Understanding the Valleys of Death

Abstract

The DoD is falling behind in delivering capability at the speed of relevance. One way to accelerate capability delivery is to leverage industry and early research technologies and transition them to a Program of Record, cutting down on the time to deliver the capability. This also allows for small businesses, academics, researchers and many others to support the warfighter in tangible, meaningful ways who would be otherwise apprehensive with horror stories of getting involved in DoD acquisition. To date, the focus on what has become known as the "valley of death", the gap between promising technology and transitioning it to a Program of Record, has been on government's unwillingness to accept new technology or "bureaucracy". What are rarely discussed are the influences of the PPBE process, the ill-defined requirements and interfaces for the new technology, or other factors that need to be better understood and highlighted so industry, academics, and researchers can better partner with willing entities to solve warfighting problems. This paper will discuss those obstacles and challenges and make recommendations to avoid the pitfalls.