The Defense Business Board (DBB) has issued three reports of potential interest to the defense acquisition workforce:

• Building a Civilian Talent Pipeline​
  • Tasking:
    • Improving civil service recruiting efforts
    • Building a civilian talent pipeline for needed skills
    • Improving the effectiveness of recruiting, messaging, and the value proposition
    • Identifying metrics to better measure success of its civil service recruitment programs;
    • Removing organizational, policy, or legal impediments to improve the accession pipeline​
  • Recommendations:
    • Formalize a Civilian Recruiting Function
    • Establish a Defense Civilian Service Brand
    • Build Civilian Talent Pipelines
    • Institute Metric Recommendations
    • Remove Legal, Policy & Organizational Impediments

• Recommendations to Improve IT User Experience Within DoD​
  • Findings:
    • DoD Lacks Actionable Performance Metrics for Enterprise IT User Experiences
    • 80% of Survey Respondents Rate User Experience Average or Below
    • Insufficient Infrastructure to Proactively Isolate and to Resolve Performance Issues
    • Broad Endpoint Disparities In and Among User Groups
    • Varied and Siloed IT Policies Cause Inefficiencies Across the DoD
    • Redundant Deployment of Security and Cybersecurity Tools
    • Insufficient IT Funding & Lagging Acquisition Implementation
    • MILDEP Approach the IT User Experience & Effectiveness Differently
  • ​Recommendations:
    • Implement Endpoint Monitoring Across ALL Devices and Prioritize DoD IT Funding to Consistently Monitor and to Improve End-user Experience
    • Leverage Metrics for IT User Experience to Drive Accountability from Service Providers and to Deliver Acceptable Quality of Service
    • Review and Upgrade Device Replacement Strategy and Device Life Cycle Management
    • Simplify Security Layers, Move Faster to Zero Trust/Application-Level Security
    • Establish/Designate Permanent Chief Experience Officers
    • Centralize Acquisition and Vendor Negotiations Where Possible
    • Streamline, Standardize, and Consolidate Help Desks Across the DoD
    • Centralize Reference Architecture, Network, and Security Standards Under DoD CIO and Federate Delivery and User Experience Accountability to the MILDEP CIOs
    • Clearly Define DISA’s Role in the Unclassified User Experience​

• Recommendations for the Next Generation of Business Health Metrics​
  • Summary:
    • Increase Use of Outcome-based Metrics
    • Standardization of Data, Policies, Processes, & Metrics
    • Must continue culture shift towards data-driven decision making
    • Apply the principles of Rigorous Change Management , Governance, Transformational Leadership, Resourcing, Reporting Culture, Standardizing Data & Codifying Requirements, and Recognizing Good is better than Perfect​
  • Recommendations:
    • Governance - The DOD should ensure the governance body for business health metrics includes representatives outside of the group responsible for determining and delivering on such metrics.
    • Transformational Leadership - The Secretary / Deputy Secretary should consider creating a separate and independent Performance Improvement Officer.
    • Resourcing - The DOD should develop a resourcing model that enables it to assess the performance of the Components as well as the Enterprise.
    • Reporting Culture - DOD Senior Leadership must publicly and consistently celebrate those who report the status of projects objectively and fairly.
    • Decision-making - DOD leaders should insist that all meetings use live electronic data from approved data pools, with decisions made based on this data.
    • Standardizing Data & Codifying Requirements - Once it has identified the metrics of the future, the DOD should publish updates to their functional instructions to formalize data requirements in DOD instruction.
    • Change Management Study - The Deputy Secretary should direct the DBB to conduct a study on how to improve the business culture of the Department.
    • Metrics - The Deputy Secretary should empower an independent individual to review each recommended metric with the appropriate subject matter experts for consideration and implementation. Select no more than 30 for the Chief Executive / Chief Operating Officer’s dashboard.
    • Data - The individual appointed by the Deputy Secretary to select metrics from this report should not reject proposed indicators simply due to lack of data. If the DOD does not currently have the data available to provide the recommended metrics, it should take steps to fill the related gaps.
    • Leading & Lagging Indicators - The individual appointed by the Deputy Secretary to select metrics should consider adopting leading and lagging indicators to properly measure the DOD's business functional areas.