Golden Dome Through Nontraditional Acquisition Clearly, MDA’s history and how acquisition organizations can make the Golden Dome for America a real- ity demonstrates that nontraditional approaches can provide innovation, streamlining, and agility applicable to almost any project across the DoD. Traditional acquisition approaches are nonstarters and will not keep up with the speed of advancing threats. Or- ganizations that have nontraditional acquisition authorities are encour- aged to pursue them to the maximum extent plausible. These include OTs under 10 U.S.C. § 4022; Procurement for Experimental Purposes under 10 U.S.C. § 4023; and Prize Authority under 10 U.S.C. § 4025. As the late Air Force Gen. A. Ber- nard Schriever once said, “Today, the risk of moving too slow is far greater than any risk associated with rapid change. We must evolve. We must take risks. We must solve problems.” POSKEY is Missile Defense Agency (MDA) director of Program Management and Inte- gration for Space Sensors and formerly was deputy director of contracts at MDA’s Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center, Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado. SULAK is an acquisition analyst for MDA Space Sensors. The authors can be contacted at danny.poskey@mda.mil and mda.schriever. ics.mbx.mda-ss-program-office@mail.mil . The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
Check out the digital version of Defense Acquisition magazine at www.dau.edu/library/damag to watch a video on the HBTSS.
Tracking programs. OT use enabled a highly collaborative acquisition set- ting focused on rapid delivery while maintaining cost in a highly unusual fixed price development environment. Innovation under the OT processes included minimized documentation, collaboration with performers to gain common understanding of require- ments, oral proposal presentations, streamlined proposal evaluation, and reduced administrative burden due to the fixed price milestone structure. The acquisition timeframe through- out the HBTSS phases was reduced by up to 50 percent compared to traditional timelines. In utilizing a nontraditional ap- proach for HBTSS, what attributes enabled program success and should be considered for all programs? The HBTSS program manager boils it down to the Four Cs of Culture, Col- laboration, Competition, and Credibil- ity that follow. Culture. Raw talent is not enough —culture is a crucial element of a suc- cessful program. Small, empowered teams that are willing to take some level of measured risk (and the risk is tolerated by leadership) are crucial. Key enablers are flat chains of com- mand that enable rapid decision-mak- ing and delegation of acquisition and contracting authorities to the lowest levels. Having the right team mem- bers supporting the project is foun- dational—just one person who is not onboard with the strategy or use of nontraditional acquisition approaches can derail the project. Collaboration. The OT environ- ment enables a collaborative environ-
ment not typically found when execut- ing traditional acquisition approaches. Strive to establish trust and collabora- tive relationships versus transactional (no pun intended) relationships with performers. Enable government-to- government, government-to-industry, and even industry-to-industry col- laboration, when possible. Collabo- ration provides an open environment where everyone can learn from one another—government, industry, Fed- erally Funded Research and Develop- ment Centers, University Affiliated Research Centers, and laboratories. Competition. A key is competition, or competitive prototyping, from the early phases of the program through the demonstration or prototype phase. It stimulates industry and al- lows the project to analyze different concepts up front and select the most promising solutions through a series of “rolling down-selects.” Where bud- gets allow, carrying multiple perform- ers as far into the project as practi- cable should always be considered. Credibility. For any team, credibil- ity is vitally important for the success of a project and should become a core element of the organization’s culture. In addition to programmatic cred- ibility (delivering what you promised on budget), there should be techni- cal credibility (delivering a capability that meets Warfighter needs). Do not forget about ethics and procurement integrity. With any acquisition ap- proach, traditional or nontraditional, the business credibility and profes- sionalism of the acquisition workforce should always remain at the core of what we do.
DAU Resources • CON 2880V Neg-OTA-tion 101 • CON 0660 Other Transactions (OTs) • Other Transaction Authority Media
26 | DEFENSE ACQUISITION | March-April 2025
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