Lashley’s Laws: You Can Have Anything You Want

Seth D. Shepherd

Dr. Tony Lashley, a highly respected test designer and engineer at Eglin Air Force Base’s Guided Weapons Evaluation Facility in Florida, developed some simple points to facilitate planning successful test programs.

Dr. Lashley wanted to help weapon system program managers (PMs) plan successful and effective tests. PMs wanted a test program that was inexpensive and of short duration, but they also wanted to know everything possible about system performance in all conditions and against all threats. In addition, PMs wanted test results that clearly indicated any deficiencies in their system and the required improvements to fix them.

Dr. Lashley would put up a chart with the following points (emphasis his):

Lashley’s Laws

• You can have anything you want.
• You cannot have everything you want.
• You decide what you want by what you are willing to give up to get it.
• If you are unwilling to give up anything, what you will get is nothing that anyone would want.

Lashley’s Laws forced PMs to identify what was most important—something that will be vital for the Department of Defense (DoD) as it employs the broad authorities Congress bestowed in Section 804 of the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In order to understand why Lashley’s Laws are so necessary, a bit of background is in order. In May 2009, Congress passed the Weapon System Acquisition Reform Act of 2009 (WSARA). WSARA created new oversight and policy positions within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (OUSD[AT&L])—now the OUSD for Acquisition and Sustainment.

These Senate-confirmed positions increased oversight in areas of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, Systems Engineering, Developmental Test and Evaluation, and Performance Assessment and Root Cause Analysis. WSARA also required competitive prototyping (at system or subsystem level) prior to the Milestone B decision. WSARA effectively required two acquisition phases (Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction and Engineering and Manufacturing Development) to accomplish what formerly was conducted in a single phase.

Beyond WSARA, former USD(AT&L) Dr. Ashton Carter and his successor Frank Kendall promulgated the Better Buying Power (BBP) initiatives. Key BBP points included establishment of an affordability target to be treated like a Key Performance Parameter and developing a competitive acquisition strategy at each program milestone.

In parallel, the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), Dr. Michael Gilmore, championed Reliability Growth and efforts to avoid “discovery” in OT&E by requiring programs to conduct sufficient, relevant testing before proceeding to Initial Operational Test and Evaluation.

Message: Get it right, make it affordable, figure it out first.

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 NDAA Section 809 required the Secretary of Defense to establish an advisory panel on streamlining acquisition regulations. The 809 Panel published an interim report in May 2017. The executive summary included the following: “The acquisition system, when viewed as a whole, creates obstacles to getting the needed equipment and services because it makes DoD an unattractive customer to large and small firms with innovative, state-of-the-art solutions. The system creates additional impediments because suffocating bureaucratic requirements make the pace at which it proceeds simply unacceptable in today’s rapidly changing technological environment.”

The current Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Dr. Michael Griffin, testified to the Senate in January 2018: “On my watch, the Department will conduct fewer reviews, and the reviews that do occur will be conducted more rapidly and in parallel instead of series.” (USD[A&S]) Ellen Lord reinforced the point in her Senate testimony: “The current pace at which we develop advanced capability is being eclipsed by those nations that pose the greatest threat to our security, seriously eroding our measure of overmatch.”

Seeking to advise the DoD on ways to get capability to the field faster, a 2017 Government Accountability Office report identified private sector enablers including: “Prototype and experiment to learn quickly” elaborating that, “Uncertain and complex projects require a process involving rapid prototyping, early experimentation, parallel problem solving, and iteration.” The report encouraged DoD PMs to “accept risk and cut off projects quickly to ‘fail fast’ if they do not produce technical results” noting that “even if a project fails, knowledge is still gained.”

Message: Get it fast, get it fielded, and figure it out as you go.

In Section 804 of the FY 2016 NDAA, Congress directed creation of a “Middle Tier of Acquisition.” This authority addresses two areas: “Rapid Prototyping” of innovative technologies to develop fieldable prototypes and “Rapid Fielding” of proven technologies to field production quantities with minimal development. On April 16, 2018, Lord issued interim guidance for implementing the middle tier acquisition authority. The military Services responded with further direction to identify and act on opportunities for rapid prototyping and rapid fielding. The law and implementing guidance essentially state that Middle Tier Acquisition programs are not subject to the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) Manual or DoD Directive 5000.01 (Defense Acquisition System).

Law 1: We can have anything we want.

The applicability of Lashley’s Laws to Middle Tier Acquisition opportunities is clear. We can bend the life-cycle cost curve by driving reliability into our systems through repeated redesign and testing. We can drive costs down through competition at every level and should-cost initiatives. We can do rigorous and operationally relevant developmental testing to avoid “discovery” in IOT&E. We can develop prototypes quickly and field them. We can “fail fast” and increase the pace of discovery and innovation. We can buy commercial derivative products to provide capability immediately.

Law 2: We cannot have everything we want.

Middle Tier Acquisition offers a great deal of flexibility for PMs and acquisition authorities to decide what is most important and what we are willing to give up to get it. In a June 2018 interview with Ben FitzGerald, then the Director of Strategy and Design in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD[AS]), Dr. Roper (Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition), emphasized: “I love 804, and I do not like traditional acquisition plans that I’m not going to see complete within the next decade.” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition Logistics and Technology (ASA[ALT]), Dr. Bruce Jette, said in the same interview that the Army wants “product, not process” and indicated that he is “looking very hard” at using Section 804 authority to address aspects of several programs including Future Vertical Lift, directed energy, air defense and small missiles.

Kendall went on to say that it is possible to build some prototypes quickly if requirements are reduced and designs are simplified, but “whether an operator will want that product is another question.”

In an interview with Inside Defense published Aug. 30, 2018, former USD(AT&L) Kendall said that new rapid prototyping authorities won’t eliminate the complexities of technology development. “What determines how long a development program takes is the product. Complexity and technical difficulty drive schedule. That can’t be wished away.” Kendall went on to say that it is possible to build some prototypes quickly if requirements are reduced and designs are simplified, but “whether an operator will want that product is another question.”

In the April 16, 2018 Middle Tier Acquisition Interim Authority and Guidance memo, USD(A&S) authorized the Services to immediately pursue efforts under Section 804 authority. What her authorization did not define numerous terms in the law that are open to interpretation, including “approved requirement,” “demonstrated in an operational environment,” “residual operational capability,” “test community” and others. Army ASA(ALT) Jette published Middle Tier Acquisition Policy on Sept. 25, 2018. For the Army, this memo defined how a PM should go about seeking authorization to use Section 804 authority but left it to the PM and Program Executive Office to complete the details of how they proposed to executive that authority. Specifically, the PM must develop the program strategy; requirements documentation and process; decision points and metrics; timing, scope and level of decision reviews; cost, schedule and performance objectives; as well as define risk and risk mitigation approaches. Lack of specific direction gives great power to do the right things—but with great power comes great responsibility.

Law 3: We decide what we want by what we are willing to give up to get it.

The key to using this powerful authority granted via Section 804 is wisely choosing what will be sacrificed to pursue rapid prototyping or rapid fielding. The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) Vehicle Program has often been heralded as a model for rapid defense acquisition. There is no question that the MRAP effort rapidly fielded thousands of vehicles attributed with saving many lives and greatly reducing countless injuries. In May 2013, then Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno testified in Congress that the Service would seek to keep only 4,000 of the more than 14,000 MRAPs procured. He said, “We’re keeping some for the future; we’re using some in our current training and we’ll divest of the others because we simply cannot afford to maintain them.”

Law 4: If we are unwilling to give up anything, what we will get is nothing that anyone would want.

PMs must prioritize along the axes of cost, schedule, performance and risk. To do so, it is vital to understand the project’s purpose. Why are we prosecuting this effort in the first place? Is it to meet a specific requirement? Advance a technology? Prototype a piece of equipment to support a concept of operations? To lower the unit or life-cycle cost? In his Sept. 25, 2018, memo, Jette stated: “First and foremost, the intent of an Middle Tier Acquisition is to prototype and/or field required capability on an accelerated schedule at a reduced cost.” But advancing technology wasn’t mentioned in this statement. The guidance from USD(A&S) in the April 16, 2018, Middle Tier Acquisition memo concerning Rapid Prototyping requires “consideration of innovative technologies and new capabilities to meet needs communicated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combatant Commanders.”

We must resolve these competing requirements for a particular project and vigorously coordinate priorities with stakeholders to deliver needed capability to the warfighter at the speed of relevance. Our Middle Tier Acquisition decisions, required events, metrics and exit criteria must clearly convey what we want as well as what we are willing to give up. We must deliberately manage the expectations of stakeholders as to deliverables, timing and cost. We must identify what we are not going to do. Otherwise, what we will get is nothing that anyone would want. 

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SHEPHERD is a professor of Systems Engineering as well as Test and Evaluation at the Defense Acquisition University in Huntsville, Alabama.

The author can be contacted at [email protected].

U.S. Air Force photo

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.