Pete Hegseth on Streamlining Defense Testing and Accelerating Capability Development

Streamlining Defense Acquisition

• 🎯 Defense acquisition is being refocused to accelerate higher-priority technologies, moving beyond artificial constraints and funding boundaries.
• 🤝 Partnerships with Congress will be sought for maximum flexibility, empowered by transparency.
• 💡 Portfolios will invest in common platforms, interfaces, and test ranges instead of each program acquiring its own infrastructure, eliminating bureaucratic gridlock.

Agile Development and Delivery

• 🚀 Programs will be schedule-driven with fixed delivery cycles, embracing iterative development to deliver operational capabilities years earlier.
• ✅ Rapid fielding dates will be required with clear goals for unit cost ceilings and reasonable mission effectiveness standards, while other attributes remain tradable.
• ⚡ The acquisition process will be agile, responding to rapidly changing threats and battlefield conditions, empowering deviations and waivers to deliver responsive capabilities.

Eliminating Unnecessary Requirements

• 🛠️ Unnecessary technical standards and compliance requirements that add little value will be eliminated.
• 🧠 Lean technical advisory processes will be created to inform accelerated decision-making, focusing on technical rigor without sacrificing speed.
• 💬 Lengthy, inefficient reviews by those out of the loop will be avoided, with technical rigor coming from program-engaged personnel.

Focus on Operational Effectiveness

• 🎯 Evaluation criteria will prioritize mission effectiveness over specific specification compliance, focusing on solving life and death problems for warfighters.
• ⚠️ The Pentagon and industrial base are pivoting to a wartime footing, building for victory rather than peacetime.

Mandating Portfolio Scorecards

• 📊 A plan to streamline test and evaluation requirements is being delivered, recognizing that testing for testing's sake inhibits progress.
• 📈 Portfolio scorecards with primary performance measures will be mandated, focusing on the time it takes to put weapons in the hands of service members.
• ⏱️ Focus will also be on operational availability and mission capability rates of current weapon systems, aiming to maximize the number of available systems for conflict.

Fostering Competition and Modularity

• 🏆 Speed and volume will rule, fostering competition, embracing modularity, and pursuing multi-source procurements.
• 🔗 Efforts will be made to maintain at least two qualified sources for critical program components, minimizing single-source situations.
• 🧩 Third-party integration will be enabled without prime contractor bottlenecks, measuring success by the ability of qualified vendors to independently develop, test, and integrate replacement modules.