How a defense agency transformed with strategic mapping

You can't fix what you can't see. When a global defence agency found itself struggling to cope with the complexity of its programme schedules, it was the ability to visualise its portfolio that helped create the results it needed. Discover how SharpCloud helped them uncover £1 billion in missed opportunities.

🇺🇸 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

Strategy doesn't wait for a desk.🚁 In defense operations, decisions are made in motion — on the ground, in the air, and everywhere in between. That's why mission-critical tech must be as mobile and resilient as the people who rely on it.💪 🔗 https://bit.ly/3JdPAMx

🚨 Major Reform in Defense Acquisition and Requirements 🚨 On August 20, 2025, the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense issued a landmark memorandum reshaping how the Department identifies, funds, and fields critical warfighting capabilities. 🔑 Key Changes Include: ·      Disestablishing JCIDS: Shifting responsibility for requirements to the Services and freeing the Joint Staff to focus on strategic priorities. ·      Re-orienting the JROC: Now tasked with identifying and ranking the Joint Force’s most pressing Key Operational Problems (KOPs) annually. ·      Launching the RRAB: A new Requirements and Resourcing Alignment Board co-chaired by the DepSecDef and VCJCS to tie requirements directly to resources. ·      Standing up the MEIA: Mission Engineering and Integration Activity to drive rapid industry engagement, experimentation, and integration. ·      Creating the Joint Acceleration Reserve (JAR): Dedicated funding to bridge the “valley of death” and accelerate delivery of impactful capabilities. 💡 The Vision: A faster, more agile, and more integrated process that aligns requirements, resourcing, and industry innovation to deliver capabilities at the speed of relevance. #DefenseInnovation #NationalSecurity #DoD #AcquisitionReform

JCIDS' Dead! The New DOD Procurement Process Must Ensure Jointness, based on GCC Requirements, and Timely Fielding. The new Department of Defense (DOD) procurement process must accomplish three primary objectives. Firstly, it must prioritize the procurement of equipment that supports joint operations, including unmanned aerial systems (UAS), combined communications intelligence (C3I), and weaponry. Secondly, the process must be based on the requirements of GCC’s operational plans (OPLANS) and comprehensive operational plans (CONPLANS). Lastly, the procurement process must ensure the timely production and fielding of equipment to preclude obsolescence. https://lnkd.in/gFY-x_K7

The era of multiple siloed tools is ending. Defense leaders are embracing single-system strategies to reduce cost, improve compliance, and accelerate readiness. See how one program sustained success by consolidating around a unified solution that handles standard and non-standard outputs alike. Check out the case study: https://lnkd.in/eyFpfWhC

"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."

🛡️ With global defense spending projected to hit $2.2 trillion by 2027, opportunities have never been greater. But success in this sector isn’t about having the best tech alone - it’s about navigating regulations, building trust, and aligning with missions and procurement cycles. That’s where we come in. Starburst helps you succeed in defense by : ✅ Positioning your dual-use tech for mission relevance ✅ Building strategic credibility to win long-term contracts ✅ Connecting you to key defense stakeholders Defense is complex. We make it accessible. If you’re ready to explore opportunities in this booming market, let’s connect. 👉 Reach out : https://lnkd.in/eFTQj5w3 Read our latest article about entering the defense market : https://bit.ly/47jHFr6 François Chopard #DefenseInnovation #DualUse #Aerospace #DefenseTech #Starburst

Ensuring seamless integration into the congested spectrum landscape and securing sufficient investment in our wireless network are critical to the success of the Golden Dome initiative. Today in a new Defense Daily piece, National Spectrum Consortium CEO Joe Kochan outlines how the U.S. can successfully overcome these challenges:

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