New DoD Risk, Issue, and Opportunity Management Guide for Defense Acquisition Programs
Risk Management is one of those foundational activities that is vitally important, ubiquitous, and spans the system acquisition process, encompassing every functional community in the process. To enhance workforce knowledge and improve implementation across the department, the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering recently issued a new June 2015 “Department of Defense Risk, Issue, and Opportunity Management Guide for Defense Acquisition Programs.”
As the guide itself states,
“the Department recognizes a significant relationship between effective risk management and program success….Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 5000.02, Operation of the Defense Acquisition System, requires program managers (PM) to implement effective risk management, noting “the goal is to both mitigate risks and create opportunities for technology development outcomes that could have a positive impact on meeting performance objectives as well as thresholds.
In 2015, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics emphasized risk management as a focus of the DoD Better Buying Power initiative: Risk management is an endeavor that begins with requirements formulation and assessment, includes the planning and conducting of a technical risk reduction phase if needed, and strongly influences the structure of the development and test activities. Active risk management requires investment based on identification of where to best deploy scarce resources for the greatest impact on the program’s risk profile. PMs and staff should shape and control risk, not just observe progress and react to risks that are realized. Anticipating possible adverse events, evaluating probabilities of occurrence, understanding cost and schedule impacts, and deciding to take cost effective steps ahead of time to limit their impact if they occur is the essence of effective risk management. Risk management should occur throughout the lifecycle of the program and strategies should be adjusted as the risk profile changes (emphasis added).”
Encourage all life cycle logisticians and product support managers to take the time to read through this important new guidebook, and take the time to consider how best the processes and procedures outlined therein can be systematically applied to your own programs.
DAU also offers a number of learning assets that address risk management, many of which are in the process of being updated to reflect the contents of the updated guidebook. Just a few of DAU risk management learning assets include:
· CLB 024 Cost Risk Analysis Introduction
· Risk Management Framework (RMF) for DoD Information Technology (IT) ACQuipedia Article