Three key findings identified by the RAND researchers were:

• “Standard approaches to data-driven acquisition policy research might not be sufficient when seeking to anticipate new, substantial policy changes.
• Gaming, a tool used in other areas of defense policy analysis, has promise to help inform acquisition policy creation and implementation.
• A prototype gaming effort conducted by RAND researchers was able to anticipate potential implementation problems for Middle-Tier Acquisition policy, illustrating the potential utility of gaming as an approach to inform acquisition policymaking.”

They also offered three recommendations:

• “Look to expand beyond traditional evidence-based approaches to acquisition policy. Fund pilot efforts using new tools, in order to better understand their utility in evaluating the health of the DAS.
• Instrument the adaptive acquisition system to enable continuous, incremental improvements to acquisition policy.
• Experiment with developing and using policy games to rapidly prototype more-revolutionary changes to acquisition policies for which an empirical approach might not apply.”