Defense Acquisition Reform: A New Era for Warfighting Capabilities

In multi-billion-pound defense programs, leaders face overwhelming complexity, from sprawling schedules to invisible dependencies, and everything hinges on precision. A recent case study shows how one global defense agency overcame these challenges by turning their enterprise into a connected network. Suddenly, they could forecast critical needs with accuracy down to the week, uncover over £1 billion in missed opportunities, identify the need for £500 million for vital infrastructure (all in under 20 minutes) and commit £3 billion more in planned funding. That kind of clarity is rare...and incredibly powerful. Read the full story to discover how strategic mapping and visibility bring real financial impact.

The United States Department of War’s Trusted Capital Program was created for one reason: To keep adversarial influence out of America’s most critical technologies Mandated by the 2018 NDAA, Trusted Capital connects vetted investors with capability providers in 27 critical tech areas. Every capital provider undergoes rigorous vetting to keep adversarial influence out of the defense supply chain. Were there issues with the program? Sure. Just like the CMMC rollout, Trusted Capital isn’t perfect. But these are the rules of the game. Ignoring them can cost companies future contracts and credibility. That’s why we’re highlighting our partnership with Leonid Capital Partners, a DoD Trusted Capital provider. Their mission is aligned with the program’s intent: deliver fast, flexible financing to companies advancing the technologies that matter most for national security. The future of defense innovation will be shaped as much by a resillient capital strategy as by technology strategy. #DefenseTech #NatSec #TrustedCapital Christopher Lay James Parker Claire Carloss

"Eric Felt, former director of architecture and integration in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, said the move gets at one of the key problems bedeviling acquisition reform for decades. "There are three processes that are broken: acquisition, requirements, and budgeting. All three must be fixed if we want to move faster and deter China. This memo takes a sledgehammer to the second problem, the requirements bureaucracy that had become the pacing process for many new programs. The most successful recent programs have all been ‘JCIDS exempt’ for one reason or another; that should tell us something about whether JCIDS was value added."

The SecDef is overhauling the acquisition requirements process. The memo lays out multiple JCIDS changes, a key provision is the “disestablishment” of JCIDS and also the JROC will stop validating component-level requirement documents.  https://lnkd.in/e4363acu

ICYMI Last week saw a major shift in defense acquisition: the SecDef dismantled JCIDS in a memo titled Reforming the Joint Requirements Process to Accelerate Fielding of Warfighting Capabilities on August 20. For the last 20+ years, JCIDS was intended to align acquisition and capability development across the joint force. In practice, as many of us who have worked in DoD acquisition can attest to, it became something of a bottleneck: slow, bureaucratic, and often blamed for delaying critical technologies from reaching the warfighter. At first glance, the new framework looks promising: 🔹The establishment of a Requirements and Resourcing Alignment Board (RRAB) to prioritize and resource capabilities on a tighter cycle, focused on identifying and prioritizing key operational problems (KOPs). 🔹Creation of the Mission Engineering and Integration Activity (MEIA) to engage industry earlier, refine requirements through mission engineering, and run rapid experimentation. 🔹A clear “no new bureaucracy” mandate to keep processes lean. Ultimately, I see this as a step in the right direction: faster requirements, greater empowerment for the services, earlier collaboration with industry, and more iterative experimentation. These are all critical to keeping pace with the threat environment. Placing the onus of meeting joint requirements on lower echelons in acquisition also empowers private companies like Cortina, who serve multiple DoD agencies, to provide ground-level insight into what’s working, where challenges remain, and how lessons learned can strengthen every pillar of the joint force. But I do have concerns. Without a structure like what JCIDS provided, flawed though it was, there’s a real risk of fragmentation. We may see capabilities developed at speed, but the concern is always that efforts may be spent solving the wrong problems. Speed matters, but only if we move faster in the right direction. With less oversight, the challenge becomes maintaining discipline and integrity at every level. From DoD leadership to soldiers in the field, from government PMs to contractors and industry, everyone involved in acquisition now carries more responsibility to ensure efforts remain aligned with real joint operational needs and that they end up solving the right problems for our DoD as a whole. 👉 What do you think? Is this the reform that will finally break the logjam? Or could this lead to a misalignment of efforts across the joint force? Link to the memo: https://lnkd.in/ecAxwreW

The Pentagon is killing the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) process. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), which oversees that process, will stop validating component-level requirement documents. An Aug 20 memo titled, "Reforming the Joint Requirements Process to Accelerate Fielding of Warfighting Capabilities" lays out the objective and need for reform: "...to streamline and accelerate the joint force needs, work with industry earlier in the process, and better integrate requirements determination and resource prioritization to make better budgeting decisions." A new Requirements and Resourcing Alignment Board (RRAB), co-chaired by the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the deputy defense secretary, "shall select topics from the top-ranked KOP [key operational problems] and nominations from the co-chairs to perform analysis, issue programming guidance, and recommend allocation of funding from the Joint Acceleration Reserve (JAR)." Former deputy undersecretary of defense for industrial policy Bill Greenwalt of American Enterprise Institute, said that by shutting down the JCIDS, individual services again have validation authority over their bigger-ticket programs..." and "the move could ultimately cut through red tape and endless stacks of joint validated memos that wither on the shelf." Eric Felt, former director of architecture and integration in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, commented: "There are three processes that are broken: acquisition, requirements, and budgeting. All three must be fixed ... This memo takes a sledgehammer to the second problem, the requirements bureaucracy that had become the pacing process for many new programs," https://lnkd.in/eta44N9t #defenseindustry #procurementreform #defenseinnovation #defensebudget

🇺🇸 DoD is overhauling the Joint Requirements process. The new SecDef memo redefines the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC), shifting it from a slow “validation” body to a strategic oversight role that accelerates delivery of warfighting capabilities. 🔑 Key changes: • Focus on Joint Force design and portfolio management over service-by-service requirements. • Manage-by-exception oversight; less bureaucracy, more speed. • Prioritizing Combatant Commander needs and urgent operational gaps. • Proposed updates to Title 10 to cement this streamlined, mission-driven approach. ❓Why it matters: This reform signals a significant shift, from process gatekeeping to agile, mission-driven execution. The DoD aims to deliver capabilities faster, more effectively, and with clearer alignment across Services and combatant commands. Now to ensure we move fast in the right direction. https://lnkd.in/g9h2FypA

We are proud to announce that Decision Lens has achieved Impact Level 6 (IL6) compliance, enabling deployment on SIPRNet. This milestone represents a transformational leap in how the Department of Defense can conduct secure, collaborative, and mission-aligned POM prep entirely within classified environments. Read more: https://hubs.ly/Q03GGz-T0

Decision Lens is now IL-6 compliant and available on SIPRNet — a major milestone that brings the entire predecisional POM prep process into a single, secure environment! No more spreadsheets or switching between networks. Just faster, smarter planning aligned with mission priorities. “This is not just an evolution in capability; it’s a revolution.” – Lt. Gen. Richard G. Moore, Jr. (Ret.) #IL6 #SIPRNet #POMPrep #DecisionLens #DefensePlanning

Exciting news. Decision Lens is now IL-6 compliant and available on SIPRNet — a major milestone that brings the entire pre-decisional POM prep process into a single, secure environment. Just faster, smarter planning aligned with mission priorities. Proud of our team for making this possible. #IL6 #SIPRNet #POMPrep #DecisionLens #DefensePlanning