Risk mitigation

The Defense Department's acquisition office recently issued a revised document aimed at mitigating risk when developing weapons programs.

"In Better Buying Power 3.0, I highlighted the need to improve the department's ability to understand, anticipate, and mitigate technical risks before they become issues, and to recognize and pursue opportunities that may significantly benefit program outcomes," then-outgoing Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall wrote in a Jan. 9 foreword to DOD's new "Risk, Issue and Opportunity Management Guide."

The new document, updated and renamed by DOD's systems engineering office, "provides practical advice to programs as they work to identify, analyze and manage risks, issues and opportunities," Kendall wrote in his introduction. "Program managers and engineers need to understand the technical risks they face and structure programs and acquisition strategies in a manner that best mitigates those risks to deliver a product to our warfighters. While processes help, the quality and effectiveness of risk mitigation planning, judgment, and the decisions made by program managers matter the most for achieving objectives."

Read the full document.