Smaller, quicker IT development needed for Defense systems

The Defense Department should develop information technology systems in multiple bite-sized chunks that it can deploy in 18 months, rather than by today's process, which takes years to develop systems that require millions of lines of software code, the Defense Science Board concluded in a report released this month.

"The conventional DoD acquisition process is too long and too cumbersome to fit the needs of many systems that require continuous changes and upgrades," the board noted in the report "Department of Defense Policies and Procedures for the Acquisition of Information Technology."

Fielding systems incrementally provides Defense the opportunity to address interoperability and integration issues continually, "rather than having to get them 'right' in the requirements phase," the report said.

The recommendation dovetails with what Marine Gen. James Cartwright told the Naval IT Day Conference last month. Defense has a mind-set that "whatever we field has to be perfect, so we'll spend a life of an application's utility testing it to make sure it's invulnerable and makes no mistakes," he said.

The report was produced by a task force headed by Vincent Vitto, former chairman of the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass., which has extensive research contracts with the Air Force, and Ronald Kerber, who served as undersecretary of Defense for research and advanced technology during the Reagan administration. The task force expressed belief that "there is a need for a unique acquisition system for information technology" unmet by traditional weapons systems policies and procedures.

The new acquisition process should start with development of a business case for an IT system designed to serve the entire department, not just the specific needs of a Defense component, the report said, with interoperability among the services paramount.

The report also called for developing early and continuous incremental prototypes of an information system, followed by comprehensive testing and training once the system is fully built. New Defense IT systems must adhere to rigorous cost estimates, the report added. "We envision a lean, commercially based acquisition model that emphasizes analysis prior to development, a flexible requirements process [and] better cost estimates," the board reported.

The approach assumes "adequate funding is continually available to support multi-increment developments, and, as important, to upgrade and sustain fielded capability," the report said.

The task force's recommendations pertain primarily to "new or replacement stand-alone IT systems and subsystems" and also could include replacing IT embedded in weapons systems "when there is little or no change in the hardware not associated with IT."

In addition, the report recommended all Defense IT acquisition be centralized in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, including projects now managed by the assistant secretary of Defense network and information integration and the Business Transformation Agency. The assistant secretary would retain responsibility for overall Defense IT architecture and standards, and responsibility for interoperability and information assurance, according to the report.

John Stenbit, who served as the assistant secretary of Defense network and information integration from 2001 to 2004, filed a formal dissent to the recommendation that all IT acquisition be centralized with the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, saying the responsibilities of the two offices would overlap.

The recommendation to develop a Defense IT acquisition system divorced from the policies and procedures that govern weapons acquisition "is an absolutely necessary change," said Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting in Jenkintown, Pa. "The question now is whether the Defense Science Board recommendations are adopted."

Robert Woods, president of Topside Consulting in Vienna, Va., and former commissioner of the Federal Technology Service at General Services Administration, said the report did not go far enough to endorse commercial approaches to satisfy Defense IT requirements. The department should retain development of its command-and-control brains in house, but must consider outsourcing systems, such as financial networks under development by the Business Transformation Agency, that could be developed better outside Defense.