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Pentagon procurement officials working on programs valued at $1 billion or higher are now required to take part in a "Service Acquisition Workshop or an equivalent program, as provided by the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) or other appropriate provider," according to a new Defense Department memo.

The Dec. 6 memo, issued by Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy Director Richard Ginman, states that unless it is waived, "this training is required before a service acquisition strategy will be approved by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Ginman adds that officials should also think about applying the requirement to efforts valued at more than $100 million. Further:

The SAW, as offered by DAU, is an interactive, centrally-funded course that applies performance-based techniques to services acquisitions. During a SAW, the DAU staff travels to the site of the multi-functional team to facilitate a four day workshop tailored to a given requirements set. Participants learn how to use the Acquisition Requirements Roadmap Tool (ARRT) to define and refine requirements in order to create an initial draft of the Performance Work Statement (PWS) and the Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP). This process has proven to significantly improve the quality of requirement documents while: reducing costs, increasing the likelihood of effective competition, and shortening acquisition lead times.

View the full memo.