Development Planning A Strategic Approach to Future Air Force Capabilities (2014) / Chapter Skim
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2 Development Planning Today
2 Development Planning Today
Pages 23-50
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From page 23... ...
This chapter describes and examines development planning as it is implemented today by the Air Force, including the overall development planning process and implementation, key development planning interfaces and linkages, development planning assessment measures, and development planning for Air Force workforce development. OVERALL PROCESS AND IMPLEMENTATION Process Description and Organizational Responsibilities The process flow provided by the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans, and Requirements (HAF A3/5)
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From page 24... ...
needs, hence bridging the S&T and System Program Office worlds. Although the framework above allows for planning at all levels, in its cur rent implementation, most of the planning effort is focused at the individual 1 In 2010, the Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of the Air Force decided that each of the Air Force's 12 Service Core Functions would have an annual Core Function Master Plan (CFMP)
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From page 25... ...
and the development centers. Ex amples include Air Force Space Command and Space and Missile Systems Center, Global Strike Command and Nuclear Weapon Center, and Air Force Materiel Command and Air Force Life Cycle Management Center.
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report discussed in Chapter 1 ended the Air Force's system of taxing pro grams of record to support unrelated development planning efforts.4 At the same time, Congress restored funding for development planning in Program Element (PE) 65808, thereby allowing development planning spending to return and remain relatively stable through the remainder of the 1980s (see Figure 2-3)
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From page 27... ...
KEY INTERFACES AND LINKAGES Defense Strategic Guidance and Air Force 2023 Strategic Planning Guidance for determining the development and sustainment of the Air Force's required capabilities comes from a series of documents that start with the National Security Strategy5 issued by the White House and required by the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986. DoD uses the National Security Strategy as a basis for draft 5 White House, National Security Strategy, Washington, D.C., May 2010, http://www.whitehouse.
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From page 28... ...
There appear to be only a few isolated areas where senior leadership support resulted in high-quality development planning products for that area.9 The committee was briefed on the development planning approach by multiple organizations across the Air Force. In most cases, the development planning efforts 6 DoD, Sustaining U.S.
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From page 29... ...
While SMC was and is excellent in working with Air Force Space Command to develop an integrated space portfolio, it is necessary to extend this to cross-portfolio, cross-core function analysis and trade-offs -- for example, airborne communication nodes versus space versus non-Air Force space programs. Because this analysis could potentially impact force structure, the need for a higher-level Air Force-wide organizational structure with broad capability and strong endorsement and engagement from Air Force senior leadership, with independence from the core function organizations, is required to an even greater
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From page 30... ...
to Support Air Force Capability Development Priorities," presentation at the NDIA DPWG Workshop on S&T/IR&D, June 21, 2012, http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/SystemsEngineering/Pages/Past_Projects.aspx#2010.
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From page 31... ...
and Development Planning (DP) to Support Air Force Capability Development Priorities," presentation at the NDIA DPWG Workshop on S&T/IR&D, June 21, 2012, http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/ SystemsEngineering/Pages/Past_Projects.aspx#2010.
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From page 32... ...
Technol ogy Horizons was followed in 2013 by Global Horizons, also led by the Air Force Chief Scientist.12,13 Both of these studies provide valuable insights and useful ways of considering the impact of technology. Technology Horizons looked 10 years into the future to anticipate S&T advances and then another 10 years to anticipate both U.S.
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From page 33... ...
16 A core issue within the Air Force is that the Air Force capability analysis teams do not report to a sufficiently high Service level to properly motivate Air Force actions directed toward 6.3/6.4 capability developments in analogy with Navy. This realization resulted in Recommendation 2.
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Air Force planning documents are available on the website for industry to study future Air Force needs and investment trends. It also serves as a secure portal for companies to submit proprietary IR&D reports.
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to Support Air Force Capability Development Priorities," presentation at the NDIA DPWG Workshop on S&T/IR&D, June 21, 2012, http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/SystemsEngineering/Pages/ Past_Projects.aspx#2010. Transition to Programming The Air Force Strategy, Planning, and Programming Process (SP3)
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From page 36... ...
As a result of the great and growing complexity of DoD systems, cyber resiliency is an extremely broad and difficult attribute to guarantee.20 Today, the original pillars of "hooks and strings" require a shared understand ing of the cyber threats in the expected mission environment. Software and cyber considerations are at the heart of the needed cross-core function analysis and trade offs and the resulting gains in efficiencies, cost effectiveness, and mission agility.
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From page 37... ...
As the process moves forward from program planning guidance to a balanced program objective memorandum (POM) , it will be crucial to identify issues and validate the performance of the Air Force in successfully executing the missions required and allow optimization across Service core functions -- collecting critical data as the Secretary of the Air Force and CSAF approve future budget submissions.
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From page 38... ...
Further effort is required to address capability assessment; gap identification; early system engineering; design, test, and evaluation; fielding; and sustainment to avoid degrading systems' advanced functionality and performance. ASSESSMENT MEASURES The committee received briefings on current metrics used from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC)
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From page 39... ...
AFLCMC's current process metrics are as follows: • The number of development planning requests processed on time, • The number of development planning proposals developed on time, • The number of Concept Characterization and Technical Descriptions (CCTDs) completed on time and approved within 6 calendar weeks, and • The total time from development planning request to a signed development planning proposal.
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From page 40... ...
Both AFLCMC and AFNWC focus their metrics on development planning projects that are funded under the Air Force's program element for development planning. In the examples of development planning activity that were briefed to the committee, a minority appeared to be funded under the development plan
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From page 41... ...
AFLCMC's process metrics focus entirely on the time taken to complete vari ous development planning activities. Additionally, two of the health metrics address product quality.
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. Neither of these metrics address the impact of the development planning effort on the program, which is the crucial assessment for effectiveness.
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, a currently planned program to replace the E-8 JSTARS platform; Distributed Common Ground Station (DCGS) , which focuses on a weapon system with significant history; and AFRL's Layered Sensing Program, a recent laboratory program involving the networking of a plethora of sensor assets distributed in space and time to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnais sance (ISR)
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From page 44... ...
The original intent of the AoA was to develop an advanced GMTI capability.28 In this scenario, a cost-effective, technically superior approach to the warfighter's GMTI requirements was to serve as the objective. While GMTI has a number of technical challenges, deploying a JSTARS capa bility on a business-class jet became a centerpiece of the study, rather than broadly focusing on the technical requirements to enable assured Air Force domination of ground targets.
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From page 45... ...
The conferees are concerned that, absent such a modernization plan, the Air Force may lose its ability to provide this capability to the joint force in the future.31 The lack of rigorous development planning in advanced GMTI is evident in 2012 statements by former Air Force Chief General Norton Schwartz, where statements indicated available resources as the factor driving the AoA outcome toward a business-class jet solution.32 Concern over the technical depth of GMTI development planning was recently expressed by the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Acquisition) .33 The AoA might have been better informed by a more com plete development planning process that assessed GMTI requirements and sensor performance issues.
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From page 46... ...
Distributed Common Ground Station DCGS originally started as a ground station for the U2 platform. It has since grown to accept data from a number of sensors, including GMTI and synthetic aperture radar data from the E-8 and RQ-4, as well as data from the U2, MQ-9, and MQ-1.
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From page 47... ...
Extending the Project Liberty success to address a rapidly evolving threat environment will require the use of open standard architectures combined with an increasingly agile, innovative, and responsive team of government and contractor personnel.36 Air Force Research Laboratory Layered Sensing The premise of AFRL's Layered Sensing Program is that data can be holistically exploited as a result of concurrent or recent collections from ISR assets, such as radar, signals intelligence, and optical sensors. The resulting product is an im proved ISR perspective corresponding to the spatially and temporally distributed 35 Jeff McKaughan, "Q&A: Lieutenant General Larry D
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From page 48... ...
The layered sensing example raises questions about how the Air Force supports and integrates development planning across the acquisition and S&T communities. A robust development planning capability would provide a forum for evaluation of new concepts based on integration of systems, such as that envisioned by the layered sensing concept.
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From page 49... ...
DEVELOPMENT PLANNING FOR AIR FORCE WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT Hard metrics on human factors are difficult to quantify. Having said this, however, there does not appear to be clear or consistent evidence that develop ment of the Air Force's enduring deterrent, its cadre of world-leading scientists and engineers, is a specific objective or even a consideration in making assignments to the development planning function.
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From page 50... ...
Finding 2-13. Development planning in its current implementation is not ade quately influencing S&T, acquisition, and operational workforce development.
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