Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a two-time Wash100 Award winner, said the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) is set to release by the end of May new guidance to help accelerate the acquisition process for four key areas that are part of the Department of Defense’s joint warfighting concept, Defense News reported Thursday.
“Speed is critical. And I’m trying to put the speed back in the JROC,” Hyten said at the annual McAleese & Associates conference. “We’re working with the department to figure out how to put speed, and focus experimentation, so we can drive to the future. We’re working to figure out how to transition experiments quickly into operations. And the reason we’re doing this is because the threat demands it.”
Those focus areas are joint command and control, fires, information advantage and contested logistics. Hyten noted that the upcoming JROC guidance will focus on providing lower-level officials the flexibility to address acquisition-related concerns.
“We have to give the authority and responsibility to the people that do work. We do that on the operation side of our business, but we don’t do that on the acquisition side of their business, and we have to do that again. They have to be given the responsibility, the authority and the funding flexibility to make decisions, put money where it needs to be, and go fast because otherwise we will not be able to keep up with our adversaries,” Hyten said.
