Getting the Best Technology into the Hands of the Warfighter TODAY!
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This episode of Defense Unicorns is with Michael A. Brown, former director of Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), as he shares the importance of getting the best technology into the hands of the warfighter today before our adversaries. Brown also shares the value that DIU provides and how it has morphed over the years to meet the needs of the defense community. Connect with Michael Brown on LinkedIn to learn more.
Defense Unicorns, a Podcast, is hosted by Robert Slaughter, Founder, and CEO of Defense Unicorns.
Our guest this week is Michael A. Brown, former director of DIU, Defense Innovation Unit
Highlights from Defense Unicorns, a Podcast:
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
(0:29) What is DIU?
(5:43) How does innovation scale?
(14:34) What are potential solutions to increase scale?
(34:32) What are the biggest gaps in talent within the Department of Defense?
(48:36) What advice do you have for grassroots innovators?
ROB: I'd love to hear in your own words what is DIU?
MIKE: The Defense Innovation Unit, DIU, was started by Ash Carter back in 2015, and Ash had the insight, frankly, a decade before, that there was a lot more of the technology that the military needed being developed by the commercial sector than by the defense enterprise itself. And this is a big switch for if you go back and look at the technology the Defense Department was pioneering in the sixties and seventies.
You know, that's when DARPA was really doing some of the first thinking about the internet and some of the first experiments there. The Defense Department was basically a first a customer of the semiconductor industry in the late sixties and seventies when we were miniaturizing electronics for nuclear weapons chips being used for the space program.
So, that's changed a lot. If we look at the technologies that the defense department needs today, ai, cyber tools, autonomy, that's all being developed by the commercial world. A lot of it in Silicon Valley, Boston, and other innovation hubs around the country. So Ash Carter had the insight that we really need a way to bring that technology in more easily than we buy aircraft carriers or fighter aircraft.
We need a group that is focused on that commercial technology, scouting it, and then pioneering some of the ways we can use a; I'll call it a streamlined or lighter way of contracting for those items and bringing them into the defense department so that we get them into warfighters hands sooner.
ROB: So, in terms of DIU scale, because having worked with DIU over the years, the scope and scale of it continues to evolve, and it continues to grow. But it still represents a very, very, very small percent of the defense budget.
And so, one of the things I'm always curious about and would love your opinion on is how does innovation scale? Is it organizations like DIU growing, or does innovation scale more internal to the program offices and the PEOs, that actually have the majority of funds?
MIKE: Well, you're really hitting on an important point. When I talk about DIU, I'm very proud of what DIU has accomplished, but when you think about it, are we moving fast enough and at a big enough scale? The answer is clearly no. So DIU, with 67 transitions that we have completed, is responsible for something on the order of about $5 billion of contract value.
Significant because it begins with a B. So not to make light of that, but relative to what the Pentagon has bought in the last seven years, which would be over a trillion dollars, it's a very small percentage. So I think, frankly, we're just scratching the surface on what the possibilities could be of bringing more commercial technology into the military.
It's really a lot more to go.
One of the things that we've done is recommended a parallel process for bringing in that technology. So what we've observed back to the Ash Carter insight is, yeah, it's pretty difficult to bring commercial technology in because we use basically the same process to bring in you know, an AI software tool as we would to develop a fighter jet which is starting with requirements telling the market what we need, going out to do a competitive selection, which DIU very much supports the competitive aspect, but we use a different contracting mechanism, other transaction authority instead of federal acquisition regulations.
And the area where we find the most difficult is flexibility in budgeting to get the dollars in place to scale a solution. So we've recommended something we call a fast follower strategy, which basically means what we could do so that we have a parallel process. We don't go through the same process as an aircraft carrier or fighter jet, but we have a streamlined process that will allow us to bring in many more commercial solutions on a timely basis.
So we've made the recommendation that if the Pentagon were to adopt it, we'd be able to go a lot faster. I was very pleased to see that that was part of the National Defense Strategy that was released this past year is a reference to Fast Follower Strategy, meaning it may not be in place yet, but there's a growing recognition that, yeah, this, this makes sense.
This would really help us support a growing vendor base for national security and bring in solutions that we get to war fighters' hands more quickly.
ROB: And, and you brought it up, you know, this concept of an OTA versus FAR structure, and I know in DIUs case, you know, it's really a, a CSO model, which is different than your consortium OTA models. And so I'd love to hear from you a little of those differences of why, you know, what is the difference between an OTA strategy versus a far-based strategy and how does DIUs model, which is, you know, CSO focused different than like a consortium model.
MIKE: Okay, lots of terms here. Let's see if we can start and make them a little easier to understand. So in, in 2015, Congress gave the defense department the capability to use Other Transaction Authority, which basically was the same capability they gave NASA in 1958 after Sputnik. And why did they create this authority?
They basically saw that Federal Acquisition Regulations, which you could think about as something that gets built on over time. And after 40-50 years, there was a lot to the Federal Acquisition Regulations that are ensuring some social goals, making it easy to protest. There are a lot of things that make that a bit more cumbersome.
You can go fast using the Federal Acquisition Regulations, but that's not the mode we're typically in. It's usually a slower process, more cumbersome because it involves so many more regulations. So Congress was saying to the defense department, just like we asked you to go fast after Sputnik, you can go fast if you can apply Other Transaction Authority to be bringing in commercial goods.
Congress has been asking the defense department to bring in commercial items as a preference to defense-specific items going back 30 years, all the way to something called Federal Acquisition Streamline Act, something like that. So this isn't a new idea, but we've just been slow to adopt it at the Pentagon.
So the big difference between consortia and non-consortia, you can apply Other Transaction Authority in two ways. One using a consortium, which basically says, let's pull together a group of vendors, a set, and we're gonna have someone manage that consortium. And then it's a pay-to-play model so that those folks who are part of the consortium have to pay for the overhead of the administrator, the organization that's coordinating that consortium.
We are not using that because we think every competition should be open. You shouldn't be reliant on people who have agreed to pay to play and be part of a club if you will. I'm sure there are some examples of where that can make sense, but for most of the commercial items, we think it should be an open competition and a different set of vendors every time.
We don't need to turn to the same consortium because we're doing everything from, you know, new batteries that we might be converting ground vehicles to hybrid, to AI and cyber tools. So too much variety in the technology we're bringing to rely on one, a single consortium. So the non-consortium model basically says this, will make public the problem that we're working on, and then we'll see which vendors would like to respond to that. We down-select from those vendors who have responded. It's a very competitive, transparent process, and we work with the DoD partner or customer to do that down-select process.
And then we're gonna test those companies who have a solution that we think is gonna work. We're gonna put a couple of them on a prototype contract, which is called a Prototype OT, a Prototype Other Transaction, and those who are selected for that prototype, to get a prototype contract, have an opportunity to show how they do in a military environment. If that's successful, then the DOD partner or customer can choose that vendor and immediately scale up, going to production without having to re-compete the contract. So you can go from a Prototype OT to Production OT, so that allows you to go fast.
Very competitive process, and what I just described is DIUs Commercial Solutions Opening process or CSO, as you mentioned it, Rob. So it's a, a lot of jargon here, but basically, it relies on the authorities that we got with Other Transaction Authority, thanks to the Congress, but puts a process together around that authority that makes it look like very much like a commercial competition.
Which is, you know, what I experienced in most of my career working for commercial companies. This is how they select vendors. So we tried to mirror that with an emphasis on speed and try and get companies on contract within 60 to 90 days from the time they might submit a proposal. We make it very easy for companies to submit that proposal.
They can submit a five-page white paper or a 15-page slide deck that would be the same material they'd put together for any commercial customer they're pursuing. So we don't want anything that needs to be custom for the government, so we make it easy to participate, and as a result, For every problem set DIU put out in 2022, 45 companies responded on average, so incredibly competitive, but it's allowed over a hundred new vendors to get selected at DoD over the time DIU been in business. So we think that really provides the most competitive best value for the taxpayer and gets the, you know, most current, best technology for the application into warfighters hands quickly, we'll be, we'll be able to get these solutions into warfighters hands in one to two years.
And believe it or not, the average of bringing in defense-specific technology is nine to 26 years. 26 years, obviously, for a very complex, you know, fighter jet or aircraft carrier, but nine years for something that is even simpler, like a new rifle. So it, it takes a very long time with the defense department's processes.
We could talk about how to improve that, but it's a, you know, order magnitude improvement to use the Commercial Solutions Opening, or CSO process, and bring out a commercial item.
ROB: So you see the Fast Followers, Program Offices, learning the techniques and developing their own acquisition strategies that allow them to go faster, not necessarily increase DIUs budget.
MIKE: Well, I'm saying two things here. Frankly, DIU has some sufficient budget now, thanks to the Congress and the appropriations that were just done. We're actually more limited by billets now. We have the same number of active-duty billets that Ash Carter provided to DIU in 2015. So meanwhile, the organization now has over a hundred projects underway.
At the time Ash Carter set us up, we probably had just a handful. So tremendous scale, but we haven't received the manpower increases that we probably would benefit from. But the two things to scale, separate from DIU, getting some more people to help, would be number one, DoD to adopt a Fast Follower Strategy so anyone can use the tools, and we make it a little bit easier to do that. Let me come back to that and give you an example.
And then the second thing would be we work with more of the PEOs for that to become a normal part of the process. PEOs use to think about their acquisition strategy where they're turning to DIU.
So we're doing that with a grassroots outreach today. And the more that catches on, the more that would, you know, give people the experience of working with DIU and hopefully seeing some benefit.
Let's come back to the example of what the department could do for Fast Follower Strategy, that really has a couple of different elements to it.
And the first one is deciding where in the Pentagon some of these commercial technologies should be procured. We're not asking for a single organization for all commercial technology. That would be confusing, but for small drones, we shouldn't proliferate offices across the Pentagon for where those should be procured.
We should say one branch needs to be the executive agent or control point for that technology. And we've been reluctant to do that. And if you think about what's different than with commercial technology versus defense-specific technology, you know, if, if a shipbuilder has a new idea for a ship or the department asks for a ship, it's pretty clear that's gonna be a Navy procurement.
But small drones, where should that be procured? Everyone's gonna use that. That could be the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines, but we don't need to. Service-specific items. We don't want a Marine-specific, Army-specific. That's the way we're used to buying things at DoD, is it's service specific. So many of these commercial technologies are not, so therefore, we need to designate a dedicated organization for the assessment and procurement of that item.
It's as true for small drones as it is for satellite imagery. You know, is that the Air Force's responsibility? Is it Space Force? Is it NGA? Is it NRO? So you have to decide where are these things gonna be purchased. Now, fortunately, the war in Ukraine has simplified commercial satellite imagery, that now is an NRO responsibility.
But for many of the technologies, we don't have an executive agent where they should be procured. AI software, and digital wearables, which DIU did a project that allows you as a soldier, as an individual to see if you're coming down with covid symptoms up to 72 hours before you feel the first symptom.
But where should that be bought? Where are digital wearables? So the first thing is designating an organization. The second thing is, of course, gathering this skillset to do the assessment in that organization and already having the mindset that we're gonna need to refresh that technology as frequently as commercial vendors provide upgrades, so if we're thinking about a fighter jet, you know, we don't change that very often.
We don't upgrade from F 22 to F 35 with the kind of speed we probably would like to have, but we are in control of that. With commercial technology, the DOD is not in control of it. If we don't refresh that, we frankly are at a disadvantage relative to adversaries who might refresh at a commercial rate.
It's taken us 10 years to basically field a drone for the US Army. That's a small quadcopter. In that 10 years, DJI, the primary Chinese supplier of drones, has been through six or seven generations, and they're producing their drone for less than 10% of what the Army's paying for its drone. So we're not, you know, taking advantage of the trends in the commercial market here to provide the best value for taxpayer and the latest technology to warfighters.
That's part of what would need to change.
In addition to the designated organization getting the skillset that's assessing on a commercial cycle, we basically need some help from Congress here so that we can buy more things in a current budget year. It takes 24 to 30 months to program a dollar of spending at DoD.
That's a tremendous lead time, and that lead time is longer than the commercial cycle of some of the technologies that we're bringing in. So you couldn't possibly have specified to Congress, I need this; it wasn't invented. And now you've got a 30-month delay. So part of the fast follower strategy is calling for instead of a program of record, which is basically one requirement, one vendor, and the government buys based on that for 30 or 40 years.
We need a capability of record, not a program of record, capability of record, like small drones. We know we're gonna need small drones, but I don't wanna specify a single model and work with one vendor for 30 years. Technology changes too fast. So Congress, please allocate the dollar value for that capability.
And then the Defense Department can use that to understand what's coming out, who are the right vendors to choose from, and change vendors if we need to. So that capability of record would give us the flexibility we need to buy certain capability, not a vendor for a specific requirement, but the best vendor with the most current tech that we could then supply to the warfighters. So it's that combination of elements that creates the fast follower strategy the, the dedicated organization, the idea that we need to refresh on a commercial cycle, and the budget flexibility to be buying that as the new technology comes out from commercial vendors.
ROB: One of the things that I, in my opinion, made DIU and other organizations tremendously effective is by having the ability to take experts outside the traditional DoD ecosystem like yourself and bring them in to provide, you know, different, not only different viewpoints but different types of talents and skill sets.
Can you talk to us a little bit about where you see the biggest gaps are within talent within the Department of Defense and maybe some of your ideas of how how to close that talent gap?
MIKE: Well, you're right. I think one of the things that has made DIU successful is we're trying to blend a workforce of active duty military reservists who already have a blended career because they're spending their day job, maybe working for a tech company and their reservist role in the military.
You know, helping to support the mission of the defense department, DIU, or elsewhere. We were lucky to have a very capable team of reservists at DIU, and then we have civilian people like myself who spent their careers in the industry. So we're really blending that workforce together. If you look across the military, you find a lot less of what I just described; you'd find a lot more active-duty folks.
And maybe reservists who don't have the benefit of spending their day job in the tech world. I'd love to see a more tech-savvy workforce at DoD. I think that is one of the skills gaps. Another thing we need to do is make sure that those who have specialty skills, like cyber operators, continue to foster that expertise and allow folks to stay in a career track where they can develop themselves. You might know that cyber is not viewed so much as a specialty but part of a general IT background, so someone could be transferred after their three years. The military transfers folks regularly every three years as kind of a rule of thumb. And you might go from being part of the cyber national mission force to being responsible for the IT shop of a platoon, which is not very interesting for someone that's developed some specialized cyber skills. So we need to think about both. How do we get more tech skills into the folks working in the military? That probably means we're gonna need to draw on the civilian sector to help support the military.
And second, for what we have trained the military. We need to help those folks who are interested maintain that specialization if they would like to and not penalize them from a career stand-by, thinking that everyone needs to be a generalist. And that's very similar to what the private world does with kind of a two-track career program.
If you went to IBM or Google, you'd find that gee, there's a way to advance in a technical ladder as well as a managerial ladder. We need that same kind of thinking at the Defense Department. The other thing you could say is I'd love to see more, more fluidity in people being able to go back and forth between the government and private sector a couple of times in their career.
We would benefit tremendously on both sides, civilian world and military, by that kind of movement. We don't make it easy for that to happen today. We make it easy for folks in the military, or if you're a civilian supporting the military, to stay in that silo for a very long period of time. That's how the benefits and the incentives are aligned, and we make it difficult to go back and forth.
We would benefit if we created more programs to do more cross-pollination.
ROB: This podcast focuses a lot on grassroots innovators. So a lot of the folks listening are, you know, either trying to start their own initiatives or in the middle of the gauntlet of what it takes to innovate within the DoD. What advice or recommendations do you have for folks that are trying to innovate in a system that quite honestly makes it very.
MIKE: Yeah, I'd say two things, and I've seen this in practice, one persistence. So don't take the first no as an answer. It's easier to say no than to sometimes make way for an idea that's innovative, and then second, go develop some champions and show how it can be done. So you need support. I worked with someone at DIU who said, go where the daylight is.
If you find one door shut, go to another one. The good news is at the Pentagon, there's plenty of doors. So look for where you can get some support. And then show your leadership the way, meaning this is how we can get it done easily and within whatever construct that your leadership is concerned about.
So, don't take the first no as an answer. Go find a way to make it happen.
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