https://www.dau.edu
similar to how the team has conducted its research. The course can also provide students with solicitation and evaluation templates and plain language documentation to use as a resource. As highlighted often in the CSO Cross Talks, while CSO flexibility is appreciated, great value is to be found in standardization and uniformity for repeatable processes. As a future evolution of this training and development recommendation, DAU, or some other activity, could develop a comparative tool. It should include decision logic to guide future procurement teams through a methodical decision process of choosing the most advantageous solicitation technique for their requirement(s), whether that be a CSO or some other solicitation technique. Invest in Commercial Solutions Opening Center of Excellence We recommend the United States Air Force (USAF) fully invest in the CSO Center of Excellence and take the DoD lead in consolidating CSO DoD guidance documents, best practices, and procedures in furtherance of the DoD’s KM environment. These resources could be documented and catalogued through a virtual site with appropriate access controls, perhaps as a resource open to all DoD common access card holders under the USAF Innovation Toolbox (USAF, n.d.). A similar website after which the CSO Center of Excellence might model itself could be the “Acquisition Innovation” site created and maintained by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which features history, training, work samples, and other resources for the acquisition of innovative technology using the award of OTs (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, n.d.). As the CSO Center of Excellence, the USAF should maintain flexibility in remaining current with best practices regularly being discovered and shared as more CSOs are being utilized. The CSO Center of Excellence should also explore opportunities to develop meaningful data analytics and metrics to measure CSO utilization and effectiveness as resulting contracts are performed. Also, the CSO Cross Talks, to which policy advisors and experienced practitioners can still directly contribute, should be continued, but the resultant summary bulletins and other guides, work samples, etc., can be shared for any DoD acquisition personnel on the recommended virtual site. Once the CSO Center of Excellence has been fully established in the Air Force, perhaps the DoD may consider positioning the Center at the DoD level as a way of ensuring the sharing of CSO resources and knowledge throughout the DoD.
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Defense ARJ , Spring 2025, Vol. 32 No. 1
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