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The 5000 Policies: The Digital Transformation – Part 6

Bottom Line Up Front: The Federal policies governing Department of Defense acquisition (known as the “5000 Policies”) are about 80% rewritten. They will be complete by October of this year. AND they will be continuously refined.

Where We Left Off

In yesterday’s blog entry discussing DoD acquisitions boss Ellen Lord’s article, she had asked the titans of Silicon Valley to write a report recommending how to fix its broken acquisition system. This, by the way, will upend the entire defense industry.

Having received this report, Ellen Lord tells us what she did next:

After delivering an interim software acquisition policy just 14 days after the signing of the NDAA, we published the full policy, DoD Instruction 5000.87, in November 2020 — a year earlier than mandated. The software pathway represents a substantial departure from the Department’s usual way of doing business, removing procedural bottlenecks and streamlining regulatory bureaucracy.

What Is DoD Instruction 5000.87?

It’s the official, legally binding Federal policy ruling how the Pentagon buys software. When the military decides to buy software, it must buy it in the way outlined in the 5000.87 document. Failure to follow the official policy gets you jail time.

Are there more “5000” Instructions?

Yes there are. They can all be found in their home page at Defense Acquisition University.

The first few are:

Overarching Top-Level Policies:

Acquisition Pathway Policies:

There are thirty more.

I won’t list them all here, but you get the idea. There has been a comprehensive revision of the official Department of Defense acquisition rules. The policies have already been rewritten and the industry has already changed.

One More Time For Emphasis

Government Contracting As YOU Have known it is dead

The policies that govern the Defense industry have already been rewritten. It’s not a thing that is going to happen. It’s not a thing that might happen. It’s a thing that already happened.

If you are in the Defense contracting industry and your company has not prepared for these changes, you are already behind.

And if you are not a Government contractor, know this: the purpose of those rules is to make life easier for you and to let you in.

Tomorrow: The Why

Why upend decades’ worth of laws and bureaucracy? What’s the point? Find out tomorrow.