Opportunity Management: Implementing a Positive Complement to Risk Management

Abstract : These are stressful times for all Department of Defense acquisition programs. Over the past 12 months, the U.S. Government Accountability Office has issued several studies that have criticized how DoD acquisition programs have continued a trend of increased program costs accompanied by lengthening schedulesand in many cases, at the sacrifice of technical capability. In April 2009, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced some major changes to the fiscal year2010 defense budget, stating DoD needed to reform how and what we buy by overhauling of our approaches to procurement, acquisition, and contracting. This was quickly followed by a June 2009 Washington Times editorial from Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn III who stated that the time is now for a fundamental overhaul to the way the Pentagon does business, which can be done by aggressively pursuing major reforms of how we develop, test, and field the weapons our troops need.