Technology, Innovation, and Modern War – Acquisition & Sustainment w/ Ellen Lord

I've been participating in Steve Blank's course and thought you might enjoy this session with the Honorable Ellen Lord, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. She is responsible to the Secretary of Defense for acquisition; developmental testing; contract administration; logistics and materiel readiness; installations and environment; operational energy; chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons; the acquisition workforce; and the defense industrial base.  It's outstanding and worth listening to.

Highlights include:

• Acquisition at the speed of relevance.
• Software is central to every DoD mission and system.
• "We need to acquire and deliver software with much greater speed agility and cybersecurity."
• The software acquisition pathway is the newest pathway in the adaptive acquisition framework. (see image) is built on commercial principles that enable innovation and rapid delivery in response to conditions of uncertainty
• We have rapidly changing user needs, disruption technologies, and threats on the battlefield.
• Agile, DevOps, DevSecOps represent a substantial departure from the usual way of doing business.
• Cybersecurity is foundational.  Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification defines levels with contracts.
• Key identify reputable vendors and supply chain.
  
  

Catch up with the class by reading summaries of the previous fifteen classes here.

Some of the readings for this week included How the DOD Acquires Weapons Systems, The Planning, Programming and Budgeting Process, Acquisition Reform in the NDAA, Defense Primer on DOD Contractors, and on the Defense Industrial Base

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