U.S. Army Acquisition – The Program Office Perspective

The U.S. Army Strategic Software Improvement Program (ASSIP) is a multiyear effort to improve the way the Army acquires software-intensive systems. As part of the ASSIP, the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) examined 12 of the Army's Acquisition Category 1 programs, using a method called Bench-marking for Improvement (BFI). The purpose of conducting the BFI engagements was to define the current state of the acquisition practices across the Army, to discover best practices currently in use by Army program offices, and to identify the software challenges that extend across Army programs. As part of the BFI process, the program management office and SEI interview teams worked together to identify Department of Army best practices and shortcomings in the overall acquisition process, as well as potential solutions and recommendations. In addition, the SEI team provided each program manager with an independent view of program-level activities and made specific recommendations for improvement. A briefing provided to each program manager documented these recommendations. This report documents the results of the interviews conducted during BFI engagements. These results are of interest to Program Executive Office staffs, Program Management Office staffs, and Department of Army staffs that are involved in acquisition.