Enterprise]. This reengineered logistics

curriculum will not only benefit the logistics workforce but is intended for incorporation in other workforce areas, particularly program management, contracting, systems engineering, and business and financial management. FLE advancement and DAU logistics curriculum reengineering go hand-in-glove.

DAU is moving out rapidly on new initiatives, particularly in assisting the acquisition workforce to implement the

new DoD 5000 policy on total life cycle

systems management and performancebased logistics.

Q

What is the best piece of career development advice you were ever given? 

A

Be flexible, mobile, and energetic. Knowing the rules is certainly necessary, but

not sufficient. Focus on the end result

and work well with others to ensure success.

Q

What do you hope will be your legacy? 

A

I hope my legacy will be an acquisition

workforce recognized for their business

excellence.

Editor’s Note: To learn more about

DPAP’s activities and programs, visit the

new DPAP Web site at http://www.

acq.osd.mil/dpap.

9
10 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

T

he National Defense Authorization Act for

FY2003, Public Law 107-314 at http://www.

congress.gov/cgibin/query/z?c107:H.R.4546.EN

R: provides authorizations of appropriations totaling $392.8 billion for national defense functions: DoD procurement; Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E); Operations

and Maintenance (O&M); working capital funds;

Military Construction (MILCON) and Family

Housing; and for Department of Energy (DoE)

weapons and environmental restoration programs.

(Also, see House Report 107-772 at http://www.

navair.navy.mil/clo/congressional.cfm?documenttype=Committee%20Reports.) 

Section 242. Technology Transition Initiative

Section 243. Defense Acquisition Challenge Program.

Section 314. Procurement of Environmentally

Preferable Procurement Items.

Section 801. Buy-to-Budget Acquisition of End

Items.

Section 802. Report to Congress on Evolutionary

Acquisition of Major Defense Acquisition Programs.

Section 803. Spiral Development Under Major Defense Acquisition Programs.

Section 804. Improvement of Software Acquisition Practices.

Section 806. Rapid Acquisition and Deployment

Procedures.

Section 807. Quick-Reaction Special Projects

Acquisition Team.

Section 818. Timing of Certification in Connection with Waiver of Survivability and

Lethality Testing Requirements.

Section 820. Revisions to Multiyear Contracting

Authority.

Section 822. Independent Technology Readiness

Assessments.

Section 901. Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

Section 902. Reorganization of the Office of the

Secretary of Defense for Administration of Duties Relating to Homeland Defense and Combating Terrorism.

Section 911. Oversight of Acquisition for Defense

Space Programs.

Sections 922. Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR)

Section 923. Delegation of OSD-Managed Programs to the DoD Components. (see

report language).

P

ublic Law 107-248, is the DoD Appropriations

Act for FY2003, at http://www.defenselink.mil/

dodgc/lrs/ or http://www.congress.gov/cgibin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.05010. (Also, see House

Report 107-732 at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgibin/cpquery/R?cp107:FLD010:@1(hr772).) 

Section 8077. Denies use of FY03 funds to approve

or license the sale of the F-22 advanced tactical aircraft to any foreign government.

Section 8088. Registering of DoD Financial Mission Critical or Mission Essential

Management.

Information Systems and Compliance of Those Systems with the Department’s Financial Management

Modernization Plan. 

Section 8118. Limitation on Navy-Marine Corps

Intranet.

Section 8121. Non-Line of Sight (NLOS) Cannon

Capability for Army’s Objective Force.

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

Highlights of the National Defense 

Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003

Acquisition Policy and Related Matters
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 11

CHECK OUT THE LATEST ISSUE OF 

ACQUISITION TODAY

OSD’S ONLINE NEWSLETTER

Complete issues of OSD’s online newsletter Acquisition Today and previous issues

of its predecessor publication, AR Today,

dating back to 1996, are now posted to

the Defense Acquisition University Web

site at http://www.dau.mil/ai_todaymag/default.html. The online abstract

shown here represents topics of interest

from the latest issue of Acquisition Today.
12 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 13

Fifteenth Annual International

Acquisition/Procurement Seminar —

Atlantic (IAPS-A)

June 23-27, 2003

Sponsored by the International Defense

Educational Arrangement (IDEA)

to be held at the

Defense Acquisition University/Defense

Systems Management College (DAU/DSMC)

THEME

Interoperability in the International Environment

For further information, contact any member

of the DAU-DSMC IDEA Team: (703) 805-5196

or

Visit our Web site:

http://www.dau.mil/international/international.htm

T

he Fifteenth Annual Acquisition/Procurement Seminar—

Atlantic (IAPS-A) will be a themebased format, to include an industry day; will provide for your

individual participation; and will provide

for positive information exchange and

feedback. The theme for this year’s seminar is “Interoperability in the International

Environment.”

The seminar is sponsored by the International Defense Educational Arrangement

(IDEA), which consists of defense acquisition educational institutions in the United

States, the United Kingdom, Germany,

France, and Spain.

Those eligible to attend are Defense Department/Ministry and defense industry

employees from the five sponsoring nations who are actively engaged in international defense acquisition programs.

Other nations may participate by invitation.

This year’s seminar will be held June 23-

27, 2003, at DAU/DSMC, Fort Belvoir,

Va. The last day of the seminar, June 27,

will be dedicated to the educational aspects of international acquisition.

The IAPS-A is by invitation only. Those

desiring an invitation who have not attended past international seminars should

submit a letter of request, on government

or business letterhead, to DSMC by fax

(703-805-3175).

To register, visit the seminar Internet Web

site at http://www.dau.mil/international/

international.htm.

Invitations, confirmations, and administrative instructions will be issued after May

1, 2003.

Contact an IDEA Team member for additional seminar information:

Comm (U.S.):

(703) 805-5196

E-Mail: internationalseminars@dau.mil
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

McPherson is in the Army Acquisition Corps

Competitive Development Group currently on assignment as the Engine Product Lead, Project

Management, Cargo Helicopters, Redstone Arsenal, Ala. He is a certified professional logistician

and holds a master's degree in Manufacturing

Technology from Eastern Kentucky University. 

SPACE PROGRAMS

Implementing Front-end Logistics

Support for NASA Program

Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (2GRLV)

Will Replace Space Shuttle as Nation’s Space

Transportation System

GARY MCPHERSON

14

R

ecently, I had an opportunity to

observe first hand implementation of front-end logistics support within the Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle

(2GRLV) program at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

(NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center

(MSFC). NASA could be considered a

sister Service since it was spun off from

the Army and they do business much

like the Department of Defense. My observations on the 2GRLV program follow. I hope that these may be of use to

Army program managers as well as the

acquisition logistics community at large.

A Replacement for the

Space Shuttle

The introduction to NASA's Integrated

Space Transportation Plan states, “The

overall goal of the 2GRLV program is to

substantially reduce technical and business risk associated with developing safe,

affordable, and reliable RLVs.” The

2GRLV program is currently in the Systems Engineering and Requirements Reduction phase. The program office is developing key technologies in several

major areas such as propulsion, airframe,

and flight mechanics. Major activities in

each of the technology areas include developing models, conducting architectural trade studies, and evaluating different concepts. All these activities emphasize minimizing life cycle cost. 

Three major contractors will present

their system concepts for evaluation in

mid-2003. These system concepts must

address not only the launch vehicle, but

all the resources required to support operation and sustainment of the vehicle

such as processing facilities, flight operations, and fleet size. Although the

contractors have been given maximum

NASA-developed artist’s concept of the Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle

(2GRLV). Photo courtesy NASA
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 15

freedom to create radically different concepts, the most likely concept seems to

be a two stage to orbit, fly-back vehicle.

New reusable kerosene first-stage engines are receiving some attention. 

The selected concept will be used as the

baseline for developing a replacement

system for the current Space Transportation System (commonly known as

the Space Shuttle). NASA is working

closely with the U.S. Air Force to identify areas for partnership in the 2GRLV

program.

Key Performance 

Parameters

As with the Department of Defense, NASA has experienced a

significant amount of “belt tightening” in its budgets. Thus, emphasis

has been placed on minimizing operating and support costs for all programs.

From the start of the requirements generation process, the 2GRLV program has

placed high priority on system supportability. The 2GRLV program charter, requirements document, and system management plan all place life cycle

cost and launch availability as key performance parameters. From the inception of the program, by assembling and

supporting the RMS Working Group,

the program office acknowledged the

importance of applying an integrated

Reliability, Maintainability, and Supportability (RMS) engineering and analysis approach. 

On the other hand, some program elements remain that could benefit from a

tutorial on RMS and its extensive influence on system availability and life cycle

cost, particularly in light of the fact that

failure to meet the program objectives

in these areas could be the basis for canceling the 2GRLV program.

RMS Analysis

The RMS Working Group has clearly

demonstrated a firm grasp of the RMS

disciplines, processes, and tools. This

tightly knit team is planning and performing RMS analysis early on, often referred to as front-end analysis. The

group's goal is to determine the expected

reliability of the system, the projected

maintenance requirements, and resultant support structure (repair levels,

spares, support equipment, facilities,

etc.).

Taking a proactive stance, the RMS

Working Group has moved aggressively

to develop an advanced RMS modeling

and analysis capability. They also have

established top-level RMS requirements

that supported achieving the program

goals, while still giving the competing

system contractors maximum freedom

to propose their system concepts. 

In addition, the group has identified the

RMS-related data products that would

be needed to properly evaluate and compare these system concepts. Taking their

efforts still further, they have also determined RMS analysis and evaluation

tasks, identified required input data, and

specified desired outputs. 

Besides conducting a thorough investigation of available software tools needed

to support the RMS analyses, the group

has assembled a baseline comparison

system database on the predecessor system, the Space Shuttle. This work of

identifying and acquiring the needed

data and tools lays the foundation for a

world-class RMS analysis and evaluation capability within the 2GRLV program for the next two design and development phases.

Planning is critical in any endeavor. The

RMS Working Group has meticulously

and expeditiously developed a detailed

plan of specific RMS-related programmatic and analysis tasks required in the

near term (12 months) and longer term

(two to five years). (The chart on p. 17

displays the RMS Schedule.) These tasks

were mapped to resource requirements

and placed on a timeline. The task participants, task lead, and required tools

were also displayed. Armed with this

information, the group was able to provide the program manager for 2GRLV

with a clear picture of RMS requirements. 

Team Interaction

The RMS Working Group has implemented the “team” concept well. All

RMS efforts are done within an integrated team of experts representing all

pertinent areas including RMS, safety,

mission assurance, and technical risk

management. Other experts are called

in as required. The team has good visibility within the program office and does

an excellent job of including the competing system contractors and engine

subcontractors. 

Given the dynamic nature of major programs, the RMS team has been implemented with flexibility in mind. In fact,

the team recently decided that coordination and team activity must become

more efficient in the future to allow more

time for RMS task execution. The open

communication and well-grounded relationships among team members will

smooth the way for such changes. 

One improvement would be to develop

a more integrated link between the RMS

engineers and the system engineers.

There are still system engineers who

doubt the need to consider RMS as equal

with performance, schedule, and cost

when making design trade-offs. AddiDennis E. Smith, manager of the

Second Generation Reusable

Launch Vehicle (2GRLV) Project

Office at NASA’s Marshall Space

Flight Center. Photo courtesy NASA

Marshall Space Flight Center
16 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

tional interaction is also needed between

the RMS and cost teams. Given that at

least 60 percent of the life cycle costs

will be from support of the system during its service life, it appears inconceivable that life cycle costs can be estimated

without the benefit of expertise and analytical results from the RMS community.

Concept Phase

During the concept phase of any major

system, data—the raw material for

analysis—are necessary to reduce program risk. The RMS team has done a

significant amount of data gathering.

Since no solid 2GRLV system concept

currently exists, most of these data come

from the predecessor system, the Space

Shuttle, and similar systems/subsystems

that are analogous to anticipated 2GRLV

concepts. 

Much of the analogous subsystem data

came from the Air Force. A significant

amount of analysis has already been

done to identify reliability and maintenance drivers on the existing Space Shuttle. The Program Office gathered lessons

learned and conducted root-cause analysis to ensure the 2GRLV program does

not repeat the mistakes of the past. 

Unfortunately, data voids still exist.

NASA chose not to buy the technical

data package for the Space Shuttle, and

no centralized database was ever developed for recording all the data pertinent

to Space Shuttle operations and support. Although expensive, establishing

a comprehensive logistics management

information database for the 2GRLV program would, in my view, create an effective and permanent data repository

for any type of RMS analysis throughout the life of the system.

The RMS team also did an excellent job

specifying RMS-related data required

from the contractor. For the 2GRLV program, these RMS data must be put on

the contract in order to reduce program

risk in the areas of life cycle cost and

launch availability. The team also fully

recognizes another important point. As

with other engineering data, RMS engineering data must be available for review during the design process because

such data yield little value as a design

tool when delivered at the end of contract. Feedback in the form of RMS data

is needed during the design process in

order for the RMS team to influence design and reduce program risk. Too often,

program offices fail to obtain interim access to emerging RMS data. 

Likewise, vendors often fail to give adequate attention to RMS during design,

and rush to create the RMS data as an

afterthought at the end of the contract.

The program office must set requirements and metrics that impress upon

vendors the importance of integrating

RMS in the overall system engineering

process from the beginning.

System Testing

In addition to obtaining RMS design

data in a timely manner, the acquisition

of adequate RMS-related test data is also

very important. The RMS data generated from engineering estimates will invariably have errors. The specific type

and extent of these errors can be found

either through actual test data or during the operational life of the system.

Although system testing is expensive,

discovery of problems during the system's service life is certainly more expensive in the long run. During engineering development, the RMS team will

request a supportability demonstration

and an adequate amount of test data to

validate the achievement of system RMS

requirements. RMS-related testing, however, customarily receives lower priority than other system test-data requirements. Since RMS will be a primary

determinant of most of life cycle cost (a

key parameter) for the 2GRLV, adequate

RMS-related testing should be conducted. The cost of such testing can be

minimized if RMS is integrated with

other system testing whenever possible.

The RMS Working Group has shown

innovation in the area of modeling and

simulation. It has already developed fault

trees for the Space Shuttle Main Engine

of the baseline comparison system Space

Shuttle. This subsystem is a major support cost driver for the Space Shuttle. A

maintainability model is under development that will assist in estimating vehicle turnaround time based on accessibility factors of the Space Shuttle and

comparative Air Force subsystems. 

Also, a partial Reliability Centered Maintenance model has been developed. An

ongoing process of developing additional models is taking place, and extensive use of discrete event simulation

is planned. The experience gained in

modeling Space Shuttle RMS will be

used to establish RMS goals, allocations,

and predictions for the 2GRLV system

concepts.

The RMS team should pursue further

promotion of its work. Marketing of

RMS accomplishments and the significance of its work must be done to ensure that program personnel and NASA

executives are aware of the benefits of

RMS among all the other program priorities and politics. Important for the

RMS team to remember is that persistence is the key. The 2GRLV must meet

its life cycle cost goals, and the only way

it can do this is through optimized RMS.

Even though the RMS community is

often seen as a bearer of bad news with

its “pay me now or pay me later” message, the system engineers must be

shown the impact of their decisions on

the life cycle cost of the system.

Cost Savings

A major mandate of the 2GRLV program

is to design a system which is much

cheaper than the current Space Shuttle.

The 2GRLV program has recently expressed concern over the viability of the

system due to the lack of evidence in

the contractor's concepts that cost is

being adequately attacked.

Recent redirection within the program

is an important step in saving the program from excessive life cycle cost. This

new guidance, provided by the program

manager, is a major thrust to consider

the entire system—not merely the vehicle—when developing new concepts

for replacing the Space Shuttle. The concept contractors and NASA engineers

will look at the entire support system

along with the vehicle. The program

manager interprets the support system
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 17

in a broad sense to include, but not limited to, facilities, training, support equipment, parts management, mission planning, and support of this entire support

system. The process of obtaining major

cost savings requires advances in many

support and technology areas as well as

keeping the system design simple and

robust, even if it adds weight to the vehicle.

Although the integrated RMS engineering and analysis approach will maximize the probability of achieving the

2GRLV life cycle cost and launch availability goals, some major cost drivers

exist for which significant improvements

must be realized to make the 2GRLV

successful.

Sustainment of Thermal

Protection System

Sustainment of Thermal Protection System (TPS) on the Space Shuttle is very

labor-intensive, and the materials are

too expensive. In addition, an excessive

amount of infrastructure is dedicated to

TPS maintenance and fabrication. A

more durable and longer life TPS material is required. The TPS components

must be standardized and made interchangeable, and extensive automated

diagnostics and prognostics capabilities

are needed. 

Development of

Maintenance Concept

Significant life cycle support costs can

be realized if a maintenance concept can

be devised that does not require extensive disassembly and inspection of all

the subsystems on the vehicle as is the

case with the Space Shuttle. The current Integrated Vehicle Health Monitoring (IVHM) project is trying to

achieve such a capability. 

Design to Existing Facilities

Another key to keeping costs down will

be a design that takes maximum advantage of existing support facilities.

Obtaining future funding for large-scale

construction projects similar to the existing Vehicle Assembly Building is unlikely. 

Sustainment and Readiness

The 2GRLV program must also ensure

that there will not be a need for a large

sustainment engineering force such as

with the Space Shuttle. Absolutely necessary is that the 2GRLV program adopt

a maintenance philosophy similar to that

used by the military to keep its aircraft

at high readiness; or even better, to emulate commercial airline operations. Unfortunately, this change may be fought

on the political front rather than in the

engineering community. Nonetheless,

without a major change in maintenance

philosophy, virtually certain is that the

2GRLV program will not meet its life

cycle cost requirement.

Autonomous Flight Operations

Although not an RMS issue, autonomous flight operations should also

be aggressively pursued. However, deRMS Schedule
18 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

spite the availability of proven technology, this is another politically charged

issue.

Performance-based Logistics

DoD has recently focused attention on

the concept of Performance-based Logistics (PBL). NASA has demonstrated

a similar focus. As with the DoD PBL

concept, the 2GRLV program manager

has set out to minimize total life cycle

cost while meeting system availability

requirements. The program office has

also made it clear that it intends to deliver a capability, not just a system. Performance will be based on both demonstrated technical capability and

supportability for the life of the system.

In so doing, the 2GRLV program office

is certainly in step with the PBL tenet of

designing a support system with equal

rigor as the rest of the system itself.

Tying contract incentives to these objectives is also important. In addition,

long-term product support providers

and system integrators must be selected

based on competition. Finally, implementing continuous improvement in

system supportability and reduction in

operating costs through dedicated investments in technology refreshment is

important throughout the life of the

2GRLV system. 

“-ilities”

The 2GRLV system engineers are focusing on the goal of overall system effectiveness since system effectiveness

goes beyond performance to include

RMS and cost. The 2GRLV program office and the RMS team must consider

other “-ilities” in its efforts to design and

deliver the objective 2GRLV capability. 

Suitability is the degree to which a system can be satisfactorily placed in use,

with consideration given to availability,

maintainability, safety, human factors,

logistics supportability, and environmental impacts. Suitability is a measure

of the overall utility of a system to the

customer. 

Dependability is the probability that a

system available at the start of a mission

will remain operable and capable of performing its required function at any

given time during a specified mission

profile. Influencing factors include reliability, maintainability, and supportability. 

Usability is the degree to which an operator can complete tasks effectively and

efficiently. It is concerned with functionality, ease of learning, ease of use,

and overall user satisfaction. 

Durability is the ability of the system to

resist wear, cracking, corrosion, deterioration, thermal degradation, etc., while

continuing to function as designed,

under specified conditions for a specified period.

Supportability

One area, often neglected in programs,

is computer resources support. Most

programs do not have the staff or availability of support organizations to properly address this complicated area of

supportability. Yet, given that any 2GRLV

concept will include extensive application of computers and software, significant resources (and cost) will be required to sustain all the automated

capabilities.

Computer resources support includes

maintenance and sustainment of all

computer hardware, firmware, and software on the 2GRLV vehicle as well as

on all ground support equipment and

other operations elements. During system design and development, it also includes test and evaluation hardware and

software. Computer resources support

will require its own supportability plan.

Support for computer hardware,

firmware, and related media will include

maintenance, supply support equipment, personnel, training, technical data,

facilities, packaging, handling, storage,

and transportability.

Software sustainment and upgrade will

require the same level of detailed planning. Unfortunately, past experience

shows that computer resources support

is the area that receives the least amount

of government insight. As a consequence, guidance to the contractor can

be inadequate, often resulting in large

cost overruns, schedule slippages, and

reactive workarounds. Actions must be

taken early in the program to avoid such

problems with computer resources.

Supportability Exchange

Program

The experience of working with the

NASA 2GRLV program office convinced

me of the need for an exchange program

between the supportability engineering

components of the Army at Redstone

Arsenal and the RMS team at the NASA

MSFC. Such an exchange program

would promote interagency cross-fertilization of concepts, techniques, and

lessons learned. It would also stimulate

creativity and synergy, and ultimately

advance RMS modeling and simulation

capabilities.

Editor's Note: The author welcomes

questions or comments on this article.

Contact McPherson at Gary.McPherson

@PeoAvn.Redstone.Army.Mil.

Defense Acquisition Management Framework 

Chart No Longer Available

T

he Defense Acquisition University will no

longer stock nor update the old Defense Acquisition Management Framework Chart. A

replacement chart reflecting the new 5000-series

changes is currently under design and will be issued once the 5000 documents are revised. As

a historical reference only, the obsolete chart can

still be found at http://www.dau.mil/pubs/chart

3000/ch_3000.asp.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 19

MARK YOUR CALENDARS NOW FOR THE

DEFENSE ACQUISITION UNIVERSITY ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

20T H ANNUAL ACQUISITION SYMPOSIUM 

JUNE 17-18, 2003

DEFENSE ACQUISITION

UNIVERSITY

SCOTT HALL, FORT BELVOIR, VA.

DELIVERING TODAY'S AND 

TOMORROW'S WARFIGHTING

CAPABILITIES 

THROUGH EVOLUTIONARY

ACQUISITION

LIKE TO GOLF?

If you do, don't forget to check out the 

pre-symposium golf tournament on 

Monday, June 16, 2003, at the

Fort Belvoir Golf Course.

Join senior Defense leaders and acquisition professionals to discuss

some of the most timely and pervasive topics in defense policy.

Gain up to 12 Continuous Learning Points and have your questions

answered by senior acquisition

leaders through a series of keynote

presentations, panels, and workshops designed to explore all aspects of Evolutionary Acquisition

and what it means for you.

For more information on topics,

speakers, and registration, visit the

DAUAA Web Page at www.dauaa.

org. If you don't have Internet access, contact the Association by

telephone at 703-960-6802/1-800-

755-8805, or by fax at 703-960-

6807.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Nieves is a Program Manager, Distributed Learning Team, Advanced Technology Solutions, Inc.

(ATSI)/DAU Center for e-Learning. Contributing authors are Michael Barclay, a training specialist in

the Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) Program Office;

Bob Faulk, Director, Continuous Learning Center/

DAU Center for e-Learning, Curricula Development

and Support Center (CDSC); Luis Ramirez, Director, Virtual Learning Center, DAU Center for eLearning; and Sharon Richardson, Director, DAU

Center for Business. 

DISTRIBUTED LEARNING

DAU Collaborates with Local

Organizations to Create Two New

Continuous Learning Modules

Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) Program •

Cost as an Independent Variable (CAIV)

KELLY NIEVES

20

O

ver the past decade, the Defense Acquisition University

(DAU) at Fort Belvoir, Va., has

worked diligently to develop

ways of harnessing the power

of the World Wide Web and deliver interactive course material online to the

Acquisition, Technology and Logistics

(AT&L) workforce. Recently, DAU completed development of online Continuous Learning (CL) modules on the Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) Program and

Cost as an Independent Variable (CAIV). 

The AT&L workforce can now access

information on JWOD and CAIV whenever and wherever they wish by logging

onto the DAU Continuous Learning

Center (CLC). This article will describe

how DAU collaborated with a local business and universities to develop these

JWOD and CAIV online modules.

DAU Continuous Learning Center

In 2001, DAU recognized that the AT&L

workforce needed “just in time” access

to current information on policies, procedures, and programs that impact their

ability to perform their jobs. In response
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 21

to that need, DAU created an online

CLC at http://clc.dau.mil.

DAU Professor Bob Faulk currently

serves as director of the CLC. Since it

was formally launched in July 2001, this

Web site has provided access to modules that members of the workforce can

access wherever and whenever they

need specific information on a wide

range of topics. To date, the CLC Web

site hosts 35 modules. The site also has

other capabilities that allow the workforce to collaborate on projects with others who are not physically located at

their customary work sites. DAU will

continue to leverage the power of this

Web site to serve the emerging training

and educational needs of the AT&L

workforce.

DAU Graduate Internship

Program

In 2001, it became increasingly evident

that it would be necessary for DAU to

find creative new ways to supplement

its limited resources to produce new CL

modules in a cost-effective manner. DAU

also wished to create mutually beneficial partnerships with local organizations.

To meet these e-Learning and organizational goals, DAU created a graduate

internship program. The goal would be

to establish relationships with local universities offering graduate programs in

education (specifically, in the areas of eLearning and online instructional technology), with the purpose of designing

and developing new online modules in

response to the professional development needs of the AT&L workforce.

Graduate students participating in this

internship work with DAU faculty, who

serve as Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

for the project. The SMEs ensure that

the content for the module is complete,

current, and accurate. They also work

with a mentor at DAU, Dr. Kelly Nieves,

who currently serves as Program Manager of the Distributed Learning (DL)

Team, through a contract with Advanced

Technology Solutions, Inc. (ATSI). She

and the DL Team provide support services for DAU’s Center for e-Learning.

Nieves works with the graduate interns

to ensure that the online module is instructionally sound and meets DAU’s

technical standards.

Each graduate intern’s semester project

is to work on a project to design and

develop an online CL module. The local

universities have the opportunity to partner with local organizations to ensure

that their graduate programs

of study are truly preparing

their students with the skills

required to succeed in their

chosen fields. Graduate students benefit from the opportunity to work on the analysis,

design, development, and production of e-Learning projects

by putting into practice what

they are learning through their

program of study. Thus, the

graduate internship program

is designed to provide a “winwin” situation for all participants.

Graduate students selected to

participate can choose to perform various tasks during their

internship.

Graduate interns can choose to work on

a specific portion of a CL module project. This work can include:

The Analysis and Design phases of the

project. Under this option, graduate interns are responsible to deliver a management plan detailing an analysis of

the target audience and learning objectives of the module. They also turn in

an outline of the lessons to be included

in the module and a prototype lesson

for the online CL module. The finished

design will, in all respects, be ready for

development and programming. Upon

Final versions of

both the JWOD and

CAIV modules were

completed and

uploaded onto the

DAU Continuous

Learning Center

Web site in

November 2002.

Members of the

AT&L workforce

can now access

these online

modules whenever

and wherever they

wish by logging

onto the site at

http://clc.dau.mil.
T

hroughout the design, development, and evaluation of the online JWOD and CAIV modules,

both teams paid particular attention

to issues impacting how disabled

users access these sites. The teams

were focused on this area for two important reasons.

• Because DAU is a federal agency,

all online material that it develops,

procures, and maintains must be

fully accessible to disabled users.

• The JWOD and CAIV teams were

trained to comply with these requirements as established by Section 508, a 1998 amendment to the

Rehabilitation Act of 1973 so that

all individuals—both disabled and

non-disabled—will have equal

opportunities to access information

from the online JWOD module.

Accessibility issues were particularly

important in the case of this particular project, since JWOD’s mission

is to support the educational and employment needs of the blind. 

DISABLED USER

ACCESSIBILITY

22 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

sponsible for all deliverables associated

with the Analysis, Design, Development,

and Implementation phases of the projects as described previously.

In the past year, DAU has worked with

faculty and students from the graduate

schools of education of two universities

in the Washington, D.C. area: George

Mason University (http://www.it.gse.

gmu.edu/) and Towson University

(http://wwwnew.towson.edu/coe/depart

ments/istcprgram). These partnerships

have proven successful in the design and

development of engaging and informative online CL modules.

Javits-Wagner-O’Day

(JWOD) Program

In 2002, DAU began working with the

JWOD Program Office. Located in Arlington, Va., the JWOD Program is a

public–private partnership administered

by the Committee for Purchase From

People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled. An independent federal agency

composed of 15 members—all appointed by the President—the Committee has designated two national nonprofit organizations to assist in the

operation of the JWOD Program: National Industries for the Blind (NIB) and

National Industries for the Severely

Handicapped (NISH), serving people

with a wide range of disabilities.

Over 14 million Americans live with severe disabilities, and the unemployment

rate for that segment of the population

is 70 percent. The JWOD Program helps

people with disabilities who are unable

to obtain or maintain employment on

their own.

Michael Barclay, a contributing author

for this article and training specialist at

JWOD, spent six months assigned to

the DAU Virtual Learning Center and

worked closely with the faculty and staff

on the JWOD module. Though his primary objective was to support DAU’s efforts to encourage acquisition professionals to support the JWOD program,

he also had time to engage and support

other DL efforts. Barclay’s work at DAU

directly supported JWOD’s mission to

educate federal customers about their

requirement to purchase products and

services made available by nonprofit

agencies across the country employing

such individuals.

JWOD Module

To expedite dissemination of information on the JWOD program to acquisition professionals throughout the AT&L

workforce, Barclay and the Center for

e-Learning staff leveraged DAU’s CLC

Web site. To begin, they set a goal of creating an online JWOD module by August 2002. Given the demanding schedule and lack of available resources, they

requested the assistance of a graduate

intern for this project.

During the spring 2002 semester, Barclay and Nieves analyzed learning needs,

target audience, and overall objectives

for the module. By June 2002, they had

designed the structure of the module

and identified learning strategies. They

also began designing the HTML template to be used in the prototype lesson

of the module.

During the summer 2002 semester, a

graduate intern was identified to work

on the JWOD project. Sean Young of

Towson University spent July and August working with the JWOD team at

DAU. They redesigned the layout and

navigation of the template for the module to make it more interactive and userfriendly. Pages of content scripts were

turned into storyboards that were evaluated by both DAU and JWOD staff.

Graphics were carefully selected to support and enhance the learning experience of the end-user.

The JWOD team also worked together

to determine the final design considerations for the layout of the lessons for

the module. It was decided that the

module would be divided into five

lessons:

• Introduction—A brief overview of the

JWOD program.

• Purchase Card—Information that will

help purchase card users gain a better understanding of the process of

buying products and services from

the JWOD program. 

acceptance, DAU proposes that 3 credits be granted for the semester. This

course may be a project, seminar, or internship format.

The Development and Implementation

phases of the project. Under this option,

graduate interns develop scripts, graphics, storyboards, and tools (e.g., site map

and Frequently Asked Questions) for

the entire CL module in HTML/Java

Script, adhering to DAU’s technical standards for online material. The graduate

intern will also be responsible to work

with DAU faculty and Center for eLearning staff to make arrangements to

have the newly completed CL module

uploaded onto the CLC Web site.

Graduate interns can also choose to

complete work on all phases of a CL

module project. In this case, they are re-
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 23

• Contracting—Information that will

provide acquisition professionals with

a better understanding of the JWOD

contracting process. 

• FAQs—Frequently Asked Questions.

• Contact Us—Contact information for

JWOD and technical assistance.

CAIV Module

In spring 2002, DAU also identified the

need to create an online CL module on

Cost as an Independent Variable (CAIV).

Sharon Richardson, Director of the Center for Business at DAU’s Curricula Development Support Center (CDSC), realized that the most current information

on CAIV was located in various sources;

many of the AT&L workforce who

needed CAIV resources did not know

where to go to get the most current and

comprehensive information on DoD

5000 regulations regarding CAIV.

Richardson also realized that AT&L

workforce members across the United

States needed access to the most current application-based learning. She

recommended that DAU design and

develop an online CL module on CAIV

that could be hosted on DAU’s CLC

Web site. 

Richardson agreed to serve as Subject

Matter Expert (SME) on the project.

DAU suggested that she work with

Nieves in identifying a graduate student

to develop this module through the

graduate intern program. Lisa Knudson

of George Mason University set the ambitious goal that she would complete all

tasks related to the design and development of the CAIV module over two

months in summer 2002. Essentially,

Knudson agreed to do a six-credit internship, which entailed full-time work

over July and August 2002 to complete

her assignment.

Readily apparent to the CAIV team was

the extensive amount of work required

to complete the project during summer 2002. Accordingly, the team’s first

priority was to create a project schedule. Next, they spent the rest of July

doing the analysis and design tasks.

Richardson and Knudson worked

closely together to identify learning objectives, target audience description,

and a layout of the lessons for the module. They also designed the template

and prototype lesson for the online

module, identifying graphics and images that they wished to include in the

lessons as well.

The CAIV team also worked together to

determine the final design considerations for layout of the module’s five

lessons:

• Objectives—Objectives of the Module and Instructions on how to use

the site; history of CAIV and why it’s

used.

• Background—The evolution and history of CAIV and some basic definitions.

• Life Cycle—The Life Cycle Cost description and model.

• Essentials—The stakeholders, process,

Risk Management, and CAIV tools.

• Assessment—Three CAIV Scenarios

to evaluate what users have learned. 

A major portion of July 2002 was also

spent working on preliminary tasks associated with the development of the

module. The CAIV team knew that they

would have to locate current information on CAIV from a variety of sources.

Once they found that data, they had to

assimilate it all into a concise text that

would present the information to DAU

learners in organized and comprehensible lessons.

Given the availability of a vast amount

of complex information on CAIV, they

knew that writing the text for the module would be challenging. Toward that

end, they spent many hours going

through material and organizing it into

lessons. After the text was developed

into basic storyboards—which Richardson and Nieves reviewed and edited—

at this point, they were ready to create

programmed lessons.

Programming the JWOD and

CAIV Modules

The most laborious portion of the development phase of the JWOD and

CAIV projects was the development of

the programmed lessons in HTML/Java

Script. The long hours and hard work,

however, ultimately paid off as the teams

began to observe the modules progress

from concept to production.

Matt Iannitto, a computer programmer

working for ATSI as an undergraduate

intern, also joined the module teams.

Through Iannitto’s efforts, navigation

links were programmed to help learners quickly access the information they

needed. He also programmed Next and

Back buttons as well as external links to

useful Web sites. Graphics, pictures, and

other images were chosen and, at times,

developed originally by the JWOD team

and DAU staff. 

To help users find their way around the

modules, three color-coded navigation

Graduate students

benefit from the

opportunity to

work on the

analysis, design,

development, and

production of eLearning

projects...thus, the

graduate

internship program

is designed to

provide a “winwin” situation for

all participants.
24 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

bars were developed. A blue navigation

bar at the top displays active links to the

start of each lesson in the module. A yellow navigation bar at the top displays

active links to the start of each topic

within the lessons. Links from a red navigation bar at the top of the screen direct users to other supporting online

material for the modules, with information such as Assessment Items, Resources, Links, as well as Regulations

and Policies.

The CAIV team also developed additional supporting online material for

their module (also accessed via active

links from the red navigation bar at the

top of the screen). Such material included a site map and Frequently Asked

Questions. Like the JWOD team, they

also spent many hours carefully choosing graphics and images to enhance the

learning experience of the end-user. 

By the middle of August, a draft of the

programmed lessons for all lessons and

supplemental material for the JWOD

and CAIV modules was complete. Barclay and the JWOD staff carefully reviewed the content in all of the programmed lessons. Richardson and other

faculty from the Capital and Northeast

Region campus at Fort Belvoir reviewed

the CAIV module. Nieves also reviewed

the draft of both modules from an instructional and technical point of view.

Faulk also closely monitored the

progress of both projects.

By the end of August 2002, all reviewers for alpha versions of the JWOD and

CAIV modules were satisfied that the

modules were educationally sound and

met all of the learning objectives that

the developers had set out to accomplish. 

The JWOD and CAIV teams also requested additional reviewers look at the

beta versions of the modules and provide feedback to ensure that the modules would meet the learning needs of

the AT&L workforce. The beta tests were

conducted in September 2002.

Since both graduate interns had completed more than the required hours for

their projects and actually had returned

to their teaching jobs and new graduate courses, they were not available for

more work on the modules. Therefore,

Nieves and the ATSI staff worked with

Barclay and Richardson to complete the

final editing and revisions required on

the modules during September and October 2002.

Final versions of both the JWOD and

CAIV modules were completed and uploaded onto the DAU CLC in November 2002. Members of the AT&L workforce can now access these online

modules whenever and wherever they

wish by logging onto the DAU CLC.

A Unique Collaboration

DAU fully understands that creating engaging and effective online instructional

material requires bringing together individuals with an array of perspectives

and talents. Once the Center for e-Learning at DAU decided to create online

modules for the JWOD Program and

CAIV, it leveraged the skills and expertise of its faculty and contractor support

staff. The Center also established and

fostered relationships with a business

and two universities in the local Washington, D.C. area. These partnerships

resulted in a unique collaboration of

strong teams who worked together to

accomplish development of the JWOD

and CAIV modules on time, while making maximum use of all available resources.

Because of their collaborative efforts, acquisition professionals and individuals

with disabilities now have access to complete information on the products and

services offered by JWOD, as well as information on JWOD’s dedicated work in

support of individuals with disabilities.

One-stop shopping is also now a reality

for those in the AT&L workforce who

need resources with the most current and

comprehensive information on CAIV.

Editor’s Note: See p. 61 for information

on DAU’s newest module, Reducing

Total Ownership Costs. To learn more

about the DAU Continuous Learning

Center, visit the CLC Web site at

http://clc.dau.mil. 

IN MEMORIAM

Joseph A. “Joe” Drelicharz

T

he Defense Acquisition

University has received

word of the death of

Joseph A. “Joe” Drelicharz on

Dec. 18, 2002, due to an apparent heart attack.

Joe joined the Defense Systems

Management College (DSMC)

in November 1982 as a Professor of Engineering Manage -

ment, School of Program Management Division, at Fort

Belvoir, Va. Prior to joining

DSMC, Joe worked for 15 years

as a senior staff member of the

Plans and Analysis Office, Technical Director, Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory, Port

Hueneme, Calif. 

In January 1999, Joe retired

from federal civilian service and

entered private industry. At the

time of his death, he was employed by Cherokee Systems,

in Crystal City, Va.

Joe was a graduate of DSMC's

Program Management Course

(PMC 87-1). He is survived by

his wife, Carol, of Springfield,

Va.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 25

2003

ANNUAL PROGRAMS REVIEW

The Precision Strike Community's

best forum on Programs supporting

Precision Engagement will be held

29-30 April 2003

Transformational

Roadmaps:

The Future of 

Precision

Engagement

Scott Hall, Howell Auditorium 

DEFENSE ACQUISITION UNIVERSITY

FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Lt. Gen. James E. Cartwright, USMC—

(J-8) The Joint Staff

Other Confirmed Participants 

Lt. Gen. Michael A. Hough, USMC—

Deputy Commandant for Aviation, HQ USMC

Harry Schulte—Senior Acquisition Executive, USSOCOM 

PEO Panel—Service Weapons PEOs

Test & Evaluation Panel—Key Members of 

DoD Test Community

Military Department Briefings on Precision 

Engagement Systems

Knowledge, 

Networking, 

and Access to 

Key Decision 

Makers

For Information and to Register: www.precisionstrike.org
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Cavoli is a freelance writer for Program Manager

Magazine. She also publishes OSD’s online

newsletter, AI Today.

INTERNATIONAL ACQUISITION

Fourth International Acquisition/

Procurement Seminar—Pacific (IAPS-P)

Concepts for Developing Defense Industry

CHRISTINA CAVOLI

26

T

he Fourth International Acquisition/Procurement Seminar–Pacific (IAPS-P), was originally

scheduled for September 2001.

Regrouping after the events of

9/11, the fourth seminar was held Sept.

23-26, 2002, at the Defense Acquisition

University/Defense Systems Management College (DAU/DSMC), Fort

Belvoir, Va. The 2002 seminar focused

on cooperative programs and international acquisition practices and training.

“Concepts for Developing

Defense Industry”

Sponsoring this year’s event were

DAU/DSMC, the Australian Defence

Force Academy (ADFA), the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), the

Korea Association of Defense Industry

Studies (KADIS), and the Singapore

Ministry of Defense (MINDEF).

Participation was by invitation only, and

extended to Defense Department/Ministry and defense industry employees

from the sponsoring nations who are

actively engaged in international defense

acquisition programs. For the first time,

Japan participated and provided a national presentation delivered by a representative of the Japan Defense Agency.

The theme for the 2002 conference was

“Concepts for Developing Defense Industry” with a concentration on global

suppliers, offsets, commercial technology, assurance of supply, and residual

capability. Presentations included “The

Future Security Environment in the Pacific,” “Trans-Pacific Cooperation,” “Acquisition Training,” and “Promoting/Restricting Arms Exports.”

Keynote Address

The keynote speech was to be delivered

by E.C. “Pete” Aldridge Jr., Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD[AT&L]). Due

to a last-minute scheduling conflict,

Aldridge was unable to attend. Aldridge’s

speech, delivered in absentia by Alfred

Volkman, Director, International Cooperation, USD(AT&L), centered on the

acquisition challenges facing all countries—the globalization of industry and

technology, the demands of 21st Century warfare, and defense industry consolidation.

Volkman stressed the increasing importance of emerging technology, classifying the war against terrorism as

“techno-centric,” meaning technology

is mandatory in finding and exploiting

the weaknesses of terrorists. “The war

on terror is most assuredly a coalition

effort,” he said, “and collective efforts

have already led to a safer world.”

National Presentations were a highlight of the Fourth International Acquisition/Procurement

Seminar—Pacific (IAPS-P), held at Fort Belvoir, Va., Nov. 23-26, 2002. From left: National

Presenter Army Colonel Won Mo Jung, Director of Acquisition Policy Division, Republic of

Korea, Ministry of Defense (ROK MND); Seminar Director Richard Kwatnoski, International

Department, DAU/DSMC; National Presenter Wendy Steele, Defence Materiel Attaché from

the Embassy of Australia in Washington; National Presenter Hiroshi Waguri, Deputy Director,

Equipment Coordination Division, Bureau of Finance and Equipment, Japan Defense Agency

(JDA); National Presenter Alfred Volkman, Director, International Cooperation, USD(AT&L);

and National Presenter Quek Pin Hou, Director of Defense Procurement, Singapore.

Photos by Army Sgt. Kevin Moses
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 27

To continue the effort, Volkman emphasized the need to share access to high

technology among nations in the coalition to reduce costs and lay the groundwork for interoperability. 

The Joint Strike Fighter was cited as a

successful example of international cooperation from a systems development

level. The project involved research and

development money from several countries and resulted in the finest strike

fighter in the world at a fraction of the

cost for each country involved. This type

of multilateral cooperation was called

“a blueprint for missile defense development cooperation.”

Volkman also stressed the importance

of “in-kind” commitments in addition

to monetary cooperation in the form of

training, testing facilities, radar sites, etc. 

Observing that rapid deployment was

a must for 21st Century warfare, Volkman noted the existing interoperability

gap between the United States and coalition countries, and insisted that now is

the time to unify efforts to create lighter,

faster, interoperable systems. He went

on to say that 21st Century warfare won’t

be fought in countries with large standing armies; that there is now a mandate

to create light, fast, flexible defense. “No

one can do it alone,” he said. “A coalition is necessary for logistics.” 

DAU Welcome

DAU President Frank J. Anderson Jr.,

welcomed those assembled, noting that

he looked forward to hearing the national presentations. He

talked about how the University is participating in

the fundamental transformation of the Department

of Defense. “Our transformation has already

begun,” said Anderson,

“by taking steps to become more agile, quicker

to respond to the customer, and increasing the

University’s outreach programs by using high-tech

tools like distance learning.”

The skill sets required by the

new business environment of

the 21st Century, he said, “can

no longer be served by the

traditional training methods

of the 20th Century.” 

DAU, Anderson noted, is

looking to the future and has

re-engineered the University

organizational structure to increase emphasis on speed

and accuracy of course development; collocated DAU

teaching facilities where the

DoD AT&L workforce is concentrated; provided job-specific performance support; and deployed

e-Learning initiatives.

“We have rapidly incorporated modernization initiatives,” he said, “to add

value to our learning products for our

customers.”

National Presentations

On the first day of the seminar, policylevel presentations were given by representatives from each of the sponsoring countries and Japan concerning their

respective national policies on international acquisition/procurement. A panel

discussion with the presenters ended

the day, including a question-andanswer session. 

Taken as a whole, the presentations reveal a group of countries with militaries

that differ greatly in size, budget, mission, and strengths, yet all share many

overriding concerns: interoperability,

technological advancement, commercialization, budget constraints. Additionally, emerging from the presentations was a newly focused concentration

DAU President Frank J. Anderson Jr., presents an overview of

DAU’s Transformation to meet

the training and education

needs of the 21st Century. 

Wendy

Steele, Defence Materiel

Attaché, Embassy of Australia

in Washington. “You can play policy

until the cows come home,” said Steele,

“but implementation is the key.”

Army Colonel Won

Mo Jung, Director of

Acquisition Policy Division, Republic of

Korea, Ministry of Defense. Of particular

concern to the ROK

MND, he told the delegates, is the

increased need for

high-technology systems, creating escalating costs at a time

of decreasing

budgets.
28 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

on uniting efforts to combat the war

against terrorism. 

Australia Department of Defence

National Presentation

The national presentations began with

“Conclusions for Developing an International Defence Industry” by Wendy

Steele, Defence Materiel Attaché from

the Embassy of Australia in Washington. Steele focused on the importance

of implementing industrial partnerships

to ensure defence capabilities and readiness. “You can play policy until the cows

come home,” she said, “but implementation is the key.”

Since a significant reform effort in the

1990s, the Australian Department of

Defence has implemented a strategic approach to developing industry relationships, including relocating closer to the

support teams and industry, and performing sector studies. In order to adhere to a policy that dictates its Department of Defence remain largely

self-reliant, Australia has increased reliance on local industry, linking procurement needs and long-term demand

to industry sustainable outcomes by ensuring industry retains key production

capabilities and critical skill sets, regardless of the current economic trend.

“A project-by-project approach doesn’t

work,” stated Steele. “A strategic approach is needed in setting industrial

policy.” 

Republic of Korea, Ministry of

Defense National Presentation

Army Colonel Won Mo Jung, Director

of Acquisition Policy Division, Republic of Korea, Ministry of Defense (ROK

MND), delivered a talk on “ROK

Weapons Acquisition Policy.” Of particular concern to the ROK MND is the

increased need for high-technology systems, creating escalating costs at a time

of decreasing budgets.

To address the problem, the MND has

focused on 78 areas of critical technology, and increased their Research and

Development (R&D) allotment from 4.5

percent of the defense budget to 10 percent. By prioritizing an R&D capability,

the MND hopes to improve domestic

production of technology. When local

procurement is not feasible, adopting

principles of open competition and ensuring that the acquisition process is

transparent and fair are also strategies

currently being employed to capture

more efficient and economical results. 

Singapore Ministry of Defense

National Presentation

The Singapore representative, Director

of Defense Procurement Quek Pin Hou,

presented “Defense Procurement in Singapore: Value Creation and Enhancement.” Based on its geo-political situation and the country’s stable economy,

the small Southeast Asian country—

“somewhat smaller at high tide,” said

Quek—has focused on developing and

nurturing their defense capabilities.

Technology, he emphasized, is viewed

as the force multiplier to compensate

for Singapore’s size and space limitations. “While technology advances us

to a leading edge,” stated Quek, “procurement advances give us a competitive edge.”

The Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) has

combined technology with business initiatives to create new procurement methods such as the online reverse auction,

introduced in January of 2001. Using

this system, the government buys from

suppliers with the lowest bid in a live,

online auction (in contrast with a traditional, formal auction starting with

the highest bid).

Up to 12 percent in savings have been

realized through this method. Other examples include online e-catalogs and

the enterprise e-procurement systems

to facilitate Web-based online sourcing. 

United States Department of

Defense National Presentation

Volkman also delivered the U.S. National

Presentation, entitled “Armaments Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific Region: The

U.S. Perspective.” Starting with the most

elemental question—why the U.S. wants

cooperation in this region—Volkman

stressed the operational, economic, and

technical reasons, including interoperability, reduced research and development costs, and access to the best technology that each country has to offer.

Additionally, Volkman added political

reasons: strengthening allied relationships and sustaining the ability and willingness to act together when threatened. 

Interoperability was presented as a major

concern and necessitated information

sharing with allies. Volkman recognized

that a cultural change is needed to facilitate doing business in a new way, to

shift the mentality from business-asusual to international cooperation. He

also warned that armaments cooperaHiroshi Waguri, Deputy Director, Equipment

Coordination Division, Bureau of Finance

and Equipment, Japan Defense Agency

(JDA). The nature of current events, according to Waguri, is changing [Japan’s] defense

orientation from peacekeeping and prevention of conflicts, to a proactive dispersal of

forces to support the United States and allies

in the war against terrorism.

Donna Richbourg, former Principal Deputy

Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, OUSD(AT&L).
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 29

tion is necessary to ensure European

and other allies are not marginalized. 

Citing Kosovo as an example, Volkman

outlined how the superiority of the U.S.

capabilities in that situation resulted in

U.S. forces undertaking almost all of the

difficult missions; and when working

with allies being forced into the uncomfortable position of having to reduce capabilities to the lowest common

denominator. The United States, he cautioned, can’t be in alliances if the capability gap is too huge.

Japan Defense Agency

National Presentation

The final national presentation was delivered by Hiroshi Waguri, Deputy Director, Equipment Coordination Division, Bureau of Finance and Equipment,

Japan Defense Agency (JDA). Presenting “Outline of the Organization, Policy and Acquisition of the Japanese Defense Agency,” Waguri began with the

ways in which the JDA is a remarkably

different organization than the defense

establishments of the other presenting

countries. 

By its own constitution, Japan cannot

seek to be a military power, and therefore operates an exclusively defense-oriented policy with the desire to develop

a moderate defense capability. Yet, the

nature of current events is changing their

defense orientation from peacekeeping

and prevention of conflicts, to a proactive dispersal of forces to support the

United States and allies in the war

against terrorism.

Japan has an active pledge to support

the United States in anti-terrorism efforts. As the nature of the JDA changes,

Waguri predicted a change in the procurement process would be necessary

as well, stating that the current acquisition system precluded planning for future needs and evolving circumstances. 

Other Conference Events

Industry presentations were given on

the second day, featuring representatives

from Lockheed-Martin, the Boeing Company, and Northrop Grumman. A Government/Industry Panel followed the

presentations. Presentations on the following day covered a variety of technical topics, from Advanced Concept

Technology Demonstrations to the Small

Smart Bomb Flight Test, the Foreign

Comparative Test, the Collins Submarine, and the Australian 737 AEW&C

[Airborne Early Warning and Control]

Wedgetail. 

The final day of the seminar began with

a DAU presentation on acquisition and

program manager training. A significant

message to DAU’s international customers was the process of how to access

DAU’s distance learning and continuous learning courses. 

Continuous Learning Center

Professor Bob Faulk currently serves as

Director of the DAU Continuous Learning Center (CLC). Since it was formally

launched in July 2001, this Web site at

http://clc.dau.mil has provided access

to modules that can be accessed wherever and whenever customers need specific information on a wide range of topics. 

To date, the CLC Web site hosts 35

modules. The site also has other capabilities that allow the workforce to collaborate on projects with others who are

not physically located at their customary work sites. DAU will continue to

leverage the power of this Web site to

serve the emerging training and educational needs of the AT&L workforce.

Virtual Campus

In addition, DAU also hosts a Virtual

Campus Web site at https://dau1.fedworld.gov/dau/index.htm where Defense Acquisition University/DAU 2003

Catalog information and educational

materials are readily available. Also offered at this Web site are many online

classes servicing the entire acquisition

community. 

Future Events

The International Acquisition/Procurement Seminars give defense procurement professionals an opportunity to

actively engage with their counterparts

in foreign countries, exchange best practices, and work on areas for possible future collaboration. The Atlantic version

of the conference held its 14th seminar

last year in Paris, France, with participation from France, Germany, Spain,

the United Kingdom, and the United

States, among others. The Pacific conference is a newer event, now in its

fourth year, and is tentatively scheduling a fifth seminar to take place in Australia in 2003. 

Editor’s Note: For more information on

annual international seminars, visit

http://www.dsmc.dsm.mil/international/

international.htm.

Check Out

Integrated DoD

Guide to

Performance-Based

Packaging Practices

at

www.acq.osd.mil/

ar/#newpack
30 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

F ROM O U R R EADERS

I

n the September-October 2002 issue of

Program Manager, Rear Admiral (Ret)

Freeman responded to articles that appeared in the May-June 2002 issue. It

is somewhat difficult to tell whether he

was responding only to my article [“Evolutionary Acquisition,” p. 6, May-June 2002

Program Manager], or to several, but as I was

the only author named, I guess it falls upon

me to respond.

Please note that this is not a knee-jerk reaction to criticism, I happen to understand

and, to some degree, agree with the comments made by Admiral Freeman. He is certainly correct, that 7 of the 8 roadblocks

have been around since the ’70s. That being

the case doesn’t change the fact that these

remain roadblocks for evolutionary acquisition strategies. In fact, these 7 are roadblocks for almost all types of acquisition

strategies.

Admiral Freeman addresses my problem

with changing requirements, but may not

have fully understood my point. He states,

“[W]e still have not learned how to write

specifications for a product that remains

fixed during the life of a procurement.” He

is correct that products cannot stand still

during the life of a procurement, particularly if the service life of these products lasts

10 years and longer. But that wasn’t the focus

of my consequence No. 5. 

The problem is requirements creep during

the development of these products. Again,

if acquisition cycles run 7 to 10 years, the

problem is obvious; but, if we can shorten

these cycles to 1 to 4 years, changing requirements in mid-stream will only push us

back to what we had before. The changes

in requirements may then be addressed by

modifications during production, or by

changing the requirements for the next increment of acquisition, which will begin in

a reasonable period of time as opposed to

decades.

I agree that the lure of new technology tends

to take on a life of its own. If we don’t need

a new widget, we shouldn’t buy a new widget. And if a program isn’t going to accomplish what it is supposed to, we should shut

it down before it wastes a lot of time and resources.

“Lately, in my

opinion, those

[shifting winds of

acquisition policy]

have started to blow

in the right direction.

And as a workinglevel grunt, I greatly

appreciate Admiral

Freeman’s final

remarks, ‘Really train

and educate the

managers—and then

get out the way and

let them work.’”
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 31

F ROM O U R R EADERS

The requirements process does have to

change though. Yes, there are many voices

involved now in the requirements process.

The result is requirements that require 7 to

10 years’ development to fulfill. If the requirements process includes a sanity check

so that the requirements and acquisitions

strategies match up with each other, we can

get on with the process of getting the

warfighters what they require.

We do need evolutionary acquisition, but it

is a tool like any other. It doesn’t apply to

all acquisitions, but in some cases it can help

balance the problems of schedule vs. cost

vs. requirements. That is part of the art of

acquisition that Admiral Freeman so rightly

discusses in his final paragraph.

Admiral Freeman is also correct that we keep

changing horses in mid-stream, reacting to

the latest crises, or responding to the ideas

of a new administration, before reforms have

a chance to prove themselves for better or

worse. But reforms also fail because people

don’t give them a chance, preferring to stick

with the checklists that they’ve used since

time immemorial.

We need to change, but not for the sake of

change. We need to adapt to changing times

and conditions. I’ve been in DoD acquisition since 1983, and we’re doing better now

then we did back then. But we still have a

ways to go. I take my position seriously, and

view it as my obligation to serve the warfighters and, by extension, this nation, in the best

way I know how. Most of the people I have

worked with over the past 20 years have the

same view. 

I’m also a working-level grunt, doing the

best I can to respond to the shifting winds

of acquisition policy passed down by the

high-level policy people in OSD and the respective Services. But lately, in my opinion,

those winds have started to blow in the right

direction. And as a working-level grunt, I

greatly appreciate Admiral Freeman’s final

remarks, “Really train and educate the managers—and then get out the way and let

them work.”

As to the lack of historical context in my article, well Admiral Freeman was right; there

wasn’t any. But I was trying to make a certain set of points, and the article was long

enough as it was. It was not meant to be a

scholarly treatise, but an opinion piece.

—Alexander R. Slate

Acquisition Center of Excellence

Brooks AFB, Texas
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Haraburda is the Assistant Project Manager for

the Newport Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in

Newport, Ind., where several tons of VX nerve

agent will be destroyed. He holds an M.S. and

Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State

University and is a registered Professional Engineer

(PE) in the State of Indiana.

32

T

he Chemical Stockpile Disposal

Program (CSDP) is a U.S. Army

program implemented to achieve

destruction of the nation’s stockpile of chemical warfare agents

by April 29, 2007. In support of that

program the Newport Chemical Agent

Disposal Facility (NECDF) is being designed to neutralize the chemical nerve

agent VX that is stockpiled in bulk quantities at the Newport Chemical Depot

(NECD), Newport, Ind. This low-temperature and low-pressure neutralization process provides an alternative to

the baseline incineration technology previously selected by the Army for chemical warfare agent disposal.

A Brief History

During the first couple of years, the project manager for the NECDF project had

regularly received massive amounts of

project-related data from the project

management team. Additionally, the

team would provide data and expect the

project manager to: 1) interpret the information, 2) identify the major issues

and concerns, and 3) provide direction

to solve the issues. On a project of this

magnitude, their expectations translated

into a very time-consuming task for the

project manager and a distinct distraction from managing the project’s more

critical areas. 

To improve communications between

the project manager and members of

the project management team, an improved method for applying performance metrics on the project was developed. This involved the following:

• Selecting key areas on the project to

be assessed periodically using the improved method. As an example, the

following nine project areas were selected: construction, contracting, cost,

design, environmental, operations,

safety, scheduling, and staffing.

• Appointing individuals, such as subject matter experts, to monitor and

maintain the metrics for the key areas

selected.

• Developing an effective performance

metric for each key area.

The dashboard, which is similar to the one used in

an automobile, has the intent of showing

managers the status of their projects in a quick

glance. Just like the speedometer on a car’s

dashboard, which gives a valid metric on the

“real-time” speed of the car, a project

performance metric should provide useful and

timely information to managers.

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

Newport Chemical Agent Disposal

Facility Project Management Team

Leveraging Fidelity of Performance-Based

Metric Tools for Project Management

SCOTT S. HARABURDA
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 33

• Creating a four-block page that summarizes the important information for

each area.

• Establishing a single dashboard page

that visually highlights the overall status of the project.

Performance-Based Metrics

The basic functions of project management involve planning, organizing, controlling, and directing human efforts.

Managers should use performance-based

metrics as a tool to assist the project

manager in these basic functions.

Using just any metrics may 

result in a situation creating the illusion that managers are being effective. In essence, using the correct

metrics is very important. To ensure

that the correct metrics are being

used, managers need to understand

the type of metric being used and 

the source of the data used in the

metric.

First, the type of metric used is important so that managers can use it to influence the project, as required, to ensure that necessary tasks are

accomplished. To facilitate their efforts,

managers could look at a process in

terms of its three elements: Input, Work,

and Results. These elements can be portrayed as functions that depict the interface between the three groups of people within the project: suppliers, the

customer, and the project manager/

leader (Figure 1).

The type of metric selected should fall

within the interfaces between the three

groups of people, as they fit into the

three elements of the project process.

Inputs

Resources. This refers to the amount

and quality of the items used by the project, such as staffing, materials, equipment, tools, utilities, etc.

Controls. This refers to the methods and

means by which the project manager

influences the way work is done. An

example of this would include operating procedures, standards, and

schedules.

Work

Process. This refers to the way work is

done for the project. This includes the

efficiency of the work and the compliance with the project’s operating procedures/standards.

Output. This refers to the amount, quality, and timeliness of the products and

services provided by the project. This is

typically supplied to the customer of the

project.

Results

Feedback. This refers to the perception

of the customers—how they view the

project as determined by the demands

they place upon the products (output).

The use of surveys (proactive) could be

used in addition to customer complaints

(reactive).

Outcome. This refers to the customer’s

benefits from the products and services

resulting from the project.

Understanding the Source

Finally, the project manager should understand the source of the data for the

selected metric. To be effective, the metric should be:

Accurate. For the data to be accurate,

they must be valid and reliable. Valid

data refer to data that can be directly related to factors being measured. One aspect of valid data being collected is that

of causality. The manager must take special care to ensure that the data being

collected caused the effect to occur. Reliable data refer to data that would be

consistent regardless of the data collection technique. An effort should be made

to eliminate or minimize errors in data

collection due to rater bias, data collection administration, and wording.

Relevant. For the data to be relevant,

they must be credible and important.

Credible data refer to data that will be

believable by the people making the decisions, such as managers. Managers

should ensure there is a plan or baseline from which to compare, which

should include the goals. Important data

refer to data that address the important

items associated with the factors being

measured. For example, managers

should not use metrics on trivial items

just because they are easy to measure,

such as the number of hours that groups

of people worked. In this case, a better

measurement would be the output of

the work performed by these groups.

Practical. For the data to be practical,

they must be timely, simple, economic,

FIGURE 1. Project Process
34 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

FIGURE 2. 4-Block Metric Page

FIGURE 3. Single-Page Dashboard
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 35

and unchangeable. Timely data refer to

data that can be measured in enough

time to be effectively used. Simple data

refer to data that are easy to understand.

Economic data refer to data that can be

obtained within the budget constraints

for data collection. Unchangeable data

refer to data that cannot be easily distorted to provide different information.

Four-Block

Selecting the metrics is important; but,

using the metrics is more important. For

the NECDF project, a simple four-block

page was developed to help the project

manager use the metric in managing the

project. Figure 2, which is an example

of a four-block page for the scheduling

area, communicates important project

information. This page can be used for

each of the critical areas on the project,

such as the nine areas previously mentioned.

The first block is a graphical or other

depiction of the primary metric from

this area. This is the metric that provides

the manager a proactive indication of

the status of the project for this area.

The primary metric for this example is

the schedule status using a dual graphic

indicating both the number of activities

planned for the month and the actual

number (in percentage) of those activities accomplished by month. 

The second block is another metric that

provides more in-depth information

about the primary metric in a systematic attempt to prioritize the areas of

concern. In this example, the Pareto

Chart is used as a method to identify

the cause of the schedule misses for the

current month, grouped into common

areas. This is a useful tool to help prioritize the areas for the manager. 

The third block is a textual list of the

top issues or concerns for the area, such

as scheduling in this example. This list

can flow directly from the second block,

which is the case in this example, or it

can come from the individual maintaining the metric by using other sources

of information. 

The fourth block is the most important

block, as this block identifies the action

plan for improving the performance of

the project. It should clearly identify the

individual responsible for the action and

the suspense date for that action.

Dashboard

The dashboard, which is similar to the

one used in an automobile, has the intent of showing managers the status of

their projects in a quick glance. Just like

the speedometer on a car’s dashboard,

which gives a valid metric on the “realtime” speed of the car, a project performance metric should provide useful and

timely information to managers. 

Figure 3 is an example of this singlepage dashboard. For the nine areas previously mentioned, a dashboard is constructed using the metric from the first

block shown in Figure 2. Additionally,

a visual status is used to provide a quick

visual representation of the performance

of each area on the project, which was

represented by a RAG (Red, Amber,

Green) status for each of the nine areas

in this example. This status highlights

areas in which managers need to pay

special attention. For example, a green

status indicates that that area is doing

fine; whereas, a red status indicates that

that area is failing to meet the project

objectives. 

Swamped With Data No More

Project managers are responsible for the

outcome of their projects. They normally base their decisions upon data and

information obtained, or lack thereof.

The effective use of performance metrics and the prioritization of that data

help managers in managing their projects. Failure to use effective metrics will

foster a situation in which managers are

swamped with data, most of which has

no effect on the success or failure of the

project.

For the NECDF project, this methodology has significantly helped the project management team focus its attention and especially its scarce resources

upon the critical issues.

Editor’s Note: Haraburda welcomes

questions or comments on this article.

Contact him at scott.haraburda@necdf.

necd.army.mil.

DAU AND DMO SIGN STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

The Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and Defence

Materiel Organisation, Embassy of Australia, Washington

D.C., signed a Statement of Principles (SOP)on Oct. 30,

2002, to provide a framework for continuous cooperation

in the field of acquisition training. Signing the SOP from

left: Frank Anderson Jr., DAU President; and Michael

Roche, Under Secretary of Defence Materiel, Australian

Department of Defence, Embassy of Australia. Standing

from left: Richard Kwatnoski, Office of the Secretary of

Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics, International Chair; and David Fitch, Dean, Defense Systems

Management College.

Photo courtesy Embassy of Australia
36 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

DAU Course Application—

Get the Latest Facts

WHO MAY ATTEND DAU COURSES?

• Military Service members must apply under their

Military Service, regardless of their assignment.

• Federal civilians apply under their affiliated Military

Service, DoD, or non-DoD Federal Service category.

• Defense industry employees working on DoD contracts apply under their own category.

• Foreign personnel registering under a Foreign Military Sales process apply under a special category.

Email Art McCormick at arthur.mccormick@dau.mil

if you have questions.

HOW CAN I APPLY FOR A COURSE?

Go to www.dau.mil and click on Enroll Here. Apply for

all courses at this site, including distance learning and

hybrid courses.

HOW DOES THE APPLICATION PROCESS WORK? 

Each DoD Military Service, e.g., Army, Navy, etc., is assigned quotas in DAU classes. Each agency, including

non-DoD, has a specific training office that acts on applications. Each agency, including DoD non-military

departments, funds training costs, such as TDY, assists

with TDY orders, places its students in a wait or reservation status, or may disapprove an application. Students should contact their agency’s POC if they have

questions about the status of their application, why

they are on a wait list, or how they should prepare their

TDY orders. The POC list can be found at

www.dau.mil/registrar/apply.asp at the bottom of the

page.

HOW MUCH DO COURSES COST?

At this time, DAU does not charge tuition for its courses,

except for foreign students who register under a Foreign Military Sales process. This category of foreign student, Department of Transportation-related agencies,

industry, and non-DoD federal employees fund their

own students’ travel and per diem costs. For military

and civilian DoD employees, there are no travel or per

diem costs to the student or the student’s agency to attend DAU courses as long as the proper procedures are

followed. The Director, Acquisition Career Management Office (DACM) associated with each DoD agency

will cover these costs, and students need to follow their

processes.

WHAT ARE CLASS MODES?

Web-enabled courses are strictly computer-based training. The course schedule shows classes running from

Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 since enrollment is constant throughout the fiscal year. Once approved for the course, students have 60 days to complete it, 28 days for BCF102, 90 days for CON-101. After applying, students

will receive various messages from “the system,” including log on and password information. Students

won’t be able to log on until they receive a message saying they have a confirmed registration. Students will

receive a message telling them whom to contact in case

of technical difficulties or questions for an instructor.

These messages should be saved for future reference.

Hybrid courses are composed of a Web-enabled phase,

lasting about 45 days, followed a couple weeks later

by a classroom phase lasting 5 days, except for PMT352 which lasts 6 weeks. Students must apply for the

B phase of a hybrid. They will automatically be enrolled

in phase A when they receive a reservation in phase B.

Students won’t be able to start phase A until about 60

days before phase B starts (45 days for phase A plus15

days after the Web-enabled phase ends and the classroom phase begins). This is done because the instructor wants the knowledge students acquired in phase A

to be fresh in mind when they arrive to class. Students

will receive a message telling them whom to contact in

case of technical difficulties or questions for an instructor. These messages should be saved for future reference.

On-site or Residential Courses are traditional classroom

courses. On-site courses are conducted at sites outside

of the DAU campus network. Residential classes are

held at a DAU regional campus.

HOW TO CONTACT THE DAU REGISTRAR?

DAU Registrar

dau.registrar@dau.mil

Phone:

703-805-3003 (DSN 655-3003) or 1-888-284-4906

Industry and Non-DoD Students

industry.registrar@dau.mil

Phone

703-805-4498
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 37

AT&L K NOWLEDGE SHARING SYSTEM—AKSS

REPLACEMENT SYSTEM FOR

DEFENSE ACQUISITION DESKBOOK UPDATED, MODIFIED

E

ffective Jan. 15, 2003, the Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) Knowledge Sharing System (AKSS) V1.0 was updated and modified—becoming AKSS V2.0. The transformation

from Defense Acquisition Deskbook to AKSS V1.0

represents a fundamental change in Deskbook philosophy.

To provide users with consistently up-to-date content, AKSS points to the location of documents

maintained by document owners to the maximum

extent possible. AKSS V2.0 expands the mandatory

and discretionary reference area, and in particular

provides the mandatory references called out in the

new 5000 documents. Additional discretionary

knowledge resources are provided through expanded online knowledge communities and knowledge areas, reorganized to provide easier access

through a “Community Central” area. 

A major new function in V2.0 is an improved and

expanded search capability. Other new resources

include access to DAU's continuous learning modules; expanded information on AT&L education

and training; categorized links to related acquisition sites; and government forms, glossaries of terms,

and acronym dictionaries. CDs reflecting the current content of the reference library and other userrequested content are also available. AKSS is now

online at:

http://deskbook.dau.mil

DEFENSE HONORS MANUFACTURING

TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVEMENTS

T

he fourth annual Defense Manufacturing Technology Achievement Awards were presented on

Dec. 3, 2002, at the Defense Manufacturing

Conference in Dallas. Award recipients included

government and industry technologists from the

Defense Logistics Agency's (DLA's) Apparel Research Network (ARN) program and the Joint Military Service Composites Affordability Initiative

(CAI)—Phase 2. 

John B. Todaro, Director for the Office of Technology Tranistion, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics,

presented the awards. 

The awards recognize defense and private sector

individuals responsible for developing innovative

manufacturing processes that improve the affordability, cycle time, readiness, and availability of defense weapon systems or components that meet the

needs of the warfighters. 

The ARN was established by the DLA Manufacturing Technology Program to improve the U.S. apparel industry's ability to meet DoD requirements

for military clothing. Awards were presented to team

members from the DLA; Clemson Apparel Research;

Product Data Integration Technologies; AdvanTech;

the Manufacturing Productivity Center; the Defense

Supply Center Philadelphia; the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island; AT&T Government Solutions; and the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine

Command. 

Editor's Note: This information is in the public domain at http://www.defenselink.mil/news.

Dec. 6, 2002
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Mandelbaum is an Operations Research Analyst in the Office of Strategic and Tactical Systems, OUSD(AT&L). Danny Reed and Leon Reed are both members of

the Research Staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), in Alexandria, Va.

PEO/SYSCOM COMMANDERS’ CONFERENCE

Transforming Technology,

Acquisition, and Sustainment

Focus on the Warrior—Today and Tomorrow

JAY MANDELBAUM • DANNY REED • LEON REED

38

Over 400 members of the acquisition community gathered

at Fort Belvoir Nov. 20-22 for

the 12th Program Executive Officer/Systems Command (PEO/

SYSCOM) Commanders’ Conference.

The 2002 fall conference allowed senior

acquisition professionals from the Office of the Secretary of Defense

(OSD), the Services, and industry to exchange views on how

military transformation and the

global war on terrorism are affecting their mission.

Keynote Address 

Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, Commander, U.S. Joint

Forces Command, addressed the

conference theme in his remarks.

“We need an intense and continuous conversation between

warfighters and acquisition professionals,” Giambastiani emphasized, “to accomplish what

we need.” He noted that

warfighters know what military

problems they face, “but they

may not know which technologies will

help them solve these problems.” But,

when the acquisition community makes

new technologies available, he added,

“warfighters know a good technology

solution when they see one.”

Giambastiani highlighted the warfighters’ support for evolutionary acquisition. Citing General Patton’s famous

aphorism that “a good plan executed violently today is better than a perfect plan

tomorrow,” he also suggested, by analogy, that “an 80 percent solution

today is better (and cheaper)

than a 100 percent solution tomorrow.”

AT&L Update

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,

Technology and Logistics Michael Wynne provided an update on AT&L

efforts to improve acquisition and sustainment. “We are trying to influence

dramatic changes in your roles and the

Principal Deputy USD(AT&L) Michael

Wynne. “We are trying to influence

dramatic changes in your roles and the way

you do business,” Wynne told the PEOs

and Commanders. “We want to go too far.

We want you to push back because otherwise we won’t know if we’ve gone too far,

and in fact, we’ll suspect we haven’t.” 

Dr. Nancy Spruill, Director, Acquisition

Resources and Analysis, OUSD(AT&L).

provided an overview of the Business Initiative Council (BIC)—Secretary Aldridge’s

top-level committee to review DoD business practices and develop proposed solutions.

Photos by Richard Mattox and Leon Reed
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 39

way you do business,” he told program

managers in the audience. He also asked

for feedback. “We want to go too far. We

want you to push back because otherwise we won’t know if we’ve gone too

far, and in fact, we’ll suspect we haven’t.”

Wynne emphasized the importance of

reducing acquisition and logistics cycle

times. “The system holds us in some disdain for the amount of time it takes to

get a system into production.” Wynne

stated that fixing this problem will require “partnering more with the test

community up front.”

With the new emphasis on evolutionary acquisition, Wynne said that it’s important to test only “the capabilities that

have been introduced.” He also advocated improving the sustainment of new

systems to track with his vision: “It’s

never late, it’s always available, it never

breaks, and it’s easy to maintain.”

Wynne provided a summary of actions

taken to implement recommendations

made at the spring 2002 Program Managers’ Workshop. Immediately after the

Workshop, his staff reviewed all the recommendations, identified which ones

were already underway within AT&L,

and then changed the focus of

existing initiatives or adopted

new initiatives to account for all

the panel recommendations.

Wynne cited progress being

made in developing “an iterative

approach to KPPs [Key Performance Parameters] so they don’t

become frozen eight years before

you start procuring the system.” He

called for adoption of truly evolutionary approaches to the entire requirements, development, acquisition, and

test processes, and stated that “the ‘best’

is the enemy of the ‘better than we ever

had before.’”

Wynne expressed a continuing commitment to streamlining and simplifying the acquisition process. Policies are

being streamlined and more flexibility

is being given to the program manager.

Keynote speaker, Navy Adm. Edmund

Giambastiani, Commander, U.S. Joint Forces

Command. “When the acquisition community makes

new technologies available,” he said, “warfighters

know a good technology solution when they see

one.”

Service Acquisition Executives Panel,

from left: Claude M. Bolton Jr., Assistant

Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics and Technology); Marvin Sambur, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Acquisition); Wynne; John Young, Assistant

Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development and Acquisition); Retired Air Force Lt.

Gen. Lawrence Farrell, President and Chief

Executive Officer, National Defense Industrial Association; and Harry Schulte, Acquisition Executive, Special Operations Command.

DAU and OSD executives from left: DAU President Frank J. Anderson Jr.;

DAU Commandant, Army Col. Ronald C. Flom; Spruill; Edward C. “Pete”

Aldridge Jr., USD(AT&L); and Donna Richbourg, former Principal Deputy Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, OUSD(AT&L).
40 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

“We took out the prescriptive and went,

where we could, with bare bones. For

those of you who never tried to read the

5000 document, it’s now readable—on

one airplane ride.”

He emphasized that “we are still seeking bold ideas,” and that OSD is receptive to these ideas. “The paper will never

be as blank as it is today,” he said, and

encouraged members of the AT&L community to “brainstorm what we need to

manage better.”

Overview of the Business

Initiative Council

Dr. Nancy Spruill, Director, Acquisition

Resources and Analysis, provided an

overview of the Business Initiative Council (BIC). The BIC is Under Secretary

Aldridge’s top-level committee to review

DoD business practices and develop proposed solutions. The criteria for BIC actions are: 

• Does it touch the warfighter? 

• Does it provide a common

good across all Services?

• Does it have savings/benefits?

Spruill described how the BIC is

organized and how it operates.

She recounted several rounds of

BIC proposals that have been

submitted to the Office of Management and Budget or other

federal agencies and discussed

the status of pending BIC actions.

BIC proposals submitted last year

and earlier this year included a

variety of proposals to gain more

flexibility in accounting for

funds, increase thresholds under

the Truth in Negotiations Act,

and streamline technology readiness assessments.

Spruill noted that the BIC’s initial

legislative proposals did not meet

with a lot of success on Capitol Hill.

“One of the reasons we did so poorly,”

she said, “was that our important initiatives showed up too late in the cycle.”

Congress was already in the process of

developing the authorization bill, and

it was too late to consider BIC proposals. For this reason, an important part

of the BIC’s activities for this year has

been to try to streamline the legislative

review process within DoD.

Reducing Total Ownership

Costs (R-TOC)

Dr. Spiros Pallas, Principal Deputy Director, Strategic and Tactical Systems, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition,

Technology and Logistics), provided an overview of the Reduction of Total Ownership Cost

(R-TOC) initiative. R-TOC was

initiated three years ago because

of concerns about the impacts of

aging systems on Operations and

Support (O&S) budgets and military readiness, and the perception that defense programs could

adopt innovative industry support practices. Thirty systems

were designated (10 per Service)

as Pilot Programs to document

effective approaches to R-TOC.

Pallas commented that R-TOC has been

successful in reducing O&S costs (projected fiscal 2005 savings exceed $1.3

billion), but maintained that cost savings are not the principal purpose of RTOC. “All the R-TOC projects I’m familiar with also give significant

improvements in readiness and capability,” he said.

Despite the successes, R-TOC continues to have some problems. Among the

most significant problems are the difficulty of measuring system O&S costs

Dr. Spiros Pallas, Principal Deputy Director,

Strategic & Tactical Systems, OUSD(AT&L).

“All the R-TOC [Reduction in Total Ownership Cost] projects I’m familiar with,” said

Pallas, “also give significant improvements

in readiness and capability.” 

Wynne (standing) addresses the Sustainment Panel. Seated are members of the panel, from

left: Jim Westphalen, Senior Program Manager, Contractor Logistics Support Programs,

Raytheon Co.; Army Brig. Gen. Ed Harrington, Director, Defense Contract Management Agency

(DCMA); and Lou Kratz, Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Logistics Plans and Programs). Panel member not shown is Amy Barnett, Chief, Fielding and Sustainment Branch,

Close Combat Missile Systems Project Office.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 41

(an issue many Pilot Programs have addressed) and the difficulty of obtaining

seed money for R-TOC initiatives. OSD

has attempted to address the difficulty

in obtaining seed money by providing

limited R-TOC funds through two Program Budget Decisions, with a third

pending.

Pallas stated that R-TOC and other initiatives, such as Cost as an Independent

Variable (CAIV) and Value Engineering

(VE), are being merged under his leadership. CAIV provides for cost-performance trade-offs through the life cycle

of a system, while VE involves the analysis of systems to identify ways that performance can be improved.

“These initiatives all represent good systems engineering,” said Pallas,

“and all are currently hindered because we don’t

have nearly as many engineers to do continuous

systems engineering as

we once did, so if you

come up with a good

idea, you don’t know

who to turn to.”

Pallas reminded the audience that all programs

are required by the Under

Secretary to submit CAIV

plans. These plans have

been coming in to OSD

very slowly, and there is

a perception that many

program offices are not preparing them.

He also noted that there “has been a precipitous decline in the use of VE,” although the program’s benefits have been

clearly documented. His principal objectives, he stated, will be to expand RTOC beyond the Pilot Programs and to

identify ways to revitalize VE throughout the entire acquisition and sustainment process. 

Technology Transition and the

Acquisition Process 

Noel Longuemare, former Principal

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology), chaired this

panel. Other panel members included:

• Navy Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, Chief of

Naval Research

• Tim Harp, Assistant Deputy Under

Secretary of Defense (Innovation and

Technology Integration)

• Greg Hulcher, Special Assistant for

Concepts and Plans, Strategic and Tactical Systems

• Peter Levine, General Counsel, Senate Armed Services Committee

• Air Force Col. Vincent Snyder, Systems Program Director, Intelligence,

Surveillance and Reconnaissance Integration Systems Program Office.

The Panel initially focused on DoD’s success with Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs), which

are intended to demonstrate a new

warfighting capability. Air Force Capt.

Winston Campbell began the panel discussions by presenting an overview

briefing of the successes and problems

with ARGUS, an ACTD that completed

development and has made the transition to acquisition.

“We think ACTDs have worked,” Harp

said. Of the 67 ACTDs that have been

seen through to completion, he noted,

80 percent were successful. But the

funding gap between the demonstration

of the technology and the point where

the Service can pick up funding responsibility, he added, can be a problem. With the 71 currently active

ACTDs, the sponsors are placing major

emphasis on identifying transition funding.

Senior acquisition executives attending the fall 2002 PEO/SYSCOM Commanders’

Conference, from left: Bolton; Wynne; Aldridge; and Anderson.

Navy Rear Adm. Jay Cohen (left), Chief of Naval Research

and Technology served on the “Transition and the Acquisition

Process” panel. Chairing the panel was Noel Longuemare,

former Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology). 
Hulcher added that

ACTDs often do not give

enough attention to how

the technology will be

manufactured and deployed. Harp agreed that

the approach “if you just

want to throw a few out

there for evaluation”

might be a lot different

than the approach a program would take “if you

want to transition into

the force.”

Levine said that the

Armed Services Committee is “very supportive of

ACTDs. We believe it’s an

important component of

the process of transitioning technology.” He stated

that Capitol Hill’s concern

isn’t so much with the

ACTD program “but

rather, how DoD handles

technologies that aren’t in

the ACTD program.”

Cohen stated that “the

system works reasonably

well and has led to technology dominance,” but

both he and Snyder

agreed that transition

problems are the most serious problems with technology development. In

particular, Cohen noted,

as a technology developer

he is paid to take risks,

but the acquisition process has different goals

and objectives. “PMs are

rewarded for cost, schedule, content, but there is

no reward for even moderate risk taking.”

Several panelists raised

concerns about funding

inflexibility. Cohen noted

that after the ACTD has

been demonstrated, “if the

Service doesn’t have the

money, the project doesn’t go forward.” ACTD

42 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

T

he entire afternoon preceding the

conference proper was given over

to three sessions of tutorials on

emerging technical or acquisition policy issues. In addition to the tutorials,

two special workshop sessions were

held that lasted all afternoon. Unlike

the tutorials, which were intended to

provide updates and feedback on current policy initiatives, these two workshops were intended to be working sessions to grapple with significant new

OSD policy actions.

Dr. Spiros Pallas, Principal Deputy Director, Strategic and Tactical Systems,

chaired a session examining Transformation of DoD’s Value Engineering Program; and Betsy McChesney, Acquisition Review Specialist, Defense

Procurement and Acquisition Policy,

chaired a session to examine Acquisition Strategies to Achieve Total Systems

Management: A Guide to Increase Reliability and Reduce Logistics Footprint.

Tutorial topics included:

DoD 5000 Revision and Evolutionary

Acquisition Update—Skip Hawthorne (OUSD/AT&L)

Color of Money 101: a Primer on the

Who, When, Where, and Why of the

Restrictions on Congressional Appropriations—Siobhan Tack, Professor and Director, Financial Management Department, DAU

Implementing Performance Based

Strategies for Weapon System Life

Cycle Support—Lou Kratz, Assistant

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense

(Logistics Plans and Programs)

Business Case Analysis—Larry “Scoop”

Cooper, Director of International Programs, DAU; and Air Force Lt. Col.

Lee Plowden, Chief, Transformation

Integration Branch, Office of the

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air

Force (Management Policy and Program Integration)

Integrating Commercial and Military

Manufacturing: More Than Just Commercial-Off-the-Shelf—Dr. Michael

McGrath, Vice President, Sarnoff

Corp.

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI) 3170 Update—Navy

Capt. Jeff Gernand, Chief Strategic

and Tactical Systems Branch, J-8, Joint

Staff

Industrial Base Analysis–a Readiness

Tool—William Ennis, Director, Industrial Analysis Center, DCMA

Missile Defense: Acquisition Innovation

in Practice—Rob Brown, Assistant

Deputy for Program Integration, Missile Defense Agency

Planning and Executing Integrated

Technical Performance Measures–the

Precursor to and Predictor of Risk

and Earned Value Performance—

Richard Zell, Director, Supplier Operations, DCMA; and Mike Ferraro,

General Engineer, Contract Technical Operations, DCMA

Technology Readiness Assessments—

Janne Spriggs, Plans and Programs,

Office of the Director, Defense Research and Engineering; and Jack Taylor, Associate Director for Ground

and Sea Systems, Office of the Deputy

Under Secretary of Defense (Science

and Technology)

DLA Initiatives to Improve Support to

Weapons Systems—Doug Walker,

Chief, Weapon Systems Support, Defense Logistics Agency

Applying Full Service Contracting in

Support of Complex Weapon Systems—Joe Grossom, Director, Lifetime Support Business Area, Lockheed Martin Systems Integration; Jack

Blalock, Business Development Manager, Northrop Grumman Newport

News; and John Goodhart, Assistant

Deputy Commander, Fleet Logistics

Support

TUTORIALS AND

PRESENTATIONS

Photos by Richard Mattox and Leon Reed
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 43

funding can help bridge this gap, but

that transition still represents a difficult

challenge for the project and a primary

area of risk.

Requirements and Acquisition

Integration Panel

Ric Sylvester, Deputy Director, Defense

Procurement and Acquisition Policy,

chaired a panel on Requirements and

Acquisition Integration. Panel members

were:

• Coast Guard Cmdr. Carl Alam, Aviation Program Manager, U.S. Coast

Guard Deepwater Program

• Navy Capt. Jeff Gernand, Chief of

Strategic and Tactical Systems Branch,

Requirements and Acquisition Division, J-8/Joint Staff

• Charles Greco, Deepwater Aviation

Program Manager, Integrated Coast

Guard Systems

• Dr. Glenn Lamartin, Director, Strategic and Tactical Systems, OSD

• John Landon, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence,

Surveillance and Reconnaissance

[C3ISR], Space, and IT [Information

Technology] Programs).

Lamartin stated that there is “a wide

range of things we need to do better. We

need to reduce the cost of owning systems, reduce the logistics tail, and get

more capability to the warfighter,

quicker.” One of his primary objectives,

he said, is to “drive the systems engineering process back into defense acquisition.”

Landon stressed the importance of interoperability and block development.

“No program or platform will be developed as a standalone system any more.

All we’re interested in is development

of an integrated capability.”

Alam and Greco gave the government

and industry perspective on the Deepwater Program, the Coast Guard’s new

program to define its major systems requirements for the next 30 years. The

program is based on performance-based

acquisition, and the government has developed a close partnership with the systems integrator. The government avoided specifying particular pieces of hardware, instead focusing on the mission

that must be performed. The contractor’s objectives include trading off total

ownership cost and the system effectiveness of various options.

Greco noted that the contract has a potential term of 30 years and also includes

sustainment of the legacy fleet. The government and contractor teams are colocated, which has given the contractor

“the unique opportunity of dealing with

our customer, who is now our partner,

in an extremely collaborative way.” 

Gernand described changes that are underway in the Joint Staff requirements

development process. “For the first time

we’re going to ask the Services and combatant commands to sit down around

the table and work it out together.” The

emphasis in the future will be on capability-based requirements. A new Functional Capabilities Board is being developed to deliver “solutions that are

born joint.”

Q&A Session with Service

Acquisition Executives

Wynne chaired an evening panel of the

Service Acquisition Executives and other

senior officials. The panel members were:

• Claude M. Bolton Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology)

• John Young, Assistant Secretary of the

Navy (Research, Development and

Acquisition)

• Marvin Sambur, Assistant Secretary

of the Air Force (Acquisition)

• Harry Schulte, Acquisition Executive,

Special Operations Command

(SOCOM)

• Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Lawrence

Farrell, President and CEO, National

Defense Industrial Association.

After brief initial statements by each panelist, the panel took questions from the

audience for nearly two hours. Bolton

noted one important development in

his organization is reflected in his job

title: the responsibility for logistics has

been merged with acquisition and techDoD 5000 Revision and Evolutionary Acquisition Update—Skip

Hawthorne (OUSD/AT&L).

Color of Money 101: a Primer on the

Who, When, Where, and Why of the

Restrictions on Congressional

Appropriations—Siobhan Tack, Pro -

fessor and Director, Financial Management Department, DAU.

Business Case Analysis—Air Force

Lt. Col. Lee Plowden, Chief, Transformation Integration Branch, Office of

the Deputy Assistant Secretary of

the Air Force (Management Policy

and Program Integration).
44 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

nology. He stated that the Army has

tasked its program managers to have

cradle-to-grave responsibility for programs, “and we’re going to make sure

you have the wherewithal to make it

happen, from the policy point of view

and eventually encompassing the

money as well.” Bolton also said that

his office is taking a broad look at how

the Army does business and will place

an increasingly heavy emphasis on

business issues in acquisition, logistics,

and Science and Technology (S&T)

programs.

Young praised the creativity and dedication of people involved in the acquisition process. He mentioned the Joint

Strike Fighter, which he said was a good

program but, until recently, the award

fee provisions in the contract were not

well thought out. The key to restructuring the contract, he told the PEOs

and commanders, was to key award fee

to schedule events rather than relying

on subjective factors. He also stressed

that the Services need to work jointness

every day and praised the progress being

made within the Navy.

Sambur said a primary goal of his was

to gain agility in the acquisition process

and to gain credibility for the acquisition process with outside organizations.

He also said it was extremely important

to “institutionalize collaboration between

the warfighter, test, acquisition, and

S&T,” to ensure that the most promising technologies get into the warfighter’s

hands. He said industry is a vital part of

the team and needs to be included in

the collaborative process as well.

Schulte described how his acquisition

process differs from Service acquisition

processes, and how it is similar. He said

that the requirements process was somewhat quicker at SOCOM, but that the

budgeting process is no more effective.

He believes acquisitions move more

quickly, but “mostly because we’re

smaller—so small we can be really tight

with the user.” He said that the postSept. 11 atmosphere “has changed

things a lot” for SOCOM. Missions are

more urgent, and people recognize how

important their job is. 

Farrell commented on some best practices that could be adopted by the Services. Partnership was one best practice,

he maintained, that is not consistently

practiced within the Services. He also

recommended that the Services should

track stability of requirements, most particularly exercising control over the

number and scope of KPPs. Finally, he

recommended that the programs should

bring industry into evolutionary acquisition discussions at an early stage of the

program, to make sure industry understands the ultimate direction the program is headed as well as the crucial

front-end requirements.

Value Engineering

Award Ceremony

For the first time, DoD’s annual VE

awards ceremony coincided with the

PEO/SYSCOM Commanders’ Conference. Wynne and Pallas presided at these

awards, and complimented the award

winners for their contributions to national security. (For a complete list of

winners, see the November-December

2002 issue of Program Manager, p. 58.) 

Innovation and Technology in

Support of the Warfighter: an

Industry Perspective

Mark Ronald, Chief Operating Officer,

BAE Systems, and President and CEO,

BAE Systems North America, provided

his perspective on the conference theme.

He stressed that industry is fully committed to delivering good value to the

warfighter and pledged whatever assistance is needed.

Ronald commented on the need to continue to take actions to attract and motivate a skilled workforce, which is necessary to maintain state of the art

capabilities. “We’re on a honeymoon,”

he said. “The dot coms have collapsed

and the telcoms are hurting, but over

time our ability to attract the right people is at risk.”

Ronald suggested that DoD should provide clearer guidance on teaming and

vertical integration. Industry is willing

to play by the rules, but it isn’t always

clear what DoD wants. He commented

that the industry consolidation is likely

to continue, probably more at the lower

tiers than among the few large primes,

and that this can influence DoD’s ability to maintain competitive markets. He

also suggested that DoD should provide

firmer guidance on when and where

Prime Integrating Contractors will be

used. Again, he said, industry is willing

to play by DoD’s rules but sometimes

these rules are not articulated clearly.

Sustainment Panel

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom Ferguson chaired this panel. Other panel

members included:

• Army Brig. Gen. Ed Harrington, Director, Defense Contract Management

Agency (DCMA)

• Lou Kratz, Assistant Deputy Under

Secretary of Defense (Logistics Plans

and Programs)

• Amy Barnett, Chief, Fielding and Sustainment Branch, Close Combat Missile Systems Project Office

• Jim Westphalen, Senior Program Manager, Contractor Logistics Support

Programs, Raytheon Co.

Barnett and Westphalen provided an

overview of a program that is considered a sustainment “success story”—the

Improved Target Acquisition System

(ITAS). Barnett noted that the support

goal for ITAS was to improve systems

availability while reducing O&S costs.

The Army negotiated a Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) contract with

Raytheon for this program.

Barnett stated that Operational Readiness (OR) rate is a key system performance metric and a key metric for the

contractor. A minimum OR rate of 90

percent is established in the contract,

with incentives for exceeding the target

and penalties for falling short. OR rates

have averaged 99.5 percent since the

system’s inception. Surge and contingency clauses were built into the contract and have been exercised.

Funding issues represent a continuing

challenge for ITAS. ITAS is not included

in the Army Working Capital Fund, and

there has been no easing of “color of

money” restrictions. Barnett also com-
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 45

mented that there is no good, reliable

O&S cost information for legacy systems, though information systems are

getting a little bit better. With all the colors of money and all the pots of money,

funding is too scattered to track the costs

for a single system.

Westphalen seconded Barnett’s comments from the contractor point of view.

He said that the government-industry

Integrated Product Team was a true partnership. The parties worked the statement of work together and ultimately

there was an agreement between the tactical units, Raytheon, and the program

manager. All three parties were essential to the arrangement’s success. 

Harrington stated that DCMA has become far more involved in the sustainment phase of contracts. The changes

in the way the agency does business

have resulted in far more contact with

the logisticians, not just the program

managers. He has stressed responsiveness to the agency’s staff. “We need to

go where the important work is for our

customers—out in the field.”

Kratz commended the ITAS program

and described it as a very successful example of Performance Based Logistics

(PBL). He said that successful examples

like ITAS have been very influential in

shaping DoD’s approach to PBL. “In the

initial PB support contracts,” he commented, “we had lots of metrics, but

have now concluded that fewer metrics

are better. The emphasis should be on

output.”

Kratz seconded Barnett’s view that PBL

does not exacerbate “contractors on the

battlefield” problems. He asserted that

most contractors on the battlefield probably are not tied to weapon systems; instead, they’re doing combat support or

combat service support. Also, there are

a good number of contingency sustainment personnel, hired by the operational

forces to provide sustainment support.

“We are trying to help the Services carry

out their stated policies and minimize

contractors on the battlefield.”

Conference Challenge

USD(AT&L) Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge

Jr. concluded the conference. He

thanked everyone for attending and emphasized to the audience how vital they

were to the success of our fighting forces.

“Your work as program managers has

never been more important.” He challenged those assembled to provide the

troops the tools they need, in as short a

time as possible. In closing, he said

“you’re doing a superb job.” 

Editor’s Note: The full text of Secretary Aldridge’s remarks begins on the

following page. For information on

past or future conferences, visit the

PEO/SYSCOM Conference Web site

at http://www.acq.osd.mil/ar/peoindex.htm.

The Defense Acquisition University

(DAU) and the University of Alaska,

Anchorage (UAA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU),

during a ceremony held at the DAU

West Region campus, San Diego, on

Sept. 25, 2002. The MOU, which

formalizes the DAU-UAA strategic

partnership, calls for establishing cooperative training and educational

programs in the areas of logistics

and supply management. Signing

the MOU from left: Kevin Carman,

DAU West, Associate Dean; Andy

Zaleski, Dean, DAU West; and Dr.

Hayden Green, Dean, Graduate

Business School, University of

Alaska, Anchorage.

Photo courtesy University of Alaska

DEFENSE ACQUISITION UNIVERSITY AND UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

SIGN MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Aldridge is Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics), The Pentagon, Washington, D.C.

Priorities and Acquisition

“Your Work As Program Managers 

Has Never Been More Important or Anticipated”

E.C. “PETE” ALDRIDGE, JR.

46

I

’m very pleased to be addressing

you once again. Many of you will

perhaps recall our meeting one year

ago. It took place only a couple of

months after the attacks. 

At that time the atmosphere within the

Defense Department was one of busy

anticipation. We did not know exactly

what the future held, but we were certain that there would be accelerations

in operations, logistics, acquisition,

transformation, and research and development. 

All of those accelerations have come to

pass—some with greater velocity than

others; some with higher urgency than

others. But the promise of increased pacing has come to pass for just about all

of us.

Your work as program managers has

never been more important or anticipated. I have heard it said that only God

can forgive Osama bin Laden and his

fellow terrorists, but it is the job of our

military to arrange the face-to-face meetings. 

Today is the 284th anniversary of the

violent death of a violent man: the foremost terrorist of his age—the pirate Edward Teach, also known as “Black

Beard.” 

On this day in 1718, Teach was cornered aboard his ship, the Adventure, in

the Outer Banks of Carolina. His pursuer was a young Royal Navy Lieutenant

who, in a dramatic hand-to-hand fight,

cut off Black Beard’s head with a cutlass.

His headless body was thrown overboard and legend has it that before it

sank, it swam around the ship several

times. 

This is vaguely familiar. Every time we

receive another questionable audio tape

from bin Laden, it is as if he has taken

another lap around the ship. 

But in this new age of effects-based operations, having his head on a pike is

not intrinsically important. Our troops

are arranging the face-to-face meetings

on a daily basis. Your job is to give them

the tools to do that. And you have done

that very well.

Five Additional Objectives

Last year, I told you about the five goals

that comprise my agenda as head of defense acquisition. I also told you about

some of the things we intended to do

over the subsequent year to realize those

goals. 

This year, I would like to update you on

the progress we have made on those

original objectives, and let you know

about five additional priorities that the

Secretary and I believe will best serve

the needs of our country and the Defense Department in the months to

come. 

This summer Secretary Rumsfeld

asked me to outline my top priorities

for the next 18 months. I did so and

he approved them. Let me give you

a quick overview of what those priorities are. 

Continue Progress with

Original Five Goals

The first priority is to continue the

progress we have made with my original five goals. As you know, those goals

are:

• to improve the credibility and effectiveness of the acquisition and logistics support process; 

• to revitalize the quality and morale of

the AT&L workforce; 

• to improve the health of the defense

industrial base; 

Editor’s Note: The remarks that follow were delivered by Secretary

Aldridge on Nov. 22, 2002, at the

PEO/SYSCOM Commanders’ Conference, held at the Defense Acquisition University, Fort Belvoir, Va. 
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 47

• to rationalize the weapon systems and

infrastructure with our defense strat-

egy; and

• to initiate high-leverage technologies

to create the warfighting capabilities

and strategies of the future. 

Discussing in detail the progress we have

made on each of those goals would be

a speech in itself. Nonetheless, the accomplishments of our acquisition workforce have been remarkable, and I cannot proceed without at least a cursory

rundown of some of our more important ones. • We have revitalized the Defense Acquisition Board, replacing the assistant secretaries for acquisition from

each Military Service with the Service

Secretaries themselves. This change

better reflects the breadth of issues we

face in acquisition matters. It has

brought some welcome stability to

many programs, while reducing the

decision time. And it brings to bear

all the resources of each Military Department. 

• We have mandated evolutionary, spi-

ral development of weapons systems.

This will enable us to field capable

equipment more rapidly at lower cost

and less risk.

• We are ensuring that programs are

properly priced by, among other

things, utilizing

DoD’s Cost Anal-

ysis Improve-

ment Group’s

cost estimates in

most cases.

• We have put in

place procedures to

make sure in-

teroper-

ability is properly considered, and

done so earlier in a program’s life

[cycle].

• We have consolidated and dramati-

cally improved our acquisition education. This was vital if we are to exercise the innovative and progressive

management of our technology and

systems development efforts. I hope

this [PEO/SYSCOM Commanders’

Conference] will help us further de-

velop the education concepts we need

for the future.

• We have finally established parity be-

tween the acquisition of equipment

and the acquisition of services in the

review process.

• We have implemented “Technology

Readiness Assessments” to determine

when a program is ready to proceed

to the next step in its development.

• We have contributed to the health of

the defense industrial base by facilitating additional profitability among

contractors.

• We have restored the role of science

and technology to our national de-

fense by setting the goal that 3 per-

cent of the DoD budget be reserved

for science and technology. We are

now very close to that figure, and will

continue to push for the entire 3 per-

cent.

• We are also exploiting the enormous

potential of Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations. I’ll have more

to say on the role of technology in a

moment.

We are by no means finished with these

original five goals, and we will continue

to push for the accomplishment of each

one. We have a strong momentum

going, and we have no intention of

squandering it. 

Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition,

Technology and Logistics) Edward C. “Pete”

Aldridge Jr., speaking at the PEO/SYSCOM

Commanders’ Conference on Nov. 22,

2002. The fall 2002 conference was held

at the Defense Acquisition University, Fort

Belvoir, Va. Photo by Richard Mattox
48 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Re-Engineer AT&L

Our second priority for the next 18

months is to “Re-engineer” the office of

Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

Over the years we have accumulated

many “management” functions that are

inappropriate for an office that should

concentrate instead on policy and oversight.

We are going to eliminate marginal activities and transfer certain functions

that can be better accomplished elsewhere. This is consistent with the Secretary’s direction to reduce the size of

the Office of the Secretary of Defense

and to focus our efforts on Excellence

in Acquisition. 

Something else that was directed by the

Secretary is the war on bureaucracy. The

day before last year’s attacks, he announced his determination to rationalize the DoD’s dependence on bureaucracy, much of which is self-defeating

in its outcome and mind-boggling in its

execution. One of the engines of that effort within AT&L is the cancellation of

the current DoD 5000 [series documents]. 

In his memo dated October 30th, Deputy

Secretary Wolfowitz was clear. He said

that the objective of this action is to

“...create an acquisition policy environment that fosters efficiency, flexibility, creativity, and innovation.” 

This is consistent with one of the President’s guiding management principles—what he calls the “Freedom to

Manage.” From my perspective, that

principle represents a welcome breath

of fresh air. 

I am a big believer in the dangers of micromanagement. It is often said that if

you want to develop leadership, initiative, and versatility among subordinates,

assign them an objective, then avoid micromanaging their execution. The authors of the current DoD 5000 series

obviously did not follow this guidance.

Whatever replaces the 5000 will be

much less prescriptive, and will allow

managers more discretion. It will foster

initiative, speed, and efficiency. We hope

to reduce the 250 pages of directive,

with 40 pages of guidance. 

Many before me—many before the Secretary—have given lip service to the notion that our people are our greatest

strength. When the new guidance is in

place, we will have acted on that belief

by taking the shackles off of the talent,

capability, and creativity that I am looking at today. 

“Acquisition Excellence” Plan

Third, we are going to develop an “Acquisition Excellence” Plan for all major

weapon systems. The objectives here are

four-fold: We intend to reduce acquisition cycle time, minimize program risks,

enhance stability, and keep costs under

control. 

The importance of this goal is self evident when you consider the significance

of some of the programs we have under

way. 

• We have to keep the Joint Strike

Fighter on track. 

• We must implement a deployment

plan for missile defense;

• We must decide the architecture for

the Army’s Future Combat System; 

• We must establish a development plan

for the Navy’s DD-X program and the

resulting family of ships;

• We need to develop a balanced program for “information dominance” to

include a new wideband communications system; 

• We must rationalize the next generation of platforms for the new “strategic forces posture” that will result from

the Nuclear Posture Review; 

• We need to complete the road map

for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and

Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles;

and

• We need to complete the plan for the

development and production of new

precision munitions.

Complete Plans for “Future

Logistics Enterprise”

As my fourth priority, we will complete

our plans for what we call the “Future

Logistics Enterprise.” I’m sure you have

all heard the old saying that in discussions of war amateurs debate strategy,

while professionals debate logistics. The

objective of the Future Logistics Enterprise reflects that adage. Simply put, it

is to transform our capabilities to project power and sustain the Joint

Warfighter.

It establishes a clear vision by which our

logistics will better support our operational requirements. It will enable us to

project and sustain our forces anywhere
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 49

on the globe through end-to-end customer service and enterprise integration.

The Future Logistics Enterprise effort is

divided among three areas: weapon system support, customer support, and enterprise support. Progress has been made

in all these areas, but the task is still in

the early stages.

We must continue to push for the completion of a shared data environment

and a new “Demand Management System” to reduce customer wait time, maximize customer satisfaction, reduce costs,

and minimize inventories of supplies.

We must also determine the proper organizational structure to implement the

new logistics enterprise.

Accelerate Flow of

Technology to the Warfighter

I told you a moment ago that I would

return to the subject of technology. Our

fifth priority is to accelerate the Flow of

Technology to the Warfighter.

Let me read a quote to you from the

noted British military historian and analyst, John Keegan:

“The brief Afghan campaign revealed

that terrorists are as dependent as regular armies on bases and training facilities, on regular lines of supply, and on

infusions of manpower to replace casualties.”

Clearly, terrorists have vulnerabilities

just like any other human organization,

and technology, though unable to exploit all of them, is certainly playing a

dominant role in this war. In fact, if ever

there was a techno-centric war, this one

is surely it. 

Already we have exploited our advantages in airlift, space dominance, communications, UAVs, precision guided

munitions, and sensor technology to

name just a few. 

And we have uncovered a need to further develop bandwidth technology, unmanned combat air vehicles, information technology, interoperability, and

system of systems capabilities. 

Our experiences this past year have underlined the need for vibrant and robust

research. We have restored DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects

Agency] to the high-risk, high-payoff

focus that characterized it years ago. We

intend to keep that momentum going

through commitment and money. 

Quality R&D is not cheap, but it is

worth every penny. Every unmanned

aircraft shot down, every bullet deflected

by advanced body armor, represents a

visit not paid to a spouse or parent by

a military chaplain. 

But current, or mature, technologies

have also proven to have great utility

when used in creative ways. And that

could almost serve as the definition of

Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations. We intend to expand these

demonstrations to take advantage of

some of the valuable technologies already out there. 

Clearly, the events of one year ago have

had an effect on the course this office

has steered. Our war footing has presented us with both challenges and opportunities. Yes, our workload has increased. Yes, DoD’s priorities have

changed, and must remain flexible. 

And yes, this war has elevated the

need for the transformation of our

defenses. That is most welcome. If

you were here last year, you may recall a prediction I made. I stated that

this war will either provide a springboard to transformation, or it will

sanction the status quo. I also expressed my determination that history not record the latter option. 

One year later, I am pleased to report

that we are well on our way to recasting our military into a force that is truly

prepared for the challenges of the 21st

century. 

Now is the time to recommit ourselves

to maintaining this momentum. We

must keep pushing for capabilities that

are lighter, faster, and more interoperable. We must continue to exploit our

clear advantages in information technology and space dominance.

If we do so, we will be leveraging our

forces with the greatest advantage that

free nations possess over the tyrants who

currently oppose us: 

I’m talking about our traditions of free

inquiry, vibrant debate, the scientific

method, unfettered research, and capitalist production. 

To say that this current war is one of liberty against oppression is not empty

platitude. The benefits of the former

over the limitations of the latter have always served us well, and will not fail us

now.
50 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

A COMPARISON OF THEDEFENSE ACQUISITION

SYSTEMS OF AUSTRALIA, JAPAN, SOUTH

KOREA, SINGAPORE, AND THE UNITED STATES

Author: Stefan Markowski Editor: Tony Kausal

T

his guidebook describes the

national armament systems

of Australia, Japan, South

Korea, Singapore, and the

United States. Beginning with

an introduction to the political

environment, the acquisition organizations, systems, and

processes involved, Kausal and

Markowski describe the effects

of differences in national culture

and traditions, time zones, currencies, fiscal year schedules,

and language barriers. Tying these differences to each nation’s national armament system, the authors make the case

that international armaments cooperation is a difficult but

rewarding challenge.

Online

http://www.dau.mil/pubs/misc/acq-comp-pac00.asp

Printed Copy

To request a printed copy of A Comparison of the Defense Acquisition Systems of Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore,

and the United States, choose one of three options: 1) Fax a

written request to the DAU Publications Distribution Center at (703) 805-3726; 2) mail your request to Defense Acquisition University, Attn: OP-CI, 9820 Belvoir Road, Suite

3, Fort Belvoir VA 22060-5565; or 3) e-mail jeff.turner@

dau.mil.

ACQUISITION GUIDE FOR INTERACTIVE

ELECTRONIC TECHNICAL MANUALS

T

his guidebook is designed as the

primary desk reference for acquisition personnel who must acquire,

develop, deliver, and manage Interactive Electronic Technical Manuals

(IETMs). It incorporates the status of

existing/planned DoD and Serviceunique policy guidance, discusses current and projected technologies related

to the production of IETMs, analyzes

the relationships between IETMs and

training, and addresses delivery vehicles, including the World Wide Web. 

Online

http://http://www.dau.mil/pubs/misc/ietm.asp

Printed Copy

To request a printed copy of Acquisition Guide for Interactive

Electronic Technical Manuals (September 1999), choose one

of three options: 1) Fax a written request to the DAU Publications Distribution Center at (703) 805-3726; 2) mail

your request to Defense Acquisition University, Attn: OPCI, 9820 Belvoir Road, Suite 3, Fort Belvoir VA 22060-

5565; or 3) e-mail jeff.turner@dau.mil.

INCENTIVE STRATEGIES FOR

DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS GUIDE

Printed on behalf of the Office of the Deputy Under Secretary

of Defense for Acquisition Initiatives by the Defense Acquisition

University Press

I

ncentives should exist in every business arrangement because they maximize value for all parties. DoD

needs to adopt strategies that attract,

motivate, and reward contractors to

encourage successful performance.

Using commercial practices will enhance DoD's ability to attract nontraditional contractors. This guide amplifies existing policy regarding use of

incentives in defense acquisitions. It

explores cost-based and noncost-based

incentive strategies. It clearly defines

use of performance objectives or product functionality vs.

detailed requirements to seek best value acquisitions. It answers these questions:

• Why are we concerned with contractual incentives?

• What elements contribute to an effective incentive strategy?

• How can we build and maintain an effective environment

for a successful business relationship? 

• How can we build the acquisition business case?

• How can we build an incentive strategy that maximizes

value? 

Online

http://www.dau.mil/pubs/misc/incentive.asp

Printed Copy

To request a printed copy of Incentive Strategies for Defense

Acquisitions (April 2001), choose one of three options: 1)

Fax a written request to the DAU Publications Distribution

Center at (703) 805-3726; 2) mail your request to Defense

Acquisition University, Attn: OP-CI, 9820 Belvoir Road,

Suite 3, Fort Belvoir VA 22060-5565; or 3) e-mail

jeff.turner@dau.mil.

DAU Guidebooks Available

At No Cost to Government Employees
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 51

PERFORMANCE-BASED

SERVICE ACQUISITION IN THE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Printed on behalf of the Office of the

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for

Acquisition Reform by the Defense Acquisition University Press, March 2001

T

he Department of Defense has the

responsibility to acquire services

with the most efficient practices

and processes. Performance-Based Service Acquisition (PBSA) strategies strive

to adopt best commercial practices. They provide the means

to reach world-class commercial suppliers, gain greater access to technological innovations, maximize competition,

and obtain the best value to achieve greater savings and efficiencies.

This handbook highlights key elements of PBSA, investigates the use of market research, introduces the performance-based work statement, and establishes measurable

performance standards. It covers incentives and remedies,

using assessment and quality control plans, and it enumerates evaluation factors of source selection. Finally it discusses contract administration, particularly in regard to

post-award orientation and documentation of contractor

performance. 

Online

http://www.dau.mil/pubs/misc/pbsa.asp

Printed Copy

To request a printed copy of Performance-Based Service Acquisition in the Department of Defense, choose one of three

options: 1) Fax a written request to the DAU Publications

Distribution Center at (703) 805-3726; 2) mail your request to Defense Acquisition University, Attn: OP-CI, 9820

Belvoir Road, Suite 3, Fort Belvoir VA 22060-5565; or 3)

e-mail jeff.turner@dau.mil.

TEST AND EVALUATION

MANAGEMENT GUIDE

4th Ed., November 2001

T

he objective of a well-managed

T&E program is to provide timely

and accurate information. This

guide has been developed to assist the

acquisition community in obtaining a

better understanding of whom the decision makers are and determining

how and when to plan test and evaluation events. The guide is written for

current and potential acquisition management personnel

who are familiar with basic terms and definitions employed

in program offices. 

Online

http://http://www.dau.mil/pubs/gdbks/test_evalu_guide.asp

Printed Copy

To request a printed copy of the Test and Evaluation Management Guide, choose one of three options: 1) Fax a written request to the DAU Publications Distribution Center at

(703) 805-3726; 2) mail your request to Defense Acquisition University, Attn: OP-CI, 9820 Belvoir Road, Suite 3,

Fort Belvoir VA 22060-5565; or 3) e-mail jeff.turner

@dau.mil.

DAU Guidebooks Available

At No Cost to Government Employees

Inside DAU

A

ir Force Lt. Col. Caisson M. (Caise) Vickery was named

Executive Director, E-Learning and Technologies Center, effective Jan 6, 2003. Vickery comes to DAU from

the National Reconnaissance Office where he served as the

Director of the Acquisition Center of Excellence. During his

18-year Air Force career he has served as a warranted procuring contracting officer in three different organizations. A graduate of Harvard University, Vickery also holds a master’s in

Contracting Management from the Air Force Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in Information and Management Sciences

from Florida State University.

M

ark C. Whiteside was named Executive Director of

Performance and Resource Management effective Oct.

24, 2002. Whiteside comes to DAU from private industry having worked as a Chief Financial Officer for the

last 14 years in government contracting companies located

in the Washington D.C., area. His career in Corporate finance spans 18 years and runs the gamut from compiling

and analyzing budget and financial data to managing Accounting departments, Human Resource departments, Contracts departments, Facility departments and Management

Information Systems (MIS) departments. Most recently he

served as Executive Vice President of Business & Finance

at Innovative Logistics Techniques Inc. (INNOLOG), where

he was responsible for managing all accounting functions,

cash management, bank financing, contract management,

budgeting and planning, auditing, and mergers & acquisitions. Whiteside graduated from The George Washington University with an M.B.A. in Finance. He also holds

an Undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland.
PROGRAM MANAGER MAGAZINE 2002

A QUICK REFERENCE FOR LAST YEAR’S ARTICLES

JANUARY — FEBRUARY

52 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Title Page

Pentagon Renovation Program (Lester M.

Hunkele III • W. Lee Evey) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

ATEC Names Program/Project Manager of the Year

(Phillip Washburn) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

DoD Enterprise Solutions (Ron Klein) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

When Leaders Fail (Bob Rue) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Affordability—The Road Ahead (Leon Reed) . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Conversations with the DACMs (Marcia Richard) 52

Service Contract Management (Susan J. Harvey) . . . . . . . .56

Simulation and Modeling for Acquisition, Requirements, 

and Training—SMART (Bruce J. Donlin • Michael R. 

Truelove) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62

DAU to Offer New Program Management Office Course

(PMOC) (Ken Bloom • Bill Bahnmaier) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76

Army Set to Introduce “CAT” (Col. Terrell W. Mathews,

USAR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82

Reduction of Total Ownership Costs (R-TOC) (Dr. Spiros G.

Pallas • Michael J. Novak) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88

Wartime Setting Marks Aldridge’s First Address to a DAU

Graduating Class (Collie J. Johnson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

MARCH — APRIL

Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle System (Col. R.K. Saxer,

USAF • Lt. Col. J.M. Knauf, USAF • L.R. Drake • Dr. P.L.

Portanova) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

DAU Opens Its Doors in Huntsville, Ala. (Sylwia GasiorekNelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Implications of Commercial Product Insertion into the

National Defense (Tom Castino) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Dr. Program Manager—Rx Program (Daniel Knapp) . . . . .30

DAU Hosts WACUC Strategic Learning Symposium

(Sylwia Gasiorek-Nelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Writing the Book on Getting SMART (Dr. Mary-jo

Hall • Cadet 1st Class Isaac Bell, USAFA) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44

Marine Corps Working to Equip Warfighters, Remove Roadblocks (Col. Patrick J. Dulin, USMC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

“You Don’t Need to Test COTS Components” and Other

Myths (Maj. Holly R. Mangum, USAF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

Welcome to a PMO for the 21st Century (Maj. Michael

“John” Smith, USAF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Where Are All the Civilian “PMs in Waiting?” (Arthur “Art”

Santo-Donato) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .68

Increasing Combat Effectiveness Through Interoperability

(Phuong Tran • Gordon Douglas) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78

Network-Centric Acquisition (Dr. R.A. LeFande) . . . . . . . . . .84

Earned Value Management (Quentin W. Fleming • 

Joel M. Koppelman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90

From Now to the Objective Force (Col. Theodore “Ted” Johnson, USA • Matt Gillis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98

“Breaking Down” The Work Breakdown Structure (James

J. Clark • Philip D. Littrell) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104

Transformation—DoD’s Central Non-War Objective 

(E. C. Aldridge, Jr.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110

Understanding the Program Manager’s Role (Lt. Cmdr. Jose

Fernandez, USN • Armond Darrin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

Air Force Center of Excellence (Terry Little) . . . . . . . . . . . . .120

DAU Increasing Momentum Toward Strategic Partnerships

(Wayne Glass) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124

2002 Distance Learning Awards (Christina Cavoli • Collie

Johnson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

e-Learning Magazine Names “Champions” of Distance

Learning (Christina Cavoli • Collie Johnson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Evolutionary Acquisition (Alexander R. Slate) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

DAU Opens Mid-Atlantic Region in Patuxent River, Md. 

(Sylwia Gasiorek-Nelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

DAU Strategic Partnerships Increasing Daily (Annmarie HartBookbinder) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Aldridge Publishes Definitions for Evolutionary Acquisition,

Spiral Development (E.C. Aldridge Jr.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

Risk Data Based on Capability Maturity Models (Lt. Col. Bob

Lang, USAF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Critical Success Factor (CSF) Analysis for DoD Risk Management (Dr. James “Jim” Dobbins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Clinger-Cohen Act Compliance Policy (E.C. Aldridge, Jr. •

John P. Stenbit) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

DAU Welcomes New Commandant (Sylwia GasiorekNelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

The Value of Science and Technology (Greg Mannix) . . . . . .60

Commercial or Non-Developmental Item Acquisition

Strategy (Paul D. Gutierrez) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Project Managers as Leaders (Keith Lymore) . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Risky Business (Dr. Barry Boehm • Lt. Gen. Peter Kind, USA

(Ret.) • Dr. Richard Turner) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74

MAY — JUNE
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 53

Mentor-Protegé Conference Setting for 2002 Nunn-Perry

Awards (Christina Cavoli) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81

Innovation Through “Venture Capital” in DoD’s Working Capital Fund (WCF) Organizations (Mark Lewis) . . . . . . . . . . . .86

Opportunities for Working Capital Fund Organizations and

Their Customers (David A. Breslin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

“Learn Space by Doing Space” (Capt. John Martin, USAF • 

Lt. Col. Jerry Sellers, USAF • Lt. Col. Steve Green, USAF,

Ret.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

Only the Paranoid Survive (Lt. Col. Scott E. Shifrin, USA •

Anita Wood) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

SPS Users Meet for Second Joint Conference (Linda

Polonsky-Hillmer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

USD(AT&L) Media Roundtable (E.C. Aldridge Jr.) . . . . . . . . .20

Transitioning the Defense Acquisition Deskbook (Sylwia

Gasiorek-Nelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Best Value Formula (David P. Quinn) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

DAU Introduces Online International Acquisition Course

(Richard Kwatnoski) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

Non-Lethal Weapon Human Effects (Susan D. Levine • Maj.

Noel Montgomery, USAF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Reflections on Test and Evaluation (T&E), Part I (John F.

Gehrig • Gary Holloway • George Schroeter) . . . . . . . . . . .56

TSARC—The Test Schedule and Review Committee (Lt. Col.

Peter G. Laky, USA • Phillip H. Riley) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66

Aldridge Publishes Policy Guidance on Acquisition of Services

(E.C. Aldridge Jr.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71

Use It or Lose It (Mark Lewis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72

Leading Project Teams (Owen Gadeken) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76

AcqDemo—A Contribution-Based Pay System (Marcia

Richard) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82

Human Systems Integration (HSI) (James J. Clark • Robert K.

Goulder) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88

Transforming Acquisition and Logistics Support for the

Warfighter (Leon Reed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94

The Joint CAD/PAD Program (Dennis Chappell • 

Tony Taylor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

DAU Conducts Last APMC Graduation (Sylwia GasiorekNelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Sustainable Development on Federal Facilities (Rand H.

Fishbein, Ph.D.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

DAU Exports PMT-352 to South Region (Collie J. Johnson) .24

Reflections on Test and Evaluation, Part II (John F. Gehrig •

Frederick D. Mabanta) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

DAU and SOLE Sign Memorandum of Understanding (Dr.

Russell A. Vacante) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

Achieving Defense Transformation (Louis A. Kratz • Randy T.

Fowler • Jerry D. Cothran) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

DAU Hosts Third Annual Business Managers’ Conference

(Joni Forman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

Promoting Transformation with Ideas from the Acquisition

Workforce (Steven J. Manchester) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

DAU Hosts 9/11 First Responder (Sylwia GasiorekNelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76

DAU Hosts Fourth DoD Chancellor’s Conference (Christina

Cavoli) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80

Assessing the Transition-to-Production Risk (Tamara J.

Adams • Steve P. Austin • Robin B. Soprano • Lucinda

Matkin Stiene) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90

Quantity Discounts/Economic Order Quantity (Michael

Bogner • Chuck Wong • Bernie Price) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

New Online Tool Gives SPS Users Help When They Need It

(Linda Polonsky-Hillmer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

DAU’s Systems Engineering Department Revamping SYS301 Course (Dr. Martin Falk) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

Aldridge Publishes Policy on Continuous Learning (E.C.

Aldridge Jr.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

Contract Performance Information System (Alan Gilbert

Markell) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

JULY — AUGUST

SEPTEMBER — OCTOBER

NOVEMBER — DECEMBER

Releasing the Power of Innovation in Acquisition

Management (Barbara Rostosky Brygider) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

DAU Sets Industry Standards as Best in Class Corporate University (Paul T. McMahon) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

DAU Launches New Online Modules (Sylwia GasiorekNelson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Technical Performance Measurement—A Program

Manager’s Barometer (Mike Ferraro) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Making the Acquisition Warrior Fully Mission Capable (Col.

Donald J. “Bud” Vazquez, USAF (Ret.) • Capt. Brian C.

Payne, USAF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

Organization of the Joint Technology Office (Lt. Col. John B.

Wissler, USAF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26

Affordability Through Commonality (Capt. Herb Hause,

USN • Chris Grassano) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

Activity Based Costing Efforts (Stephen J. Moretto) . . . . . . .36

The Socratic Method (Maj. Norman H. Patnode, USAF) . . .48

The Trouble with Action Items (Don Paul Rance • Capt. Dan

Ward, USAF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

Building Communities of Practice (David P. Brown) . . . . . . .60
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Blum is a Technical Specialist, Cubic Applications Inc. (CAI), Alexandria, Va. Neasham is Director of the East Coast Engineering Division, CAI, Alexandria, Va. 

Magill is a Program Manager, Weapons Effects High Level Architecture Conformation, CAI, Alexandria, Va. Zittelis a Professor of Systems Engineering, Technology and Engineering Department, Defense Acquisition University Capital and Northeast Region, Fort Belvoir, Va.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Defense Threat Reduction Agency

Supports DAU Coursework 

WMD Simulation Incorporated into

DoD Advanced Systems Engineering Course

BUD BLUM • JON NEASHAM • BILL MAGILL • RANDY ZITTEL 

54

B

eginning this fiscal year, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency

(DTRA) began a new era of cooperation within the DoD professional education community.

DTRA is now partnering with the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) to

introduce senior DoD technical managers to DTRA Modeling and Simulation (M&S) capabilities as part of a formal, ongoing course presented at the

Capital and Northeast Region, located

at Ft. Belvoir, Va.

The Capital and Northeast Region is a

campus of the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), a corporate university

aligned under the Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy, Office

of the Under Secretary of Defense for

Acquisition, Technology and Logistics

(AT&L). This course is routinely offered

six times a year in the Washington metropolitan area and 50 times across the

country.

The Under Secretary of Defense (AT&L)

and the military services have increased

their emphasis on the use of simulation

in support of DoD acquisition activities.

In support of these goals, DAU offers a

four-hour simulation block in its senior

Advanced Systems Planning, Research,

Development, and Engineering Course

for the DoD (AT&L) workforce. 

Because of this increased emphasis on

using simulation in support of DoD acquisition activities, DTRA’s Weapons of

Mass Destruction (WMD) Assessment

and Analysis Branch expressed an interest in supporting the four-hour session. To this end, DTRA collaborated

with Professor Randy Zittel, DAU Technology and Engineering Department,

who is also the author for much of

DAU’s M&S curriculum. 

“Hands-on exposure to current simulation technology,” Zittel stated, “goes far

beyond what any in-classroom discussion can accomplish by allowing senior

technical managers—who may not be

currently involved in state-of-the-art

techniques and practices within the systems planning, research, development

and engineering career field—access to

simulation experts. Such exposure also

helps validate the value of simulations

being used in so many DoD applications.”

On Oct. 3, 2002, 38 students—predominantly federal civilians, GS-14 and

above, and military officers, major (O4) and above—attended the first DTRA

session. The four-hour session took place

in the Technical Engineering Support

Center at the DTRA Telegraph Road site

Donald Warf (2nd from right), and Edward Pelczar (2nd from left), Cubic Applications, Inc.,

demonstrate WALTS/IMPACT simulation to DAU students.

Photos by Mike Dawson, Cubic Applications, Inc.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 55

in Alexandria, Va. Two hours of lecture

by Zittel followed a welcome and introductory overview by Walt Zimmers,

Chief of the WMD Assessment and

Analysis Center. 

During his presentation, Zimmers provided an introduction to DTRA M&S

capabilities and plans; insight into the

uses of M&S throughout the DoD; and

cooperative M&S activities with other

agencies and activities such as support

for Homeland Defense.

Following Zittel's lecture, the class was

divided into groups and given demonstrations of DTRA's simulation Research

and Development (R&D) resources at

the adjacent R&D facility. The East Coast

Engineering Division of Cubic Applications, Inc., operates the facility for DTRA

and also hosts some of the agency's premier M&S development capabilities. 

Engineers from Cubic Applications Inc.,

demonstrated ongoing DTRA M&S projects, supporting DoD simulations, engineering tools, and the development

environment and platforms. 

Students observed a demonstration of

the Weapons Analysis and Lethality Tool

Set/Integrated Modeling Platform for

Advanced Computational Technologies

(WALTS/IMPACT), conducted by Cubic

engineers Donald Warf and Edward Pelczar. WALTS/IMPACT is an ongoing

DTRA effort that integrates physicsbased weapons effects with environmental data to show realistic battle-damage outcomes to the warfighter.

The demonstrations highlighted current

efforts aimed at improving DTRA's ability to rapidly construct target environments for its M&S programs. David Holland, also of Cubic, presented the

Constructive Rapid Assessment Modeling tool used for rapid target generation.

Cubic’s Mike Walsh showed students

how terrain databases were integrated

into the modeling effort; Rob Eddy, also

of Cubic, covered the uses of Computer

Assisted Design tools to build realistic

targets. Cubic engineer Cecil Maccannon Jr. provided additional insight and

answered questions raised during the

tours.

An aspect of the facility that is critical

to interactive simulation development

is the incorporation of other military

simulations. Cubic's Conan Smith

demonstrated the Simulation Training

and Analysis for Fixed Facilities/Sites

(STAFFS)—a simulation developed by

the Air Force Research Laboratory. The

STAFFS model is used with DTRA models to assess fixed-site performance

under chemical and biological warfare

conditions.

After the demonstrations, students returned to the classroom for additional

presentations and a wrap-up period. According to Zittel, he received “overwhelming feedback on how great the

information was” and how helpful it was

to see the simulations “operate live” in

the first session. Five additional demonstrations are scheduled through August

2003.

Editor's Note: The authors welcome

questions or comments on this article.

Contact them at jneasham@cubic.com;

wmagill@cubic.com; and randy.zittel@dau.mil.

Walt Zimmers, Chief, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Assessment and Analysis Branch, DTRA, briefs DAU systems

engineering students.

Randy Zittel, Professor of Systems Engineering, lectures DAU

students on the uses and benefits of simulation for Defense

acquisition.
56 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

“Itinerant” Painter Adds 18th

Century Charm to DAU Cafeteria

E

xuberant and vivacious muralist Virginia Jacobs McLaughlin entertained the lunch crowd in the DAU Cafeteria during January 2003 as she created a colonial-style mural

around the walls right before their eyes. The mural is similar

to murals she painted in dining rooms throughout the Mount

Vernon Inn a few years ago. 

The old cafeteria look will not be missed. After over 20 years

of extremely bland appearance (decorated with chrome chairs

and posters from the 1972 Munich Olympics), the DAU cafeteria received a major facelift in 1999 with the addition of

Windsor chairs and tavern tables, a colonial motif, and a new

name—”George's Cafe,” after George Washington. The new

mural is a final touch to create a comfortable colonial atmosphere that well reflects local history. Besides Mount Vernon with its Stone Mill and 16-Sided Barn, other sites she has

included are Gunston Hall, Woodlawn Mansion, Belvoir Mansion, and Olde Towne Alexandria. The new mural should last

for decades and age as gracefully as its painter has. 

Her painting style is full of personality, and incorporates the

primitive styles of Moses Eaton and Rufus Porter, and includes

hints of the famous French scenic wallpapers by Zuber et Cie,

created from woodblocks and still being made today. She is

also adept at Chinese-style painting known as “Chinoiserie”

from the 18th century. 

A spry 80 years young, Virginia has been painting murals for

the last 50 years and a lot can be said for the advantages of

experience. She paints boldly and directly on the wall with

little or no preliminary drawing. She consults

photos and drawings from many sources, but

as she explains, the finished wall is sketched

in her mind before she starts painting.

She still carries her own ladders and mixes her

own latex colors; however, one of her two sons,

Mark “Salyer” McLaughlin, an artist in his own

right, paints the highest parts of the sky and

blocks in large areas to speed progress. Mark

is well-known nationally in his own right as

a faux-finish painter, capable of imitating any

texture including wood grain, marble, and

stone.

Her current home in Frederick, Md., reflects

her driving need to create and paint, and she

seems to paint any object that does not move.

Her dining room walls are painted with all the

historic sites in the Frederick area. Virginia attended Stephens

College and the University of Missouri, then could not find

a teaching job. In her early thirties she began painting large

murals. With her late husband Donald, a former CIA agent

and later real estate agent, she bought and restored an 1850s

manor house in Carroll Valley, Pa. She started painting woodwork, walls, and furniture in the “old style” as part of the renovation. She is also an expert stenciler. Besides the Mount

Vernon Inn at Mount Vernon, home of George Washington,

she has also decorated the Brafferton Inn and Grand Army of

the Republic (GAR) Building in Gettysburg, Pa.; the Fairfield

Inn in Fairfield, Pa.; and a number of private residences. She

has been featured in publications including Country Kitchens,

Country Living, Americana, and the Washington Post “Home”

section. 

Unlike itinerant painters in the 18th century, Virginia signs

and dates her murals. As she said in an ABC “Working Woman”

special, she's proud of what she does and wants to be remembered for it. But anyone who has met her and seen her

work will not forget her. She's as charming as she is talented.

Editor’s Note: Caruth is Director, Visual Arts and Press, Operations Group, Defense Acquisition University, Fort Belvoir,

Va.

Virginia Jacobs McLaughlin paints a colonial-style mural around the

walls of the DAU Cafeteria, at Fort Belvoir, Va. A spry 80 years

young, Virginia has been painting murals for the last 50 years and

now resides in Frederick, Md. Photo by Army Sgt. Kevin Moses

Greg Caruth
Pentagon Outlines Missile 

Defense Program

SGT. 1 S T CLASS DOUG SAMPLE, USA

W

ASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2002—Despite a few

misfires and a ground-based booster system

that's back on the drawing board, the head

of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency says he is confident the system “will work.” 

It has to. 

The United States currently has no overall proven

defense capability against an enemy ballistic missile

attack. In light of threats by hostile states and terrorist groups, however, President Bush directed the

Pentagon today to begin fielding initial defense capabilities by the year 2004. He cited the need “to

protect U.S. national security and the security of its

allies and friendly countries.” 

A special commission in 2001 assessing the ballistic missile threat to the United States listed China,

India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Iraq, and Iran

as countries that have or have been working to develop ballistic missiles. 

At a briefing today, Air Force Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish

said he is confident the United States is ready to proceed with initial testing of what is called “hit- to-kill

capability. Kadish is the Director of the Missile Defense Agency, the organization responsible for research, development, and testing of all the components of the program. 

“What we do know is that our fundamental technology of hit-to-kill works. A few years ago, I could

not tell you that with confidence,” Kadish said. 

“The system testing that we have done gives us the

confidence that we have the ability to integrate these

elements, as complex as they are, and to make them

effective,” he said. “Our computer predictions...are

telling us when we do have a successful test, it occurs just as we predicted.” 

Kadish has good reason to be confident—and videotape to back the Missile Defense Agency test results.

During tests in 2001 and 2002, the agency was able

to destroy four of five missiles in long-range, groundbased intercepts, two of four using the Army's Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile system, and three

of three short- to medium-range missiles using shipbased intercepts. 

“Some things will work and some things won't, but

we will build confidence over time as we invest in

this program,” he said. That investment is expected

to cost about $8 billion a year, and Kadish said he

will ask Congress to appropriate another $1.5 billion over the next two years for certain development

capabilities. These include: 

• Up to 20 ground-based interceptor missiles capable of taking out ICBMs [Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles] during mid-flight—16 at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and four at Vandenberg Air Force Base,

Calif. 

• Up to 20 sea-based interceptor missiles employed

on existing Aegis destroyers. 

• Deployment of air-transportable Patriot PAC-3s to

intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. 

• Land-, sea- and space-based sensors. 

• Upgrades to existing early-warning satellites and

radars in the United Kingdom and Greenland. 

• Development of a sea-based X-band radar and upgrades to sensors currently on Aegis cruisers and

destroyers. 

Kadish described the missile defense program as aggressive and ongoing. He said that results of recent

testing and analysis have given his agency the confidence to move forward. 

Editor's Note: This information is in the public domain at: http://www.defenselink.mil/news.

RELEASED Dec. 17, 2002
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Post is the Editor of ASK Magazine and works for

EduTech Ltd. In Silver Spring, Md. In April 2003, he

will be speaking about ASK Magazine and the

NASA Knowledge Sharing Initiative at an E-Gov

Conference in Washington, D.C.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING

DAU Collaborates with NASA

Sharing Stories with Like-Minded Leaders in

Program and Project Management

TODD POST 

58

T

erry Little has plenty of stories to

tell—and well he should. During his sterling career as a civilian program manager in the Air

Force, he has learned a lot about

managing large missile programs; and,

like any true leader, wants to share some

of that with the people who can benefit from it most. That’s why we publish

him regularly in ASK Magazine, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) publication about program and project management. 

That’s right, NASA, the space people—

but don’t think for a moment this magazine is meant for just NASA. In each

issue we feature project leaders from industry and other government agencies.

ASK content is mostly about managing

large complex projects, usually about

technology doing some amazing thing,

and that general purpose objective is

why we’ve sought out contributions

from people like Terry Little. 

Thanks to DAU

As the ASK editor, I feel compelled to

say thank you to the Defense Acquisition University (DAU). Nowhere have

we gotten as much high-quality material outside of our NASA sources as from

our friends at DAU. Terry Little is just

one of those with a DAU affiliation. 

Many at DAU know about ASK, but not

all, I suspect. So, if you are unfamiliar

with ASK, or would like to understand

how this relationship developed, let me

tell you about it. Here is the ASK story. 

The Roots of ASK

ASK is published bimonthly by NASA’s

Academy of Program and Project Leadership (APPL) as part of its Knowledge

Sharing Initiative (KSI). I’m involved in

other parts of KSI—more on KSI later—

although my primary responsibility is

to edit ASK Magazine. I collect stories

from the best program and project managers around, and from any practitioner

who has knowledge to share and an inclination to tell a story. ASK content is

generally in the form of stories told by

program and project managers describing their own experiences. Surely,

anybody who’s been managing long

enough has stories to tell. 

APPL Program Director Dr. Edward J.

Hoffman has always believed that NASA
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 59

program and project managers are best

served by knowing how projects are

managed elsewhere. How do peers in

other places deal with large budgets,

lengthy schedules, and complicated organizations among other things? 

Terry Little was an obvious choice

when we were looking for contributors outside of NASA. Besides his remarkable accomplishments as a manager, Little is known for his plainspoken candor, and this fit the tone

Hoffman and ASK Editor-in-Chief Dr.

Alexander Laufer wanted to set with

ASK. Little accepted their invitation

to provide a story for the first issue of

ASK in January 2001. Since then, he

has had a story in every issue.

Little was hardly an unknown quantity

when he was invited to write for ASK.

Hoffman and Laufer had worked with

him before. ASK Magazine is an offshoot

of a project they had begun in the late

’90s, culminating in their book, Project

Management Success Stories: Lessons of

Project Leadership (Wiley, 2000). Using

the same model as ASK, they collected

stories from a variety of project leaders

in government and private industry. In

all, they collected 70 stories by 36 different project managers, including Little. 

Stories as Teaching Tools

Why a story? To put it bluntly, the best

project managers manage from the gut;

they know what to do to drive a project

toward success not because of what

they’ve read in a management text, but

what they know works based on years

of experience, nurtured over a career of

ups and downs, successes and failures,

trial and error. 

How does one convey this kind of

knowledge to a peer or junior colleague?

Reach for formulas or the latest theories

and the words seem incompatible with

the meaning of the experience. But start

telling a story—let me tell you about

what happened to me—and if the listeners have been anywhere near that

kind of experience before, they will recognize the terrain and identify with the

meaning on a tacit level. 

In Project Management Success Stories,

Hoffman and Laufer began with one

basic premise. Practitioners themselves

are generally the most qualified teachers of other practitioners, and the best

way for practitioners to learn from one

another is by listening to them describe

shared types of experiences. 

A significant body of scholarship supports the use of stories as a way to convey lessons learned. Using stories in this

way was not new when Hoffman and

Laufer began in Project Management Success Stories, but no management book

before this had used storytelling so deliberately to examine the nuances of project management. 

Laufer, in particular, has been challenging the status quo of what makes a

successful project manager for many

years before he began work on Project

Management Success Stories. In his book,

Simultaneous Management (Wiley, 1997),

he began collecting stories to support

his findings that the best project managers know more than they can tell using

the formal vocabulary of scholarship. In

many cases, the best way for them to

make manifest their knowledge is to

simply start describing their experiences. 

The NASA Knowledge

Sharing Initiative

What is unique about the NASA Knowledge Sharing Initiative is that it has “products” that give structure and create an

impetus for a project management storytelling community to grow up around.

KSI combines three main products: Masters Forums, ASK Magazine, and Transfer of Wisdom Workshops.

Masters Forums, held semi-annually,

bring together between 40 and 50 of the

best project managers from NASA, private industry, and other government

agencies for three days of knowledge

sharing, mostly in the form of stories.

The idea of getting leaders together to

talk about lessons learned in the form

of stories is a novel approach, and it sure

beats a PowerPoint presentation—just

ask anyone who’s been to a Masters

Forum. 

In NASA, the popularity of the Masters

Forums is due in large part to how they

bridge the knowledge gap between

NASA Centers. NASA has nine centers

around the United States. Although there

is much collaboration and teaming

among the centers, it is not inconceivable that project managers at Goddard

Space Flight Center, for example, might

know little more about Ames Research

Center in California than where it is located on the map. In that way, the Masters Forums—and the Knowledge Sharing Initiative in general—are advancing

the NASA Administrator’s mission of a

“One NASA.” 

ASK Magazine,short for Academy Sharing Knowledge, captures and crafts the

stories from the Masters Forums. Because ASK is published online and in

print, it can share the stories with a

much larger audience than 40 or 50 who

attend the Masters Forums. Not all the

stories appearing in ASK derive from

the Masters Forums, but once a story is

shared at the Forum and discussed by

participants it has already begun being

readied for publication. 

All federal agencies face the grim

prospects of a knowledge drain. In the

last several years, many agencies have

attempted multiple initiatives to capture

the knowledge of their senior leaders.

ASK is one such solution that seems to

be striking a chord with people at NASA.

...The best project

managers manage from

the gut; they know what

to do to drive a project

toward success not

because of what they’ve

read in a management

text, but what they know

works based on years of

experience, nurtured

over a career of ups and

downs, successes and

failures, trial and error. 
60 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

In January 2001, ASK was launched,

and has repeatedly been hailed as one

of the most innovative initiatives in the

government to capture the knowledge

of senior practitioners before they retire. The print version of ASK Magazine

now reaches an audience of nearly

5,000. 

Transfer of Wisdom Workshops, conducted at NASA Centers, use stories

published in ASK Magazine as starting

points for the workshop participants to

share knowledge and discuss project issues, culminating with their telling stories of their own. 

How Knowledge is Transferred

In an upcoming issue of ASK Magazine,

Roy Malone, a NASA project manager

from Marshall Space Flight Center, tells

a story about attending a Masters Forum

and getting ideas from Air Force Program Director Judy Stokley, who was

invited as the keynote speaker. The point

of the story that Malone fixed on was

how Stokley addressed a painful government-mandated drawdown plan in

the mid ’90s and devised some ingenious ways of minimizing the impact

on the people she had to let go. Facing

a mandated drawdown of his own at

Marshall, Malone reflected on what he

heard and adapted Stokely’s ideas to his

situation at Marshall.

“What inspired me about this was that

she took a ‘humanitarian’ approach. She

partnered with the contractor to figure

out how to minimize the impact on people. She didn’t release them all at once,

for example, but gave them time to find

other jobs. She talked about how she met

with all the employees in an open forum

and answered questions about why this

was happening and what was going on.

The thing that struck me was she got

personally involved...In Judy’s case, it

was apparent that the government cared

about what happened to the people who

would lose their jobs.” 

—Roy Malone, “Thank you, Judy”

ASK Magazine, Issue 11

In the same issue, we feature a story by

Stokley that gives readers some context

for her own transformation as a leader.

At the Defense Systems Management

College (DSMC) in the early ’90s, she

found a course on leadership that utterly transformed the way she thought

about herself as a manager.

“In the early ’90s, I took some courses

at the Defense Systems Management

College. One teacher there taught a

course in Human Relationships, or something like that, and it changed my life.

The course was about leadership and

how to communicate with the people on

your team...Since 1992, I have read a

roomful of books on psychology, people,

and leadership; before 1992 I hadn’t read

one. I said to myself, ‘My God, there’s a

whole reservoir of knowledge out there

that I didn’t know to tap’...I always tease

the people down at DSMC that they really created me. I became a different person after going there, but not for the reasons they might think—not because I

went to all their management classes,

but because they launched me on a new

path to understanding the meaning of

leadership.” 

—Judy Stokley, “My Schooling in

Leadership,” ASK Magazine,Issue 11

“Thank you, Judy,” the story by Malone

that we published in ASK, demonstrates

the impact of storytelling as a force multiplier in terms of knowledge sharing.

At the Masters Forum, Stokley’s story

began a chain reaction. Since then we’ve

published the Malone story in ASK, recycling the knowledge for 5,000 readers to ponder how or whether to use for

themselves. 

“Thank you, Judy” is also an important

story because it shows the breadth of

the APPL Knowledge Sharing Initiative.

That a NASA project manager learns

something from an Air Force Program

Director at the Masters Forum highlights

how the initiative facilitates knowledge

sharing not only across NASA but across

government agencies. 

New Collaborations with DAU

Hoffman, Laufer, and I are now working on a book that examines four projects—two from NASA and two from

the Air Force. Once again, we have invited our friends Terry Little and Judy

Stokley to participate. We know that

DAU has produced two excellent case

studies about Little’s Joint Air to Surface

Standoff Missile (JASSM) and Stokley’s

Advanced Medium-Range Air-To-Air

Missile (AMRAAM) programs, but our

approach using stories is going to be entirely different. 

Only stories, we believe, are sufficiently

nuanced to convey the complexity of

projects this size. We are collecting stories by multiple parties who were involved in the program. No case study

that we know of has examined a project using stories told by several people

involved. 

We chose these programs because of our

existing relationships with Little and

Stokley, and because we knew that these

programs are superb examples of two

managers at the top of their game, operating “outside the box.” When we

asked Little and Stokley to participate,

they said, “Sure, sounds like a great

idea.” They have helped us by setting

up meetings with key personnel on the

project, providing an entrée for us to interview the prime contractors and their

suppliers. This typifies the kind of relationship we’ve developed with them.

The Knowledge Sharing Initiative truly

appreciates all the support we’ve gotten

from our friends at DAU. In addition to

Little and Stokley, Owen Gadeken is on

our Review Board and has contributed

stories to ASK; Norman Patnode has a

story appearing in an upcoming issue

of ASK. We thought it was about time

we said thanks, and the best place to

say that publicly was in your own excellent publication, Program Manager. 

Where else but here to share some

knowledge with you? 

Editor’s Note: Post welcomes questions, comments, or contributions to

ASK Magazine. Contact him at tpost@

edutechltd.com.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 61

D

riving back to my hotel, I felt

exhausted. I had just spent

four days at the Defense Systems Management College, meeting with 12 small groups of program management students from

all Services to discuss a case study

they had just completed. I was

there to give the students a chance

to ask questions that they felt the

case study had not answered. 

While I drove I found myself wondering why I had dedicated so

much time and energy to this

work. It wasn’t as if I had no idea

what I was getting into. I had been

doing this three times a year for

the past three years. And it sure

wasn’t because I had nothing else

to do. I was managing one of the

Air Force’s largest and most important programs. That by itself

was more than a full-time job. 

Nor was it because I liked to hear

myself talk. An introvert by nature,

I don’t fashion myself a professional educator. Nor did I expect

some tangible reward or recognition. I knew that I was as high in

the pecking order as I was ever

going to get and while the school

appreciated my service, I am not

sure my boss would be happy if

he realized how much time I was

spending at this. 

So why was it worth it?

I thought back on the day. Many

of the questions were ones that I

had heard over and over. For these

I had stock answers; however, in

almost every section I got a few

new questions that really forced

me to reflect. “What were you

thinking when you...?” “Why did

you make the choice to...?” “Did

you consider...?” “If you had it to

do over again would you still...?” 

As I thought about my answers, I

soon realized that these students

were teaching me to think about

things I had never thought of before. They were enriching my experience in a way that I could have

never anticipated. It was a richness

I was convinced made me better

in the job I was doing. 

I also thought about the students

and reflected on my experience

there as a student almost 10 years

ago. I had left the school with my

head crammed with facts, but with

none of the practical knowledge

or insights to understand what the

day-to-day life of a project manager was really like. 

In my training there had been no

opportunity to interact with real

practitioners—no opportunity to

hear real firsthand anecdotes or

war stories that would take me beyond the theory. What are the

tough decisions? What is most important when everything seems

important? How do you deal with

risk and adversity? What’s the role

of intuition, values, and judgment

in the decision process? How do

you deal with dysfunctional teaming relationships? How do you

handle higher-ups when they demand that you do something you

think is unwise? How do you recover after a mistake? 

I felt like these students, partly as

a result of my having shared my

time with them and given candid

answers to their questions, would

have a much better understanding

and ability to deal with these sorts

of real-world issues than I had

when I left school. Hopefully, they

will not have to learn as many

things the hard way as I did. Hopefully, they will understand that the

most difficult issues they face rarely

have a pat answer. 

As I continued toward the hotel, I

began to feel exhilarated even.

These students and their eagerness

to learn, their zest to grow as professionals, had recharged my old

batteries—cracked through some

of my cynicism and made me feel

more vital than ever. What I had

done was the right thing for the

students, for the Department, and

for me. 

Was it worth it? Absolutely!! I had

struck a blow for progress.

Tough Questions

Terry Little

Terry Little, Director, Kinetic Energy Interceptor

Program, Missile Defense Agency, speaking at

the Defense Acquisition University, October

2001.
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Ward is the Contracting Officer's Technical Representative (COTR) for the BRITE Tactical Imagery

Dissemination System at National Imagery and

Mapping Agency, Reston, Va. He is Level I-certified

in Test and Evaluation and in Program Management, and Level III-certified in Systems Planning,

Research, Development, and Engineering.

PROGRAM OFFICE MANAGEMENT

Micromanagement Reduction Plan

How to Deal With Micromanagers in

Seven Easy Steps

CAPT. DAN WARD, USAF

62

N

obody likes to be micromanaged, and yet many people

don't know what to do about

it. The truth is that people who

are being micromanaged can

actually do quite a lot to improve their

situations. Here are seven ideas to consider: 

1. STEP INTO THE FRAY.

Accomplishment speaks for itself. A lack

of trust is often the foundation of micromanagement; it is much easier for

bosses to trust people who perform well.

2. SOMETIMES, IT IS BETTER TO ASK

FOR FORGIVENESS THAN PERMISSION.

When bosses exhibit a micromanagement style, don't be an enabler. Make

decisions and take the initiative to do

things, rather than waiting for guidance

from above or asking for approval at

each step. But, the key word here is

“sometimes.” Remember, the boss is still

the boss.

3. KEEP BOSSES INFORMED AND HELP

THEM “LOOK SMART.”

Micromanagers always want to know

what is happening, so make sure you

provide a dependable, accurate source

of information. Regular, concise reports

of progress and events, both positive

and negative, will help scratch the micromanagement itch and give bosses a

real sense of involvement. 

4. RUN INTERFERENCE.

Help keep bosses out of the weeds, protect their time, and redirect things when

necessary. Make sure everyone knows

that bosses do not need to see everything—that’s why they have staffs. Don't

cut bosses out of the loop (see No. 3),

but don't put them in every loop.

5. SPEAK UP AND VOLUNTEER.

Don't be bashful; plug yourself into the

process where it's appropriate. For example, should your bosses ask for a twohour briefing, volunteer to hear it yourself and then later summarize it for

them. Ask if there is anything on their

To Do list that you can handle for them.

They may say no, but it doesn't hurt to

offer.

6. BRING ASSESSMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, NOT JUST PROBLEMS

AND OPTIONS.

When something needs management

attention, don't let bosses start from

scratch. Do your homework (and some

of theirs) before it reaches their desks.

When bosses ask for options, don't just
pass those options along without comment. Make recommendations based on

your honest analysis and give supporting facts.

7. BE HONEST AND FRANK.

Tell your bosses what you want to do

and how you want to do it. Ask for more

latitude and less upper-level involvement. Let bosses know when their assistance is or is not needed.

The Bottom Line

Firm proactivity is our best hope to minimize micromanagement. Silent complicity just perpetuates it. It may seem

easier to go with the flow, but in the long

run, failing to take action is going to

hurt a lot more than speaking up. We

need to do what bosses ask of us, but

we also need to help them ask for the

right things.

Editor's Note: The author welcomes

questions and comments on this article. Contact Ward at WardD@nima.mil.

PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 63

STATEMENT REQUIRED BY THE ACT OF

AUG. 12, 1970

SECTION 3685, TITLE 39, U.S.C.

SHOWING OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, 

AND CIRCULATION

Program Manager is published bimonthly at the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), Fort Belvoir, Va. 22060-5565. The University publishes six issues

annually. The Director of the DAU Press is Greg Caruth; the Managing Editor is

Collie Johnson; and the publisher is the Defense Acquisition University. All are

collocated at the following address:

DEFENSE ACQUISITION UNIVERSITY

ATTN DAU PRESS

9820 BELVOIR RD STE 3

FT BELVOIR VA 22060-5565

Average Number of Copies of Each Issue 

During the Preceding 12 Months

A. Total number of copies printed (net press run) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21,566

B. Paid and/or requested circulation:

1. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, 

and counter sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

2. Mail subscriptions paid and/or requested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20,415

C. Total paid and/or requested circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20,415

D. Free distribution by mail, carrier, or other means; samples, 

complimentary, and other free copies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,100

E. Total distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21,515

F. Copies not distributed:

1. Office use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

2. Returns from news agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

G. Total distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21,566

Actual Number of Copies of a Single Issue 

Published Nearest to Filing Date

A. Total number of copies printed (net press run) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21,904

B. Paid and/or requested circulation:

1. Sales through dealers and carriers, street vendors, 

and counter sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

2. Mail subscriptions paid and/or requested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20,753

C. Total paid and/or requested circulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20,753

D. Free distribution by mail, carrier, or other means; samples, 

complimentary, and other free copies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,100

E. Total distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21,853

F. Copies not distributed:

1. Office use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

2. Returns from news agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

G. Total distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21,904
Four Defense Leaders Answer

Questions in Pentagon Forum

KATHLEEN T. RHEM

W

ASHINGTON, Dec. 18, 2002—Four of the

Defense Department's top leaders took to the

microphone today to explain to a Pentagon

audience exactly what they do. 

The Under Secretaries of Defense each spoke briefly

and answered questions from Pentagon employees. 

Edward C. “Pete” Aldridge, Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, said a priority

of his was to get away from using the term “acquisition reform.” 

“I didn't really like that word, ‘reform,’” he said. “It

sounded like I'd done something bad and I must repent, or I'd been to reform school.” Instead, Aldridge

said, he's pushed the men and women in his Department to focus on acquisition excellence—”doing

things right, doing them quickly, doing them with

skill and precision.” 

Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith spoke to

the group on how the Defense Department is working through historic times. “History doesn't hand

out great, terrible, or important events evenly over

the years. There are times when world affairs are

fairly steady, when America's relationships are stable and proceeding predictably down a fixed track,”

he said. “And then there are times like ours.” 

Feith said the world and America's place in it have

been in flux since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He explained the policy section tries to make

sense of unexpected events and shape DoD's reactions and responses to those events. 

He described the policy section as hundreds of

thoughtful men and women who are “frequently accused of being brainy.” He said these men and women

work “extraordinary hours ... with short deadlines

and high demands.” 

Still, he said, they're motivated and “fired up by the

knowledge that their work, when it's smart enough

and creative, and timely enough, has a good chance

of becoming U.S. policy.” 

Dov Zakheim, DoD Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer, told the group that the money in the Defense Department budget is taxpayers' money “and

we take that very seriously.” He described his team's

job as “trying to get the right money into the right

hands.” 

Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness David

S.C. Chu, described his team as “the people people.”

He said the value of DoD personnel was apparent at

the Pentagon on Sept. 12, 2001, “when the work

force marched back in...when the building was still

literally on fire.” 

He said it's also been apparent in “the intrepid action of our forces in Afghanistan” and in the positive response of thousands of Reserve Component

troops who responded to call-ups after Sept. 11 without a complaint. 

“They have met that call with great spirit,” Chu said

of the Reserve Component forces. 

Questions from the audience ranged in topic from

integration of reserve forces to abuses of the government travel card program. Other topics included

the aging federal civilian work force and the role of

the Defense Policy Board. 

Ken Krieg, Special Assistant to the Defense Secretary, wrapped the forum up by lauding the work the

men and women of the Defense Department have

accomplished over the past year. 

“Thanks for what you do to help defend America

and its interests,” he said. “Have a safe and happy

holiday season.”

Editor’s Note: This information is in the public domain at http://www.defenselink.mil/news.

RELEASED Dec. 18, 2002
65

DAU SOUTH REGION F EATURED I N

AL&T M AGAZINE

T

he Defense Acquisition University South Region

(DAU South) Headquarters, located in Huntsville,

Ala., is featured in the Army’s March 2003 issue

of Acquisition, Logistics & Technology (AL&T) Magazine. The article includes a number of photos, including the opening of the region, and three Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signings: with the

University of Alabama-Huntsville/DAU on June 14,

2002; with Army Tactical Missiles on Aug. 22, 2002;

and with Anniston Army Depot on Aug. 20, 2002.

View the article after publication at https://aim.

rdaisa.army.mil/alt/home.cfm.

Other MOUs signed by DAU South include the U.S.

Army Space and Missile Defense Command on July

24, 2002; the Aviation and Missile Command

(AMCOM) on June 10, 2002; the Program Executive

Office (PEO) Aviation on April 17, 2002; the Targets

Management Office, U.S. Army Simulation, Training,

and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM) on July

31, 2002; the U.S. Army Defense Ammunition Center on Oct. 24, 2002; and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institution Research

Alliance (HMIRA) Project Office on Jan. 16, 2003

(see p. 82, this issue). Two additional MOUs and five

letters of intent were signed at DAU-South’s First Annual Acquisition, Technology, and Education Exposition on Jan. 28, 2003. 

In fiscal 2003, the South campus is projected to teach

5,600 students using 50 professors and 10 support

personnel. In early December 2002, DAU South was

notified that the Southern Region passed accreditation by the Council on Occupational Education. Accreditation and partnering with local Universities like

the University of Alabama-Huntsville and Jackson

State have increased training for acquisition careerists

and their progress toward degree completion and Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act

(DAWIA) certification.

DAU South is located in Building 7, 6767 Old Madison Pike, Huntsville, Ala. Visit the DAU Web site at

http://www.dau.milfor a complete listing of all classes,

course schedules, directions to campus, and academic and vocational credit equivalencies.

T

he DAU Continuous Learning Center (CLC) is pleased

to announce the availability of a new CLC Module: Introduction to Reducing Total Ownership Costs.

Introduction to Reducing Total Ownership Costs (R-TOC)

is a three-hour module offered to the DoD Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) workforce in order to share RTOC ideas, tools, and strategies with the acquisition and logistics communities. The module provides an orientation to

the R-TOC requirement, definitions of key R-TOC concepts,

and descriptions of best practices. It emphasizes total cost

of ownership reduction from a systems perspective. 

All DoD AT&L personnel who need to apply R-TOC principles or who desire to further their working knowledge of

the R-TOC process and concepts should complete this module. Participants are expected to have a variety of career experiences. This course is especially recommended for individuals working in program/project management organizations.

The average cumulative time for module completion is three

seat hours. You may take this self-paced module over time,

with the ability to return to the last page you accessed. The

module includes periodic review questions and a post-test. 

The post-test requires a minimum score of 70 percent and

may be taken as many times as necessary to obtain a passing score. A certificate of completion is available at the conclusion of a successful post-test. Upon earning the certificate, it is available anytime in each student’s personal online

transcript. Student transcripts are found in the Administration Building/Student Records/Student Transcripts. Select

the module title hyperlink to obtain the certificate.

This course is available on http://clc.dau.mil; select the Learning Center, select Course Information and Access, and then

select the course title.

DAU ADDS NEW R-TOC MODULE TO

CONTINUOUS LEARNING CENTER WEB SITE

PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003
’04 Budget Request First to

Incorporate Bush Priorities

JIM GARAMONE

W

ASHINGTON, Feb. 5, 2003—The fiscal 2004

defense budget request is the first to incorporate

the Bush administration's new defense strategies

and priorities, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

told the House Armed Services Committee today. 

The budget, presented in a time of war, attempts to

balance between near-term and long-term risks. The

request is $379.9 billion for fiscal 2004. 

The Secretary said the United States must accomplish three challenges at once: successfully fight the

global war on terror; prepare for near-term threats by

making long-delayed investments in readiness, people,

and modernization; and prepare for the future by transforming for the 21st century. 

“The 2004 budget request before you today is designed

to help us do all three,” he told the representatives. 

The Secretary said the strategy, and therefore the

budget, derives from the Quadrennial Defense Review.

In that document, planners identified six goals the military must meet to transform: 

• The military must be able to defend the U.S. homeland and bases of operation overseas. 

• The military must be able to project and sustain forces

in distant theaters. 

• The military must be able to deny enemies sanctuary. 

• The Department must improve U.S. space capabilities and maintain unhindered access to space. 

• The military must harness U.S. advantages in information technology to link up different kinds of U.S.

forces, so they can fight jointly. 

• Finally, the military must be able to protect U.S. information networks from attack—and to disable the

information networks of adversaries.

In fiscal 2004, Rumsfeld said, over $24 billion will go

specifically to programs that strengthen all of these transformational goals. Procurement funding in the Department's Future Years Defense Plan increases by 30 percent and research and development funds, by 65 percent. 

Rumsfeld said that to prepare for the threats the

United States will face later in this decade, the 2004

budget requests increased investments in a number of

critical areas. “Over the next six years, the president requested a 15 percent increase in military personnel accounts, above the 2002 baseline budget,” he said. “That's

an increase in funding for family housing by 10 percent over the same period.” 

Over the next six years, the budget forecasts a 20

percent increase for operations and maintenance accounts above the 2002 baseline budget. “We have added

$40 billion for readiness of all the Services and $6 billion for facilities sustainment over the same period,” he

said. “These investments should help us put a stop to

the past practice of raiding the investment accounts to

pay the immediate operations and maintenance needs.” 

The 2004 budget request does not include funds for

operations in the global war on terror. “Last year, we requested, but Congress did not approve, the $10 billion

we knew we would need for the first few months of this

fiscal year to fight the global war on terror,” he said. Because DoD does not have that money, it has paid for the

war every month since October 2002 by borrowing

from other programs. 

“We're robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Rumsfeld said.

“And that does not include the costs of preparations for

a possible contingency in Iraq and the cost of the force

flows that have taken place thus far. This pattern is fundamentally harmful to our ability to manage the Department.” 

Even with a $15.3 billion increase in the defense

budget request, some hard choices had to be made,

Rumsfeld said. Navy shipbuilding, while up to seven

vessels, is not at the number Rumsfeld would like to

see. The same is true for science and technology accounts. Rumsfeld said the ideal percentage of the DoD

budget spent on science and technology should be 3

percent. The percentage in the request is 2.69 percent. 

The Services also canceled programs that don't fit

into the new strategy, and plan to retire older ships and

aircraft early. These decisions could save about $80 billion over the Future Years Defense Program—money

that could be applied to other, more pressing, needs. 

Editor’s Note: This information is in the public domain

at http://www.defenselink.mil/news.

RELEASED Feb. 3, 2003
Acquisition Chief 

Discusses Transformation

CHUCK PAONE

H

anscom Air Force Base, Mass. (AFPN)—Communication and creativity are the key to transforming the defense acquisition process, the Air

Force's top acquisition official said during a visit here

Dec. 3. 

The status quo is unacceptable, said Dr. Marvin Sambur, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, because acquisition cycle times—the time it

takes to go from concept development to initial operational capability—are much too long. 

“On average, Air Force programs' cycle times run

about 10 years, and that's only the average; some

programs take up to 25 years to get to the field,” he

said. 

The F/A-22 Raptor, which was conceived in 1981

and will not achieve initial operational capability

until 2005 or 2006, is an example, he said. He contrasted this to the automobile industry, which has

cut its cycle times to just a couple of years. 

Besides the basic problem of not getting the capability to operators quickly enough, too many other

problems are created when programs get stretched

out, Sambur said. For one thing, it becomes very

hard to keep up with technological changes. 

“When it takes so long, it just can't be state-of-theart,” he said. 

There are also political implications. 

“When leadership changes several times during the

time it takes to field a system, the program gets

opened up to increased scrutiny, and it gets threatened,” he said. This often leads to more problems

for the program, further lengthening the schedule,

and causing more budget overruns. 

This negative cycle can then cause problems for other

“healthy” programs, from which funds are often siphoned to cover the shortfalls, he said. 

While there are many tools program managers can

use to help avoid or at least reduce these problems,

there is one thing that is essential in every case. 

“Collaboration is the answer,” Sambur said, stressing that constant communication among all the parties involved in a program is what ultimately makes

the difference between successful and problemplagued programs. 

“Have you ever noticed how much faster we're able

to deliver things when we're at war, how we're able

to deliver in months what might otherwise take us

10 years?” Sambur asked. “What do you think the

difference is? It's that everyone's talking to one another all the time.” 

Reducing burdensome regulations and affording

managers greater autonomy are crucial in improving the acquisition process, Sambur said. 

Leaders have to make sure creative program managers are not unnecessarily penalized for taking

chances that ultimately do not work, and reward

people for taking chances that do pay off. 

“You've got to let program managers manage,” he

said. 

“Command, control and intelligence, surveillance

and reconnaissance integration is perhaps the most

significant of all [Department of Defense] transformation goals,” Sambur said. “It's absolutely paramount.” 

This is true not only Air Force-wide but also across

the Services, he said. 

Editor's Note: This information is in the public domain at http://www.af.mil/news.

RELEASED Dec. 5, 2002
JOIN DAUAA!

68 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

Defense Acquisition University

Graduates, Faculty, and Staff!

T

he name of the Defense Systems

Management College Alumni Association—

DSMCAA—has changed to recognize DAUDSMC organizational realignments and provide

for a broader-based, more inclusive membership.

The name is now Defense Acquisition University

Alumni Association (DAUAA). The DAUAA Web

site URL and e-mail address have also changed:

Web Site: http://www.dauaa.org.

E-mail: dauaa@erols.com.

If you do not yet belong to DAUAA, take advantage now of the great benefits of membership. As

a graduate of any DAU-DSMC course, you are eligible to join a select group of acquisition

workforce professionals and receive DAUAA benefits. Your benefits as a DAUAA member, to

name a few, include:

• Addition of DAUAA membership to your résumé. 

• Continuing involvement in defense acquisition

activities and links to other professional organizations.

• Networking with other members of the Defense

acquisition community through the Association

membership Web site at http://www.dauaa.org.

• Timely updates on evolving Defense acquisition

policies in Association Newsletters.

• Forum on initiating input to Defense acquisition

matters through Newsletter and Symposium papers.

• Continuing Learning Points (CLP) for DAUAA

Annual Symposium participation—up to 16

CLPs—toward meeting DoD continuing education requirements.

• Promoting DAU’s reputation as a world-class

acquisition learning center, thereby enhancing

value of education and training received.

Join this select group of professionals who are

proud of their achievements as DAU-DSMC

graduates, thankful for the skills and expertise

they possess, and ready to make additional contributions to the security and progress of our nation. 

Take advantage of this opportunity to help yourself and others. Call (703) 960-6802 to join

DAUAA or complete one of the forms (opposite

page). Mail it to the address shown. To learn more

about DAUAA or register online using a credit

card, visit the DAUAA Web site at

http://www.dauaa.org .
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 69

GIVE A COPY OF THIS OFFER TO AN ASSOCIATE

GIVE A COPY OF THIS OFFER TO AN ASSOCIATE

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED!

DAU Alumni Association News!

All DAU Course Graduates

Gain Full Membership Status!

Industry & Government Employees Who Are Not DAU-DSMC Graduates

Are Eligible for Associate Membership!

GIVE A COPY OF THIS OFFER TO AN ASSOCIATE

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED!

DAU Alumni Association News!

All DAU Course Graduates

Gain Full Membership Status!

Industry & Government Employees Who Are Not DAU-DSMC Graduates

Are Eligible for Associate Membership!

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED!

DAU Alumni Association News!

All DAU Course Graduates

Gain Full Membership Status!

Industry & Government Employees Who Are Not DAU-DSMC Graduates

Are Eligible for Associate Membership!
70 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED!

You have a new chance to join the DAU Alumni Association!

All course graduates gain full membership status!

The benefits of DAUAA membership have increased. Graduates of all DAU courses are now eligible for

full membership status. Industry and government employees who are not DAU-DSMC graduates are

eligible for associate membership. Take advantage of this opportunity to join DAUAA today!

❑1 yr $2500 ❑3 yr $6000

Fill out this card and mail with a check payable to

DAUAA. Mail to:

DAU ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

2550 HUNTINGTON AVE STE 202

ALEXANDRIA VA 22307

Register Online at: http://www.dauaa.org

Name ................................................................................................................

Address.............................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................

Rank/Title/Service........................................................................................

Company/Agency........................................................................................

Phone (H).....................................................................................................

(W)..............................................Fax ..............................................

For information call (703) 960-6802 • (800) 755-8805 • Fax: (703) 960-6807 • E-mail dauaa@erols.com

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED!

You have a new chance to join the DAU Alumni Association!

All course graduates gain full membership status!

The benefits of DAUAA membership have increased. Graduates of all DAU courses are now eligible for

full membership status. Industry and government employees who are not DAU-DSMC graduates are

eligible for associate membership. Take advantage of this opportunity to join DAUAA today!

❑1 yr $2500 ❑3 yr $6000

Fill out this card and mail with a check payable to

DAUAA. Mail to:

DAU ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

2550 HUNTINGTON AVE STE 202

ALEXANDRIA VA 22307

Register Online at: http://www.dauaa.org

Name ................................................................................................................

Address.............................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................

Rank/Title/Service........................................................................................

Company/Agency........................................................................................

Phone (H).....................................................................................................

(W)..............................................Fax ..............................................

For information call (703) 960-6802 • (800) 755-8805 • Fax: (703) 960-6807 • E-mail dauaa@erols.com

THE RULES HAVE CHANGED!

You have a new chance to join the DAU Alumni Association!

All course graduates gain full membership status!

The benefits of DAUAA membership have increased. Graduates of all DAU courses are now eligible for

full membership status. Industry and government employees who are not DAU-DSMC graduates are

eligible for associate membership. Take advantage of this opportunity to join DAUAA today!

❑1 yr $2500 ❑3 yr $6000

Fill out this card and mail with a check payable to

DAUAA. Mail to:

DAU ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

2550 HUNTINGTON AVE STE 202

ALEXANDRIA VA 22307

Register Online at: http://www.dauaa.org

Name ................................................................................................................

Address.............................................................................................................

..............................................................................................................................

Rank/Title/Service........................................................................................

Company/Agency........................................................................................

Phone (H).....................................................................................................

(W)..............................................Fax ..............................................

For information call (703) 960-6802 • (800) 755-8805 • Fax: (703) 960-6807 • E-mail dauaa@erols.com
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 71

The acquisition ladder is a tough climb

without the right education...DAU.

W

hen was the last time you or one of your associates attended one of the 85 different acquisition

courses offered by the Defense Acquisition University at one of its 12 locations around the country?

Did you know industry personnel may also attend?

Are you current on the DoD 5000-series cancellations and

revisions? Do you know the latest acronyms and terms?

When was the last time you or your associates took an introductory, intermediate, or advanced course in acquisition,

technology and logistics?

Did you know that DAU now offers 18 certification

courses that are taught entirely or in part using distance

learning? Or check out one of the 35 self-paced learning

modules now on our Continuous Learning Center Web

site (http://clc.dau.mi//kc/no_login/portal.asp?st~redirect=

LC_CIA).

We also offer fee-for-service consulting and research programs. And take advantage of our competitively priced conference facilities.

Maybe it's time to talk to your training officer about some

additional training opportunities. Or call the DAU Registrar at

1-888-284-4906 to see how we can structure an educational

program just for you.

Visit the DAU Web site for the DAU 2003 Catalog and other

publications at http://www.dau.mil. To apply for all DAU classes

in the catalog, including Distance Learning

classes, go to http://www.dau.mil and

visit the DAU Course Schedule. To

apply for a course, click on the “Enroll Here” link found in the DAU

Home Page banner.
72 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

W

illiam H. “Bill”

Hauenstein retired

from federal service

effective Dec. 31, 2002.

Hauenstein became the

Navy’s first Director of Acquisition Career Management (DACM) in November 1991, where he served

for over 11 years as the Department of the Navy’s authoritative expert on acquisition workforce issues,

reporting directly to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy

(Research, Development

and Acquisition). As a

member of the Senior Executive Service, he provided

advice and staff assistance

directly to the Assistant Secretary on all matters.

Starting from a non-existent

career management program where Navy's acquisition professionals had not

yet met newly established

training, education, or experience requirements,

Hauenstein initiated an aggressive plan of action to establish a professional career development program. From that

“zero baseline” in 1991, his achievements were significant. 

In fiscal 2002, he was successful in obtaining $1.8 million

for tuition assistance, specifically earmarked for the Navy's

professional acquisition workforce. As a result, acquisition

training and education was made available to over 15,000

personnel through enrollment at DAU. He also sponsored

three Distance Learning master's degree programs through

the Naval Postgraduate School.

Under the Navy's Continuous Learning (CL) program, he

sponsored career conferences for the Engineering and Contracting Communities, and other specialized conferences

for the Small Business and Logistics communities. In fiscal 2002, the Navy's CL program provided training to over

7,000 workforce members. 

In April 1997, Hauenstein took on the added responsibility of Acting Navy Chair, Defense Systems Management

College Executive Institute—a position he held until March

2000. A retired Navy Rear

Admiral with more than 30

years of active duty, Hauenstein served in numerous

critical acquisition-related

assignments at the Aviation

Supply Office in Philadelphia, Pa.; the Naval Supply

Center Puget Sound, Wash.;

and the Contract Administration Services Office,

Bridgeport, Conn., where

he commanded 190 military and civilian employees

and administered in excess

of $600 million in defense

contracts.

At the headquarters level,

Hauenstein was extensively

involved in contracting for

major systems and the formulation of procurement

policy. His assignments included: Director of the

Naval Material Command

Acquisition Policy and Plans

Division; Director of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy

(Shipbuilding and Logistics)

Acquisition and Contract Policy Office; Deputy Commander

for Contracts, Naval Sea Systems Command; the Competition Advocate General of the Navy; and Deputy to the

Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research, Development

and Acquisition) for Acquisition Policy, Integrity, and Accountability. 

Hauenstein received a master’s in Procurement (with distinction) from the Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) in 1968.

During his career as a Naval Officer, he earned numerous

personal awards including the Secretary of Defense Superior Management Award in recognition of his efforts in

planning and implementing Congressional, Department

of Defense, and Department of Navy initiatives in fiscal

1984. He is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, an honorary

business fraternity, and Phi Gamma Delta.

Christine E. Stelloh-Garner, Department of the Navy Acquisition Reform Executive and Defense Acquisition University Functional Advisor, becomes the new Navy DACM. 

NAVY DACM RETIRES

Deputy Executive Director, DAU Curricula Development Support

Center Robert Ainsley (right) presents a plaque to retiring Navy

Defense Acquisition Career Manager William H. Hauenstein on

Dec. 19, 2002, in recognition of his many years of support and

service to the mission of the Defense Acquisition University.

Hauenstein, who served as the Navy DACM for over 11 years, retired from the federal civilian service effective Dec. 31, 2002.

Photo by Richard Mattox
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 73

C

hristine Stelloh-Garner

assumed duties as the

Director, Acquisition Career Management, Office

of the Assistant Secretary

of the Navy (Research, Development & Acquisition) in January 2003, reporting directly to

the Navy Acquisition Executive.

She is responsible for ensuring

that Navy and Marine Corps acquisition workforce members

have education, training, and

experience to meet congressionally mandated Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act requirements. 

Stelloh-Garner was born at the

Millington Naval Air Station in

Memphis, Tenn., and spent her

youth in the United States and

Japan before joining the Naval

Air Systems Command as a clerk-typist in 1974.

As an upward mobility program trainee, she transitioned

to program and management analysis, serving in positions involving various facets of program and facility

management. Assignments included the Joint Service,

Tilt-Rotor V-22 Deputy for Program Appraisal, and Program Manager for both Caribbean Regional Operations

Center Upgrade and, later, the AH-1 Night Targeting System. Additionally, she served on the Command Federal

Women's Program Committee.

Briefly leaving the Naval Air Systems Command in the

mid-1980s, Stelloh-Garner remained active in naval aviation as a Booz-Allen & Hamilton consultant at the Naval

Aviation Depot in Cherry Point, N.C., and as family readiness advisor for Marine Medium Lift Helicopter Squadron

(HMM) 264. She also represented Advanced Technology, Inc., as a program consultant for naval aviation.

Stelloh-Garner joined the staff of the Program Executive

Officer (PEO) for Tactical Aircraft Programs as a Deputy

for Acquisition before being selected to the Senior Executive Service and assuming responsibility as Deputy

PEO for Air Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Assault and

Special Mission Programs in March 1998. As the Deputy

PEO, she provided oversight and

insight for over 100 efforts from

the following program teams

with an annual appropriation of

approximately $4 billion: Air

ASW Maritime Surveillance Aircraft (P-3, S-3, EP-3, ES-3,

VPU); Multi-mission Helicopters

(MH-60, SH-60, HH-60), MH53, Air ASW Sensors and

Sonobuoys; Marine assault aircraft (AV-8, AH-1, UH-1, CH53, V-22); and special mission

Executive Helicopters (VH-3,

VH-60), T-45 Training System,

and E-6 Airborne Command

Post. 

Selected as the Department of

Navy's Acquisition Reform Executive in May 2001, StellohGarner was the facilitator and

catalyst for innovation, streamlining, and change across all acquisition processes of the

Navy and Marine Corps. She also served as the Department's Standardization Executive. In November 2002,

Stelloh-Garner became the Director for Program Analysis and Support in the newly formed office of the Deputy

Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Acquisition Management before assuming her current responsibilities.

As a collateral duty from early 2000 until January 2003,

Stelloh-Garner served as the Defense Acquisition Management Functional Advisor. In this capacity, she led a

team of representatives across the Department of Defense

in establishing requirements and providing recommendations to the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition,

Technology & Logistics) concerning certification requirements and fulfillment of more than 10,000 Department of Defense acquisition workforce members in

the Program Management career field. 

A graduate of the Defense Systems Management College

Program Management Course, Stelloh-Garner also holds

a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Mount

Vernon College. An amateur garden designer, she and

her husband, Robert Garner, enjoy their southern Maryland oasis. 

Navy Appoints New Director,

Acquisition Career Management
Two New Web Sites Introduced on AcqWeb

74 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

T

he Automatic Test Systems Executive Agent

(ATS EA) is chartered by the Office of the

Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition,

Technology and Logistics) to implement a coordinated Automatic Test Systems acquisition

and research and development program

throughout the Department, and to serve as the

interface for DoD with other departments and

agencies such as the National Aeronautics and

Space Administration and the Federal Aviation

Agency. The major goals of the ATS EA are to

minimize the cost of automatic testing to DoD

and foster interoperability of automatic test systems across the Services. Visit ATS EA online

at:

http://www.acq.osd.mil/ats/

T

he Defense Cost and Resource Center

(DCARC) collects Major Defense Acquisition Program cost data and makes it available for authorized government analysts to estimate the cost of ongoing and future defense

programs. The DCARC's revolutionary Defense

Automated Cost Information System (DACIMS)

is a secure Web site that allows DoD Cost Analysts to browse through almost 50,000 cost

data documents via the Internet. It is the largest

repository of DoD cost information. Visit

DCARC online at:

http://dcarc.pae.osd.mil
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 75
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

NETWORKING AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT

DAU Hosts WACUC Strategic 

Learning Symposium

Building Bridges—Pursuing Partnerships

SYLWIA GASIOREK-NELSON

76

R

epresentatives of government

and industry corporate universities from across the nation

gathered together at the Defense

Acquisition University (DAU)

on Nov. 7, 2002, to participate in the

Washington Area Corporate University

Consortium (WACUC) Strategic Learning Symposium. 

Hosted at DAU’s main campus at Fort

Belvoir, Va., the 2002 WACUC Symposium emphasized the importance of

partnerships—sharing ideas, sharing

knowledge, and learning from other's

experiences in meeting the needs of the

continuous learning workforce. Several

dynamic presentations, workshop sessions, and panels as well as exhibits from

industry and government reinforced the

symposium theme of “Performance Improvement Through Strategic Partnering” 

Welcoming the participants was Dr. Toni

Ungaretti, member of the WACUC

Board of Directors and Assistant Dean

and Director of the Division of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education, Johns Hopkins University. 

“We have come together to look at learning, to develop partnerships, to learn

from each other, and to work together

to make corporate universities a wonderful moving force for higher education,” she said.

She also expressed gratitude to all who

participated in making the 2002 event

a resounding success. 

“We, at WACUC, are very exited to have

this opportunity to be here at DAU's

beautiful facilities. We're delighted with

our host and we are absolutely grateful

to all who worked tirelessly to make sure

that this event happened.”

Opening Remarks

Frank J. Anderson, Jr., President, DAU,

and member of the WACUC Board of

Directors, welcomed all the symposium

participants to the DAU Fort Belvoir

campus. He described the day's events

as not only a great opportunity to team,

but also to get to meet a lot of other dynamic organizations in the learning business, to share, and to grow together. 

Anderson’s presentation focused on the

training transformation process that DoD

and DAU are currently undergoing.

“It will give you a context—why what

we do is so important for our organization and for our nation,” he said. “It will

also provide perspectives on the training

transformation from our senior leaders.”

Two years ago, Anderson explained,

DAU started a huge undertaking to

transform its way of training the DoD

Dr. Toni Ungaretti, member of the WACUC Board of Directors and Assistant Dean and Director of the Division of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Professional Studies in Business

and Education, Johns Hopkins University. 

Photos by Army Sgt. Kevin Moses

Gasiorek-Nelson is a full-time contract editor for Program Manager Magazine. 
AT&L workforce—a community of

about 140,000 people.

“We are a critical part of growth in our

economy—the growth of people in the

workforce,” he said, “and our challenge

is to figure out how to prepare people

to excel tomorrow.”

Anderson also emphasized that any

transformation initiative or major initiative requires a significant amount of

communication and partnership, and

partnerships like WACUC are the best

way to share best practices, borrow ideas

and concepts, share experiences, and

build relationships to face the future together.

Culture—

The Key to

Effective Partnerships

Dr. Thomas Sawner, Chief Executive Officer, River Oaks Associates, delivered

an informative and motivational keynote

address entitled, “Culture: The Key to

Effective Partnerships.”

Sawner, who has

an extensive background in leaderPM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

ship development, executive coaching,

organizational change, strategic planning, and adult learning, focused on the

importance of organizational culture as

a key factor for success or failure and

addressed the following topics:

• Five key cultural values that define

the “Leadership Envelope” and how

to intuitively assess the five values for

your team.

77

• How the “Leadership Envelope” defines the bounds within which a team

leader must operate to be successful.

• How an awareness of differing team

cultures can smooth the path for a

successful alliance or partnering opportunity.

• How the five cultural sub-scales can

be used to predict organizational performance and how to focus perforFrank J. Anderson Jr., DAU President.

THE WACUC SYMPOSIUM WORKSHOPS

• Standards of Certification, Dr. Louise Wehrle, Director of Certification, National Contract Management Association

• Systems Dynamic Modeling for Workforce Planning, Dr. Michael

Cassidy, Professor, Marymount University 

• Community of Practice, John Hickock, Knowledge Management

Officer, Defense Acquisition University

• Performance Measures/Outcomes, James Royalty, Training Manager, DynCorp 

THE WACUC SYMPOSIUM

EXHIBITORS

Aristotle Central/Human Resources Consultants

Agular Systems

Averett University

BottomLine Solutions, Inc.

Business Management Research Associates, Inc.

BRTRC

Corporate University Enterprise, Inc.

Defense Acquisition University

Enterprise Management Ltd.

ESI International

Frank Associates, Inc

The Government Affairs Institute at 

Georgetown University

The Graduate School, USDA

GW Solutions

IMCA SocratesTM

Johns Hopkins University

Knowlysis L.L.C.

Management Concepts

Marymount University

Meridian Knowledge Solutions, Inc.

Northern Virginia Community College

SkillSoft

Strayer University

University of Phoenix, Northern Virginia Campus
78 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 Photos by Army Sgt. Kevin Moses

WACUC SY

Meeting the Needs of the Con

Corporate University Enterprise, Inc., exhibit.

IMCA Socrates TM exhibit.

Dr. Thomas Sawner, River

Oaks Associates; “Culture:

The Key to Effective Partnerships.”

Dr. Michael Cassidy, Marymount University:

“Systems Dynamic Modeling for Workforce

Planning.”

Frank Associates, Inc., exibit.
MPOSIUM

tinuous Learning Workforce

Chris St. John, DAU; eLearning Panel. Graduate School, USDA exhibit.

Dr. Louise Wehrle, National Contract Management

Association; Standards Certification Workshop.

BRTRC exhibit.

John Hickok, DAU; “WACUC as a

Community of Practice.”

PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 79
80 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

mance improvement by knowing an

organization's cultural scale values.

About WACUC

The Washington Area Corporate University Consortium (WACUC) is a forum

for collaboration and partnership among

governments, businesses, and higher

education organizations in the greater

Washington, D.C. region. The group is

comprised of representatives affiliated

with workplace learning and corporate

universities. One of the growing trends

in workplace learning is the incorporation of college credit programs into training initiatives. WACUC provides a platform for discussion in ways to integrate

accredited courses into job-specific

learning.

WACUC allows members the opportunity to come together, to talk to each

other, to get to know each other, and to

make sure that each of the member organizations is the best at providing highquality education. The Consortium is

also an excellent forum for members to

really think about how to expand corporate value through learning.

At present, the consortium consists of

60 members, representing 30 organizations. In addition to DAU, other member organizations include Booz, Allen

& Hamilton; the Erickson Foundation;

The George Washington University;

Corporate University Enterprise; National Institute of Standards and Technology; Regent University; United States

Postal Service; the Pentagon Federal

Credit Union; the Patent and Trademark

University; Anne Arundel Community

College; United States Bureau of Census; University of Maryland; the Washington Post; the Humane Society of the

United States; Northern Virginia Community College; and Johns Hopkins

University.

THE WACUC 

SYMPOSIUM PANELS

Partnership Panel

• Dr. Toni Ungaretti, Assistant Dean and Director of the Division of

Undergraduate Studies, Johns Hopkins University

• Carl Zaiss, Author, True Partnership-Revolutionary Thinking About Relating to

Others

e-Learning Panel

• Frank J. Anderson, Jr., President, DAU

• Christopher St. John, Distributed Learning Specialist, DAU 

• William Thomasson, Director of Learning, DynCorp

• Nancy Williams, Distance Learning Strategist, Booz, Allen & Hamilton

• Jake Werner, Global Account Executive, SkillSoft

Editor’s Note: To learn more about

WACUC membership and scheduled

activities, visit the WACUC Web site

at http://www.wacuc.com.

Defense Acquisition University

(DAU) West Region and Defense

Contract Management Agency

(DCMA) San Diego signed a

Memorandum of Understanding

(MOU) on Aug. 20, 2002, taking

another step toward fulfilling

DAU’s mission to build strong and

beneficial strategic partnerships

with other government agencies,

defense industry, and academia.

Signing the MOU from left: Jim

Rego, DAU Professor; Navy Lt.

Cmdr. Susan Randall, DCMA San

Diego; and Jeran Binning, DAU

Professor and Manager for the

Knowledge-Sharing Program.

Photo courtesy DCMA

DAU WEST REGION AND DCMA SAN DIEGO

FORM STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
CALL FOR 

AUTHORS

& REFEREES

Call for Authors

The DAU Press is actively seeking quality

manuscripts on topics related to Defense acquisition. Topics include opinions, lessons-learned,

tutorials, and empirical research.

References must be cited in your bibliography.

Research must include a description of the

model and the methodology used. The final version of your manuscript must conform to the

Publication Manual of the American Psychological

Association or the Chicago Manual of Style.

To obtain a copy of ARQ Guidelines for

Authors, visit the DAU Web site (http://www.

dau.mil/pubs/arq/arqart.asp). To inquire about

your manuscript’s potential for publication, call

the DAU Press at (703) 805-3801 or DSN 655-

3801; fax a request to (703) 805-2917, ATTN:

DAU Press (Norene Fagan); or e-mail Norene Fagan at

(norene.fagan-blanch@dau.mil).

Call for Referees

We need subject-matter experts for peer reviews of manuscripts during our blind referee process. Please fax your credentials to (703) 805-2917, ATTN: ARQ Editor (Norene

Fagan), DAU Press. We will then add you to our referee file. 

Special Call for Research Articles

We publish Defense acquisition research articles that

involve systematic inquiry into significant research questions.

Each article must produce a new or revised theory of interest

to the acquisition community. You must use a reliable, valid

instrument to provide measured outcomes.

Acquisition Review Quarterly is listed in Cabell’s Directory of

Publishing Opportunities in Management and Marketing. 

PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003 81

ATTENTION

Military Officers

Defense Industry

Government Executives

University Professors

Graduate Students! 

THIS IS YOUR

OPPORTUNITY TO

CONTRIBUTE TO

ACQUISITION AND

LOGISTICS

EXCELLENCE

ATTENTION
82 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

DAU SOUTH REGION AND HMIRA FORM

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

O

n Jan. 16, 2003,

the Defense Acquisition University South Region

(DAU), located in

Huntsville, Ala., and

representatives from

Historically Black Colleges and Universities/Minority Institution Research Alliance

(HMIRA) signed a

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)

agreeing to enter into

an educational strategic partnership and leverage mutual learning opportunities.

Signing the MOU from left: Dr. Delbert W. Baker, President, Oakwood College; Dr. Arthur Bond, Dean, School

of Engineering and

Technology, Alabama

A&M; Hank Valentine, Chief Executive

Officer, HMIRA;

James L. McCullough,

Dean, DAU South Region; Dr. Tim McDonald, Vice President for Instruction

Technology, Oakwood

College; and Dr.

Legand L. Burge,

Dean, College of Engineering, Architecture, and Physical Sciences, Tuskegee University. To

learn more about DAU’s educational strategic partnerships, contact Wayne Glass at wayne.glass@dau.mil.

Photo by Rene' Reid

PRECISION STRIKE ASSOCIATION HONORS TERRY LITTLE WITH

WILLIAM J. PERRY AWARD

T

he Precision Strike Association at

its Winter Roundtable recognized

Terry Little—former Air Force

Program Director for both the Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition

(JDAM) and the Lockheed Martin

Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile

(JASSM) programs, and current Director, Kinetic Energy Interceptor Program , Missile Defense Agency—as

the recipient of the seventh annual

William J. Perry Award. The award

was presented to Little on Jan. 23,

2003, at a ceremony held in the Crystal City Mariott, Crystal City, Va. 

Given annually by the Precision Strike

Association, the William J. Perry

Award recognizes leadership or technical achievement that results in significant contributions to the development, introduction, or support of

precision strike systems.

From left: Wayne Savage, Chairman of the Board, Precision Strike

Association; Dr. William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense; and Terry Little, Director, Kinetic Energy Interceptor Program, Missile Defense Agency. Little recently joined the Missile Defense Agency from his former position as

Director of the Air Force Center of Acquisition Excellence. 

Photo by Richard Mattox
PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

DoD Acquisition Office Recognizes

Transformational eBusiness Working Group

SGT. 1ST CLASS DOUG SAMPLE, USA

83

W

ASHINGTON, Dec. 3,

2002—An expanded electronic government—doing

more “eBusiness”—is a cornerstone of President Bush’s

management agenda to improve government functions and performance. 

Today at a small ceremony at the Pentagon, Michael Wynne, Principal Deputy

Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, honored 48 employees who for the past 14

months have been following the president’s plan and transforming the way

the Department of Defense does business with private industry. 

“One of the most exciting trends in government is the use of information technology together with the Internet to improve virtually everything that we do,”

he told the group. “The eBusiness Working Group did a tremendous job, starting with research, then organizing and

finally structuring best practices, and

creating a clear program to bring us the

power of eBusiness. We will become a

much more ‘net-centric’ organization in

large measure because of the work you

have accomplished.” 

Since the signing of the president’s management agenda, federal agencies have

been scrambling to comply with all or

at least part of the e-government initiatives Bush called for—that is, make it

simpler for citizens to receive high-quality service from the Federal Government,

while reducing the cost of delivering

those services. 

Managers and supervisors from AT&L

and other DoD components comprised

the working group, organized in August

2001. The group was called together to

spur the implementation of eBusiness

across DoD’s acquisition community and

to smooth the way for further cost-effective eBusiness expansion. 

Wynne said the group split into four

teams and identified more than 30 specific initiatives that targeted improving

technology, customer focus, finance, and

processes. 

“These initiatives provide a solid base

on which to build a strong eBusiness

foundation,” he said. “The group de -

livered its final report in October and

its work has positioned us to move

ahead.” 

Wynne also used the occasion to announce the formation of two new AT&L

offices: the Internal eBusiness Center,

headed by Robert Nemetz, and External eBusiness Center, headed by Mark

Krzysko. Nemetz will be responsible for

eBusiness implementation within the

Undersecretariat to improve organizational effectiveness. Krzysko is to focus

on improving electronic interfaces between the private sector and DoD acquisition and logistics organizations. 

Editor’s Note: This information is in the

public domain at http://www.defense

link.mil/news.

Michael Wynne (left), Principal Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology

and Logistics, presents Melissa Rider a certificate of appreciation Dec. 3, 2002, for her

work with a 48-member working group in improving the Defense Department’s

eBusiness practices. Taking part in the presentation is Mark Krzysko, newly named head of

the AT&L External eBusiness Center, charged with improving electronic interfaces

between the private sector and DoD acquisition and logistics organizations.

Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA
84 PM : JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2003

For submission guidelines, contact the editor (703) 805-2892 or visit

our Web site at http://www.dau.mil/pubs/pm/articles.asp.

CALL FOR AUTHORS

P

rogram Manager Magazine is the ideal

forum for publishing your next article on

acquisition and logistics excellence, acquisition legislation, or acquisition current policies and practices. You are the subject matter experts—send us your successes, failures, lessons

learned, or long-range vision for what may or

may not work and why. In the process, gain peer

exposure and recognition as a subject matter expert in your field. We want to hear from you and

your associates—today.

WHO

• Current and former program managers

• CEOs/CIOs

• Industry executives

• DAU faculty

• Current and former DAU students

• Military acquisition leaders

• Previous PM and ARQ authors

• High-level DoD and industry executives

• Policy makers

• Contracting and finance careerists

• Weapons users in the air, in the field, and at sea

WHAT

• Hot topics

• Lessons learned

• Op-Ed articles

• Reinventing government

• Speeches and addresses by high-level lecturers

• Interviews with acquisition executives

• Acquisition news

• Changing acquisition paradigms

• Commercial business practices

• Research and development

• Defense industrial base

• Acquisition education

WHEN: NOW
New System to Provide 

Effective Defense for Ships,

Sailors

DAVID NAGLE

W

ASHINGTON (NNS)—Since

the beginning of the Cold

War, more than a dozen U.S.

Navy ships have been casualties of

mines, such as USS Samuel B. Roberts

(FFG 58), which nearly sank after

striking an Iranian contact mine in

1988. 

Today, as naval forces become more

expeditionary in nature, the need to

dominate the littoral battlespace is

critical to success. In order to dominate the littorals, however, navy

ships must first effectively locate and

either avoid or neutralize mines.

The Remote Minehunting System

(RMS) is an organic, off-board mine

reconnaissance system offering carrier strike group ships an effective

defense against mines by using an

unmanned remote vehicle. Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and

Surveillance Systems–Undersea Systems is developing RMS under a

contract awarded by the Navy in December 1999.

The Navy has identified mines as

one of the two most critical issues

facing ships operating in the littorals—waters ranging from the

shoreline to depths of 600 feet. 

Mines are an inexpensive yet effective means for enemy nations and

terrorist organizations to damage or

destroy Navy ships and crews. In a

RELEASED Jan. 3, 2003

The Remote Minehunting System (RMS) is an organic, off-board

mine reconnaissance system that will offer carrier battle group ships

an effective defense against mines by using an unmanned remote

vehicle. RMS is being designed for installation aboard Arleigh Burkeclass destroyers. Current plans call for RMS to be first installed

aboard the destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG 91) in 2004. 

Photo courtesy Lockheed Martin
Nov. 30 Los Angeles Times article, a veteran

minesweeper captain said that mines are “the

poor man's weapon of choice: cheap to buy,

easy to deploy, and difficult to detect.”

“A mine that costs only a couple thousand dollars can cause hundreds of millions of dollars

in damage to Navy ships and put the affected

ships out of action for months,” said Capt. Terry

Briggs, RMS program manager. “Since 1950,

the Navy has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to repair ship damage by mines, each costing only a few thousand dollars.”

RMS will effectively reduce the threat of hidden mines, keeping ships and Sailors safe from

harm by detecting, classifying and identifying

mines, and recording their precise location for

avoidance and/or removal.

“It is potentially a multimission system that can

be adapted for additional uses for mine neutralization, anti-submarine warfare, navigational

safety, littoral surveillance, and force protection,” added Briggs.

The RMS components include a remote minehunting vehicle, a semi-submersible, dieselpowered vehicle that tows the AN/AQS-20A

minehunting sonar; a mission control and display that integrates RMS into the AN/SOQ-89

undersea warfare system; and a launch and recovery system.

RMS is being designed for installation aboard

Arleigh Burke-class, Flight IIA destroyers. Current plans call for RMS to be first installed

aboard the destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG 91)

in 2004.

In addition, Chief of Naval Operations Adm.

Vern Clark identified organic mine countermeasures as a critical technology in the “Sea

Shield” concept of his Sea Power 21 vision. 

“One of the tenets of Sea Shield is the ability to

project defensive power globally through sea

and littoral superiority,” said Briggs. “RMS provides the organic minehunting capabilities

needed to protect forward deployed naval forces,

allowing them to dominate the littoral battlespace and achieve and sustain access before and

during crises.”

For related news, visit the Naval Sea Systems

Command Navy NewsStand page at

www.news.navy.mil/local/navsea. 

Editor’s Note: This information is in the public domain at http://www.news.navy.mil.
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Purpose

The purpose of Program Manager Magazine is to instruct members of

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