This document summarizes a presentation given by Dr. Kevin Carman on hacking DoD 5000 regulations. It discusses the evolutionary history of DoD 5000 from 1971 to present, highlighting reforms and themes at each stage like decentralization, streamlining, and acquisition reform. Key themes encouraged by DoD 5000 include empowerment, efficiencies, experimentation, affordability, oversight authorities, and process improvement. The presentation addresses challenges like managing requirements changes and technology maturity. It provides examples from industry of reducing complexity, empowering teams, and maintaining a technology pipeline. Recent guidance encourages agile acquisition methods. Discussion focuses on being innovative within contracting and leveraging what industry has learned about streamlining.

1. JUNE 19 – 21, Bethesda, MD
Dr Kevin Carman
Dean, West Region
Defense Acquisition University (DAU)
Hacking the 5000

2. DoD 5000 – A Retrospective View
It has been
evolutionary in
its construction
and Intent
• Decentralized execution to the DoD Components (1971)
• Limited Reporting Requirements (1975)
• Program Stability—minimize funding and requirements changes (1977)
• Minimize cycle time (1980)
• Carlucci Initiatives (reforms) (1982)
• Naming of a Defense Acquisition Executive (1985)
• Fly Before Buy (e.g. prototyping, mitigate technical risks before production, etc.)
(1987)
• Streamlined Organizations (1987)
• Policy Overhaul (1991)
• Acquisition reform (1996)
• Better Buying Power (2015)
Themes that surfaced during each subsequent update
1971……………………………………………………2018

3. What Are Some of the Key Themes that DoD 5000 Has
Been Encouraging from Inception to Now?

4. DoD 5000 – A Retrospective View
It has been
evolutionary in
its construction
and Intent
• Decentralized execution to the DoD Components (1971)
• Limited Reporting Requirements (1975)
• Program Stability—minimize funding and requirements changes (1977)
• Minimize cycle time (1980)
• Carlucci Initiatives (reforms) (1982)
• Naming of a Defense Acquisition Executive (1985)
• Fly Before Buy (e.g. prototyping, mitigate technical risks before production, etc.)
(1987)
• Streamlined Organizations (1987)
• Policy Overhaul (1991)
• Acquisition reform (1996)
• Better Buying Power (2015)
Themes that surfaced during each subsequent update
1971……………………………………………………2018

5. Here Are Some Key Themes
• Empowerment
• Efficiencies
• Experimentation
• Affordability
• Creation of Oversight
authorities
• Reduction in
bureaucratic burden
• Faster timelines
• Reduced oversight
• Process Improvement

6. DoD 5000 – A Retrospective View
What’s Preventing our Community
From Hacking the 5000?

7. Manage the “Fuzzy Front End (i.e. the zone between when the
opportunity is known and when we pursue a serious effort)
• “The B-2, designed as a long range nuclear bomber, and the
MILSTAR [satellite system], conceived as a strategic
communication system for the second stage of a nuclear
exchange, are visible examples of systems designed to meet
missions that never materialized or disappeared
before they were completed.”
How did we let this happen?
Extracts from “Accelerating DoD Acquisitions Time Constraints And Techniques,” Brian D. Griffin, May 2013
Understanding the Value of Time and Money

8. Watch out for Complexity. It may satisfy the customer’s needs, but
it drives the length of the development cycle.
• Toyota plans to have each new model built with 70 percent of the parts
common to earlier models.
• They already saved Toyota nearly a half billion dollars.
Extracts from “Accelerating DoD Acquisitions Time Constraints And Techniques,” Brian D. Griffin, May 2013
Understanding System Complexity
Why aren’t we doing this in DoD ?

9. Manage the Invention Pipeline
• Mature and Validate technology and manufacturing processes before they
are associated with a product and before entry into the gated process.
Invention is essential, but very difficult to schedule.
• Companies like Canon, Honda, and Sony devote considerable resources to
maintaining a storehouse of developing technologies
basic to their businesses. When a technology reaches
the point where much of its schedule uncertainty is
eliminated, it switches to the product development track
Extracts from “Accelerating DoD Acquisitions Time Constraints And Techniques,” Brian D. Griffin, May 2013
Understanding the State of Technology
What are we doing today in DoD ?

10. Let the Team Manage the Team
• Empower the team. It can speed development
• If product development is a succession of problems
to be solved, then development speed depends on
the speed of the problem-solving process
• Every time a team has to go outside of itself to
obtain a decision, additional delay is incurred.
The farther it has to go (geographically or
organizationally), the greater the delay is likely to be
Extracts from “Accelerating DoD Acquisitions Time Constraints And Techniques,” Brian D. Griffin, May 2013
Understanding Leadership Stability
How can we do better in DoD ?

11. Recent Guidance on Agile Acquisition
James F. Geurts, ASN (R&A) William B. Roper Ass’t SECAF (AT&L)
…Use these authorities
to enable speed and
agility while maintaining
appropriate
accountability, oversight
and transparency.”
…Using these [steps]
should give you new
options to aim
higher…When you have
taken s smart risk,
busted bureaucracy, or
found a faster way to
achieve results, email
me directly with the
subject line “Celerity.
Both leaders
have
encouraged
their workforce
to apply ”agile.”

12. Where can Further Hack DoD 5000?

13. More Critical Thinking More Innovation

14. Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIU-x)
*Over the past year, DIUx pioneered and improved its contracting process, the Commercial Solutions
Opening (CSO). DIUx uses the CSO in conjunction with DoD partners to execute prototype projects to
solve national defense problems.
• Looking ahead, DIUx will examine how to scale its processes to include the understanding and use of the
OT authority and the technologies and methodologies available to DoD
• Scaling the DIUx process of prototyping and transitioning to production is not only timely, but essential
• DIUx and DDS are working to apply agile methodologies to ongoing hardware and software upgrades of
legacy platforms…
DIUx will address challenges facing Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) as
they refresh and upgrade hardware and software components. This will mark the
beginning of a concerted effort to shift from intermittent to continuous capability upgrades
across DoD’s platforms.
*Extracts from the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) Annual Report 2017

15. Myth: Innovation is stifled by the acquisition system.
The Truth:
• There is no shortage of creativity or new ideas, or access to cutting-edge technology in the defense
acquisition enterprise. The combined efforts of Defense Department laboratories, defense industry, and
organizations like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are all focused on creating new and
exciting options for U.S. forces.
• Early experimental stages of technology maturation and experimental prototyping are inexpensive and
do not require large long-term budgetary commitments or formal requirements from operational
leadership. Starting a major program leading to a significant fielded capability also requires a willingness
to prioritize resources. The defense acquisition enterprise does not control budgets or operational
requirements; it responds to them.
• True innovation, which includes new operational concepts, will have to come through strong leadership
beyond just the acquisition community, and importantly at the expense of other familiar and more
traditional military service budget priorities.
Adapted from “Analysis: Five Myths About Pentagon Weapons Programs,” Defense One. Frank Kendall, March 21, 2018.
Dismissing A Myth

16. OTAs
Extracts from Federal Times.com, Stan Soloway, “Will the empire strike back? OTA and the future of
acquisition,” retrieved from https://www.federaltimes.com/opinion/commentary/2018/04/27/will-the-
empire-strike-back-ota-and-the-future-of-acquisition/
• OTA use grew more than 500 percent between 2012 and 2017. Moreover, changes to the laws
governing OTAs have been significant. The advent of “production authority,” which allows the
use of OTAs all the way through production/implementation, has also helped drive their
relevance and use.
• Are OTAs delivering on their promise? Are they, in fact, delivering new, otherwise inaccessible
capabilities and innovation in a more timely and responsive manner than the traditional
acquisition process? And are they doing so in a manner consistent with a set of core
principles: accountability, competition and transparency?
• Having observed and even been involved in the Defense
Innovation Unit Experimental and other OTA processes,
my own sense is that the answers to all of the above is “yes.

17. Discussion
From a contracting perspective, what more
can you do to be innovative?
19

18. Summary
• Some would argue that DoD 5000 is too restrictive
• It actually allows a tremendous amount of flexibility
Don’t let the 5000 Hack you!
• Be a critical thinker
• Be innovative
• Be collaborative
• Keep an open mind
• Leverage what industry has already learned about
streamlining their development and production programs
• Look for opportunities—they’re right around the corner

19. Back-ups

21. Reform Panel on Track to Cut Dod-
Specific Acquisition Regs by Half
• The Defense Department is making major progress in weeding out what it views as
outdated and unnecessary acquisition rules.
• A group Defense officials charged with examining acquisition rules is one of three
subgroups currently operating within DoD as part if its regulatory reform task force.
Its particular charge is to undertake an in-depth scrub of the Defense Federal
Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), decide what is still relevant, and what
is slowing the system down for no good reason.
• The review is about midway through, and so far, it is on track to reduce the size of
the DFARS by about half. The group is made up of representatives from the military
services, plus the Pentagon’s office of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy
• We need to find a way to buy tomorrow’s technology today instead of buying
yesterday’s technology for delivery tomorrow.”
By Jared Serbu, 30 April 3018, retrieved from https://federalnewsradio.com/defense-main/2018/04/reform-panel-
on-track-to-cut-dod-unique-acquisition-regs-by-half/

22. Is there Conflicting Guidance?
*Commercial Item Rule (31 Jan 2018): DFAR Supplement leaves the door
open to make potentially burdensome requests for information to support
pricing for commercial items—allows Contracting officers to presume that a
prior DoD determination applies to subsequent procurements of the same
item
• Consequence: If head of contracting disagrees, they must determine in writing that
the earlier decision was in error and based on inadequate information and will
realize savings by using other-than commercial procedures
*Barnet, Byrd, & Workmaster, (April, 2018). Problems Persist with
Commercial Items, National Defense Magazine, Volume CII, Number 773.