The Department of Defense’s Office of the Undersecretary for Acquisition and Sustainment has issued a directive establishing policy for using capability portfolio management across DOD and outlining procedures for managing portfolios.
The DOD directive on CPM took effect on Monday and was approved by Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of DOD and a three-time Wash100 awardee.
According to the document, CPM seeks to advance strategic alignment across requirements, planning, technology, acquisition, programming, sustainment, budgeting and execution and enable senior leaders to make informed joint decisions and align funding across program elements.
With CPM, DOD components will use schedule, cost and performance metrics for systems to determine options to address capability gaps and synchronize development and deployment priorities.
The policy also outlines responsibilities for principal staff assistants, under secretary of defense for A&S, USD for research and engineering, chief financial officer, chief information officer and director of operational test and evaluation, among other senior officials.
PSAs, for instance, should establish portfolio governance for each capability portfolio at the enterprise level.
The USD for acquisition and sustainment should chair integrated acquisition portfolio reviews to identify risks and interdependencies throughout the acquisition lifecycle and develop enterprise acquisition portfolio roadmaps in coordination with other defense agencies and military services, among others, per the new mandate.