Making Acquisition Rapid - A Practitioner's View

The chapter welcomed Lt. Col. Joel Babbitt, USA, product director, Wideband Enterprise Satellite Systems (WESS), as its luncheon speaker in March. He reports to the project manager, Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems (PM DCATS). Lt. Babbitt is responsible for managing the acquisition, development and modernization of enterprise satellite communication systems and state-of-the-art satellite network control and planning systems for use with Defense Satellite Communications Systems, as well as Wideband Global Satellite and commercial satellite systems. The WESS workforce exceeds 200 personnel and executes an annual budget of over $260 million. Lt. Babbitt took the time to share lessons he's learned during his career to help expedite the cumbersome process of government acquisitions. He identified some of the acquisition challenges we face as: JCIDS process takes 2-4 years, POM process takes 2-7 years to (maybe) get the dollars needed, Congress, customer expectations, an entrenched testing community who holds all the negotiating power and an ACAT structure that adds multiple 3-8 month staffing delays to get a decision. The mantra touted by Lt. Babbitt on how to get things fast in this acquisition process: Be Proactive! Based on years of experience in this environment, Lt. Babbitt made the following recommendations: Leverage established programs as springboards; look for high-impact, low-cost innovations in established programs; support ONSs, directed requirements; understand your customer's needs and know the ones that will be approved; innovate via integration, avoid costly developments; understand how the end of the Fiscal Year (FY) works; always have a contract ready to put money on; and be sure to get your good ideas/customer needs into Unfunded Requirements (UFR) form. In closing, Lt. Babbitt reminded the audience to, “listen to your customers or someone else will.” In this progressive IT environment, industry must innovate and reinvent as needed to avoid becoming irrelevant. Do this by trying something new, thinking it through and embracing good change. Most importantly, he stressed the importance of keeping your friends, helping each other out by working together and to always be proactive.

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