The advent of integrated product teams (IPTs), which have been formulated and strengthened by recent acquisition reform initiatives, offers fresh opportunity for managers of modest‐sized programs (below the ACAT level) and their headquarters' sponsors to achieve alignment with today's budgetary realities. Ideally, IPTs bring together all the necessary people knowledgeably involved in various phases of product life cycle management, so that a new design or concept will receive the benefit of their accountability, experience and insight. While projections of a combat system's use are in decades, technology currently changes every 6–18 months. Can IPTs and planned technology insertion smooth this phase gap? The revolution or upheaval that occurs with technology change must also be within the capacity of the IPT to assimilate and manage successfully. This paper discusses the practical application and utility of IPTs to the delivery of emerging technology that provides practical solutions to urgent Fleet problems. The discussion assesses integration of the IPT process with a program of moderate size in the midst of a sponsor‐directed transformation to solve Fleet problems in a more responsive and timely manner. The questions — can the existing universe of IPTs be used to help accomplish the goals of accelerated‐development processes?, do such processes need an IPT of their own to fine tune project deliverables and program direction?, or, does the IPT approach lack significance in such applications? — are addressed to clarify the issue of IPT use in developmental programs of modest size targeting specific Fleet needs.
In an era of fiscal austerity, downsizing and unforgiving pressure upon human and economic capital, it is an Augean task to identify resources for fresh and creative work. The realities of the day and the practical demands of more immediate fleet needs can often dictate higher priorities. Yet, the Navy must avoid eating its seed corn. Exercising both technical insight and management foresight, the fleet, the R & D community, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OpNav) and the product engineering expertise of the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) are joined and underway with integrated efforts to marry new, fully demonstrated technologies and operational urgencies. Defense funding today cannot sponsor all work that can be mission‐justified over the long term because budgets are insufficient to support product maturation within the classical development cycle. However, by rigorous technical filtering and astute engineering of both marketplace capabilities and currently available components, it is possible in a few select cases to compress and, in effect, integrate advanced development (6.3), engineering development (6.4), weapon procurement (WPN), ship construction (SCN), operation and maintenance (O & M, N) budgetary categories when fleet criticalities and technology opportunities can happily meet. In short, 6.3 funds can be applied directly to “ripe gateways” so modern technology is inserted into existing troubled or aging systems, sidestepping the lengthy, traditional development cycle and accelerating practical payoffs to recurrent fleet problems. To produce such constructive results has required a remarkable convergence of sponsor prescience and engineering workforce excellence. The paper describes, extensively, the philosophy of approach, transition strategy, polling of fleet needs, technology assessment, and management team requirements. The process for culling and selecting specific candidate tasks for SHARP sponsorship (matching operational need with technological opportunity) is described broadly in the main body of the paper with the details provided in an Appendix. Finally, three specific examples from the methods used to pick “best” choices from multiple surface, air and underseas contenders are presented as illustrations of programs able to obtain recent SHARP sponsorship.
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