DISA Emphasizes the Need for Speed

The key to keeping up with adversaries is delivering “functionally relevant capabilities” at the same pace combatant commands can incorporate them into operations, said Lt. Gen. Paul Stanton, USA, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

At DISA’s Forecast to Industry 2025, Stanton and Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of the U.S. Department of Defense chief information officer, both emphasized the need for fast delivery of relevant capabilities, even if that means deploying 80% solutions.

Arrington, who has led initiatives aimed at speeding up acquisition processes, said it takes too much time to wait for 100% perfect solutions because adversaries are delivering more capabilities at a faster pace.

“In our industry, we think if it's not 100%, that if we haven't put it through every test, and it hasn’t passed every test, then it isn't a good thing. That's crazy,” Arrington said.

The idea is to get solutions to around 80%, when they are considered minimum viable products and can make an operational difference to a commander.

“Eighty percent that isn't delivering something meaningful is the wrong 80%,” Stanton clarified. “You have to figure out, how do you put the pieces and parts together to create an 80% solution to a problem that is relevant for the users of the system? . . . The 80% is a system of systems that provides functionally relevant capability.”

The other essential piece to moving quickly and effectively is teamwork, Stanton said.

“There will be no individual company that solves all of our problems. All of our problems are interconnected,” Stanton said.

To reach 80%, DISA may integrate existing capabilities and pull different capabilities from multiple industry partners to reach viable solutions faster.

For example, DISA has been federating the identity, credential and access management (ICAM) initiative since the beginning of last year, and utilizing ICAM capabilities has already been tested before reaching 100%, Arrington said.

ICAM aims to decrease complexity by allowing users to access several different department applications without complex authentication processes. And the goal is to give all military and government employees one ID that can sign them into networks efficiently.

Arrington cited a time when Stanton was able to walk into the joint operations center at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and log into the network, unrehearsed, with his ICAM credentials to leverage the Maven Smart System, and Stanton’s team made it possible in 72 days.

Speeding up the capability delivery process starts with the procurement process.

Stanton said agile contracting is part of the future. When capabilities are needed immediately, it’s crucial to have the ability to rapidly complete and purchase a contract to provide that capability at the exact time and place it’s needed.

Douglas Packard, director of the Procurement Services Directorate, said DISA is adapting to the overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which is restructuring and restoring common sense to federal procurement.

The initiative, also known as FAR 2.0, aims to simplify regulatory framework by eliminating redundant provisions, making federal contracting more efficient and accessible.

When reviewing processes and identifying areas that could be modified to improve efficiency, Roger Greenwell, chief information officer and director of enterprise integration and innovation, said DISA decided to sunset the Department of Defense Information Network Approved Products List (APL).

The APL outlined the requirements for interoperability and security, but it required companies to take an extra step to get interoperability certified before they moved on to complete other certifications.

Now, the interoperability requirements will be included in the unified capabilities requirements, and the security requirements will be consistent with the state security technical implementation guides. They will officially stop using the APL after December 31, when all products in the queue are tested.

DISA leaders made it clear that they’re not afraid to take risks if that means delivering crucial capabilities to warfighters.

“Everything we do has to solve a problem, and we've got to do it with a little bit of risk,” Arrington stressed. “Senior leaders, risk is OK to accept if you understand what the risk is.”