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Philip E. Coyle, III served as the Pentagon’s Assistant Secretary of Defense and Director, Operational Test and Evaluation from 1994-2001. On March 29, 2007, he spoke before Canadian Parliamentary representatives and talked about his experiences. The speech covered “Four Critical Problems”: (1) Unrealistic requirements; (2) Unrealistic costs and schedules; (3) Unrealistic contractual environments; and (4) Preparing for realistic operational environments… and offered “Ten Solutions,” summarized here as a simple list:
# Parliamentary Oversight and Review. “…In Canada – as well as in the U.S. – this requires legislative staff with the kinds of technical backgrounds needed to fully understand what the contractors are claiming, and how likely it is that those claims can be realized…”
# Competition in contracting
# Requirements and Requirements Change Control
# Commercial-Off-the-Shelf/Non-Developmental Items (COTS/NDI). “Fourth, don’t consider a product to be COTS/NDI unless you can truly buy it off the shelf, it comes with a users manual, and it has been tested in the same environments in which it is to be used by the military…”
# Pay attention to contractor incentives
# Avoid unrealistic expectations in defense contracts
# Assess Technology Readiness Levels
# Recognize the importance of government expertise
# Examine the status of major new systems early and often. “…My successor in the Pentagon has pointed out that the cost of programs is generally driven by decisions that are made in the initial 10 to 15 percent of a program…”
# Anticipate support and sustainment costs. “Tenth, deal with what a former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Dr. Jacques Gansler, calls the “Death Spiral”…”