The newly-published January 2022 edition of the Defense Acquisition Research Journal (ARJ) is now available online for your reading pleasure. With a theme of “Overcoming Obstacles”, this latest issue contains multiple articles of specific interest to the defense acquisition workforce and product support communities. Articles include:

• From the Chairman and Executive Editor - Issue 99
• Can We Explain Cost Growth in Major Defense Acquisition Programs? - This article asks whether Department of Defense and defense industry acquisition practitioners possess an understanding of cost growth that explains the full range of cost growth observed in major defense acquisition programs, from the negative to the extremely large. It shows that the defense acquisition community at large lacks a good understanding of the causes of cost growth in programs with cost growth in the central part of the range, and it identifies some policy implications of this result.
• Challenges of Adopting DevOps for the Combat Systems Development Environment - The article describes a research project in which 11 subject matter experts in software development were interviewed to identify any challenges to the Navy’s adoption of DevOps. The results of the interviews were analyzed and categorized into obstacle types with descriptions of those obstacles so that the Navy can develop a plan on how to adopt DevOps.
• Optimal Talent Management of the Acquisition Workforce in Response to COVID-19: Dynamic Programming Approach - The authors forecast the long-run retention behavior of the Defense Acquisition Workforce using a dynamic programming approach. Their findings posit that employees are hesitant to leave the DoD while the civilian economy is in flux; however, once recovery is well underway, acquisition workers rapidly exit, potentially leading to a deficit of experienced employees.
• Research Agenda 2021
• Professional Reading List – A review of Benjamin Blanchard’s classic “Logistics Engineering and Management”
• Current Research Resources in Defense Acquisition