Scoping Requirements and Understanding Mission Applications
From AFCEAWiki
Thursday 1030-1200, The Role of Requirements in Mission Applications: How do we get the requirements right and better understand mission needs?
Moderator: Mr. Dale Luddeke, Executive Vice President, CACI | BIO
Panelist: Mr. Anthony (Tony) Jimenez, President and CEO, MicroTech | BIO Panelist: Ms. Diann McCoy, Account Executive, Acquisition Solutions | BIO Panelist: Ms. Kathleen Miller, Dir. Procurement Directorate, DISA | BIO Panelist: Dr. Ken Nidiffer, Dir of Strategic Plans for Gov Programs, Acquisition Support Program, SEI, Carnegie Mellon University | BIO
Key Notes: Tony Jimenez - Suggested improvements for Small Business Better Communications Improved Acquisition planning Better Definition Trust
Key to successful IT Acquisition is Defining the requirement
Diann McCoy Challenges in government with changing to Performance based and capability based acquisition approach. Need for a better understanding in using Statements of Objectives and Performance Work Statements.
Kathleen Miller Still a lot of work to do in developing the Performance Based Work contracts. Difficulty in defining the requirement
Ken Nidiffer A lot of IT oriented activities (ie Enterprise Architecture) are still evolving Difficulty includes getting a grasp around concepts like Cyber-
Four Great Limiting Variables Complexity will continue to increase – as new, change Conformability – Software should conform to stringent conformity statements - Human Element – is a limiting factor – 7 plus or minus 2 is about what people can handle. Changeability – Software is easy to change- Layman’s laws evoling software the structure becomes more complex - Architecture and principles help stabilize without new reqs Usability (?)
SRI - Standardization, Rationalization and Interoperability - Thoughts Architecture helps guide interoperability Enterprise should integrate SRI
What happens when requirements change because the process takes too long. Then how do you communicate that change. Use agility Communication - Understanding the user requirement Smaller increments
Is the government leaning more towards subscription based services or to the enterprise There are some moves to acquire services as a subscription storage/ or computing on demand. The challenge is making acquisitions in areas the government has not benched mark – there are opportunities to adopt a subscription service approach and will be a trend we will see more over time.
Is it clear who has what authority, who is accountable for working the communications? - The issue may be expertise in the workforce. Need to work with both open and one and one communications to improve.
State of MD has a IDIQ that requires the contractor to state the reason they made a no bid decision.- Listed a number of cost prohibitive instances for response. Suggested that they provide a no bid response as part of the process. DISA has implemented in a no response on ENCORE II.
DISA is reviewing the process for IDIQ and timing to work the issue of short time turn arounds.
