Last week I shared some thoughts on the process of helping the government customer refine their requirements - essentially bringing the worlds of realistic funding profiles together with realistic development schedules and realistic current technologies. This shaping strategy is slightly different for competing companies because different companies have different strengths and weaknesses. To successfully establish a competitive edge, it is necessary to present a persuasive case to the customer of the realities as you see them on how best to meet their capability gaps.
But who is the customer? Who speaks as the single voice of decision in establishing the requirements and aligning budgets. In many cases, there may be multiple opinion leaders, and here's the troubling part . . . they may have different opinions and agendas. Worse still, they may change opinions from one annual requirements conference to the next. Some of the larger and more complex DoD programs will impanel an executive steering group or committee (ESC) to align the key opinion leaders in an effort to stabilize this process. ESCs generally do a good job of reducing priority swings and emotionalism. By their nature they are usually composed of senior command or leadership principals related to the operational or acquisition communities. These may include the requirements officer, the community functional commander, the systems command program manager, the resource sponsor, and leadership from the tactics and intelligence school houses and other centers of excellence. While the names may change from one conference to the next from year to year, the titles usually do not, and perspectives brought in are usually consistent. A major acquisition program ESC may prioritize the overarching requirements and usually has an understanding of the mid term funding realities. ESCs are good organizations to stay in touch with for shaping priorities among program elements on a macro scale - in other words, prioritizing supporting developments or acquisitions within a major program. Each of those elements may come with its own specific capability requirements as well.
What about smaller programs or stand alone systems? These may not enjoy the sort of organizational structure described above. The opinion leaders certainly still exist, but they may not be formally organized and conjoined by an executive committee that unifies their voice. In this case a little more work is required to make sure that all the opinion leaders are informed with your message at the appropriate time to positively influence the requirement boundaries and be unified in their acquisition goals. You are most effective if considered a member of the team - part of the solution. The key opinion leaders and influencers still fall into three main categories - the user ("warfighter"), the buyer (program manager), and the resource provider. In simple terms: your customer must need something, must have a mechanism for procuring it, and must have the resources to pay for it. You may find yourself acting as a "go-between" among these elements for helping the government unify their voice and refine their requirements for small programs or lesser capabilities.
Comments