Ryan Garay’s Post

Resonated strongly with my former Palantir colleague Tara Murphy Dougherty, who highlighted a critical shift in Army tech acquisition at #AUSA2024. The move toward “characteristics of need” puts warfighter requirements first and opens the door for innovative commercial solutions. As Tara notes, this approach allows industry to suggest solutions rather than being constrained by predefined requirements.    Christian Brose also made a crucial point about shifting focus from contract deliverables to mission outcomes. True success isn't just meeting requirements—it's solving the warfighter's evolving problems at speed.    https://lnkd.in/eGu9nppH 

Good to see the Department of Defense is adopting and integrating new thinking around the governance structures that support our military: https://lnkd.in/gYA-yfRy

Sector Focus - Defence: What Fulcrum IT Strategy Means for Warfighters and the Future of Defence What can we learn from the US Department of Defence's new IT strategy. "The Department of Defense’s new Fulcrum IT Strategy marks a pivotal shift in modernising its technological approach, prioritising user experience and interoperability for enhanced warfighter support." “Success is defined by the user experience — ensuring that decisions are made with the warfighter in mind.” This strategy exemplifies a forward-thinking approach, focusing on agility and the strategic use of emerging technology. Broadly, the Fulcrum strategy is structured around four lines of effort that the document states represent “a strategic shift that embraces technology as a mission enabler.” They include: LOE 1: Provide Joint Warfighting IT capabilities to expand strategic dominance of U.S. Forces and mission partners. LOE 2: Modernise information networks and compute to rapidly meet mission and business needs. LOE 3: Optimise IT governance to gain efficiencies in capability delivery and enable cost savings. LOE 4: Cultivate a premier digital workforce ready to deploy emerging technology to the warfighter. 123.EXPERT’S TAKE: Clearly the Fulcrum strategy could easily provide a framework for any organisation. Sales and/or marketing are warfighters to some extent, in the battle for market dominance. DEFENSESCOOP.COM: https://lnkd.in/gT-YnS9i People success is the key to tech success. 123.EXPERT - IT Experts by IT Experts #sydney #melbourne #perth #adelaide #brisbane #hobart #nsw #victoriaaustralia #westernaustralia #southaustralia #queensland #tasmania #australia #australianbusiness

Next Generation Command and Control was the topic of a virtual industry day hosted Monday by PEO C3T and other US Army partners where attendees received a look into the path forward for the effort. Industry collaboration is the driving force behind many Army programs, and is especially necessary for Next Generation C2, which takes a “fundamentally different” approach by adopting critical features of the modern commercial technology cycle – including open and standard architectures, rapid iteration of requirements, and close partnership between users and developers, said Joe Welch, the acting deputy to the commanding general, Army Futures Command. https://lnkd.in/gryPikbZ #ForgeTheFuture | #TomorrowIsWorthProtecting

Very promising news for defense modernization. “Our focus needs to be not just exquisite systems, but how do we get capability and capacity quickly? How do we get expendable platforms? We see that happening in Ukraine, those are incredibly effective. How do we get to attritable platforms that are also great conduits to use technology that leverage what we can do quickly? We can generate mass, we can increase the risk calculus for China. All those things are incredibly important,” Wittman, the vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said.

As both a military leader and advocate for Total Force integration, I explore how our current approach to digital transformation risks creating unnecessary barriers between components. I invite my fellow military leaders and defense professionals to read and share their perspectives on this crucial issue. How do you think we can better integrate digital transformation across all components?

The U.S. Department of Defense ("DoD") is proposing a new rule to support employee-owned businesses. Under this rule, if two contractors have equal qualifications, preference may be given to the employee-owned contractor when awarding contracts. This initiative is designed to boost opportunities for businesses with #ESOPs in securing DoD contracts. Read more in our latest article written by Michael McGinley. https://bit.ly/462pJyu

Check out this piece in DefenseNews by Ellen Lord and Tyler Sweatt of Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare, highlighting the urgent need for rapid adoption of cutting-edge defense software to empower the warfighter. Forward Defense’s Commission on Software-Defined Warfare considers how the US Defense Department and its allies ought to approach software-defined warfare, which consists of leveraging modern software practices and integrating them into current platforms to optimize or improve defense strategies. #ForwardDefense https://bit.ly/4gABYX4

People use "military grade" to describe what they think is really advanced, expensive equipment (usually hardware). Implicit is the idea that it is designed for ruggedness or highly precise. But the more we learn about DoD data infrastructure, the more I think "military grade" just means "built for a past era." Lots of opportunity here to fix this - get in touch if you'd like to learn what I've been uncovering re: data infrastructure in the DoD, especially if you're technical and interested in working in defense.