April 29, 2014
The Best Defense Ready, Aim, 'F.I.R.E.': A review
The Department of Defense's (DOD's) recent attempts to build next-generation weapons systems have not gone well. There is an alphanumeric soup of projects: FCS, EFV, F-22, F-35, LCS, ADS that have been cancelled, run over schedule and budget or cannot be deployed. But this is the same DOD that has built and equipped the most technically advanced military in human history, responsible for stealth technology, precision munitions, global positioning systems, and the Internet.
How can the same government department be responsible for so much success and so much failure?
Lt. Col. Dan Ward, an active-duty engineering officer in the U.S. Air Force, has been thinking about these sorts of questions for more than a decade. In F.I.R.E. he blends analysis from his personal experience, notable technology projects, and popular culture to describe how "Fast, Inexpensive, Restrained and Elegant" methods can foster innovation and yield better technology outcomes. Ward argues for projects that are smaller with tight budgets, short schedules, and few requirements that yield better outcomes -- less hubris and more success.
Ward has written frequently and influentially on technology program management for several years. He is perhaps most well known for his acquisition analysis of the Death Star program -- as he puts it, an ultimately futile project so challenging it required the personal presence of a Sith Lord to get it back on track. The good-natured wit and orthogonal approach to analysis evident in Ward's short-form writing abounds in his first book.
More from CNAS
-
China’s Quantum Future
Commentary
China should be a “global leader in innovation” by 2035, President Xi Jinping declared during the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress last October. His remarks re...
By Elsa B. Kania
-
Technology and Innovation in an Era of U.S.-China Strategic Competition
Podcast
China has taken significant steps to implement national strategies and encourage investment aimed at surpassing the U.S. in high-tech fields like artificial intelligence. In t...
By Elsa B. Kania
-
Defence innovation is critical for the future of the Australia–US alliance
Commentary
The outcome of the recent AUSMIN meeting—the annual gathering of the secretaries of state and defence from the United States and the foreign and defence ministers from Austral...
By Daniel Kliman & Brendan Thomas-Noone
-
How the Five Eyes Can Harness Commercial Innovation
Commentary
Earlier this year, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – which along with the United States are members of the “Five Eyes” alliance – came together to collec...
By Daniel Kliman & Brendan Thomas-Noone
