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The Army has been transforming itself into what it calls the Future Force, which relies on a combination of rapid operations, dispersed forces, and superior information to enable a medium-weight force to fight with the punch of heavy conventional forces. These new concepts pose considerable challenges for the organizations that support the combat forces on the battlefield, and the challenge is particularly great for medical forces, which must find, stabilize, and evacuate casualties that are spread across a dispersed battlefield. To determine what the new concepts mean for providing medical support to the fighting units, the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) conducted five Transformation Workshops (ATWs) from 2002 to 2004 to identify the challenges the new concepts posed to providing battlefield medical support and to explore what those challenges might imply for medical force structure.

"Regulations and guidance have permitted tailoring of the acquisition process as one of many ways in which the acquisition workforce can more efficiently achieve program objectives. Tailoring is frequently mentioned in regulations and guidance. Policy allows, and even encourages, program managers to customize regulation-based reviews, processes, and information requirements to accommodate the unique characteristics of a program while still meeting the regulations' intent for appropriate decision criteria and oversight processes. The extent to which programs take advantage of opportunities to tailor processes and documentation is not clear, but anecdotal evidence suggests that tailoring is more difficult in practice than guidance suggests. Widespread use of tailoring appears to be constrained by a variety of factors inherent in defense acquisition. The exploratory research reported here reviewed the literature and conducted interviews within the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the RAND Corporation to determine whether this policy area would benefit from additional in-depth research."--Back cover.

Congressional concern with cost overruns, or breaches of Nunn-McCurdy thresholds, in several major defense acquisition programs led the authors, in a partnership with the Performance Assessments and Root Cause Analysis Office in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, to develop a methodology to investigate root causes of six programs, including Excalibur and the Navy’s ERP.

To help the U.S. Army and U.S. Department of Defense retain institutional knowledge and fully prepare future leaders, RAND researchers recount the Army's efforts in the Iraq War, especially in Baghdad, and offer lessons learned and recommendations.

This study identifies the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics needed in individuals who will be responsible for implementing strategic diversity plans in the Department of Defense (DoD). The authors interviewed more than 60 diversity leaders in industry, the public sector (including DoD), and academia and reviewed relevant scientific literature, education programs, and advertised job requirements.

Every uniformed service member, whether Active Component (AC) or Reserve Component (RC), must complete ancillary or general military training (GMT) requirements prescribed by his or her service. Individual services direct some topics, and some are stipulated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). DoD has identified a need to reduce cyclic mandatory training requirements (especially for the RCs), thus reducing the training burden on the services and making the most of available training time. The RAND National Defense Research Institute was asked to examine the services' mandatory military training requirements and examine options to standardize requirements and reduce the training burden. This report responds to that request by providing a common definition of GMT and examining both the guidance that directs GMT completion and the services' approaches to conducting GMT. The authors identified GMT requirements directed by law and policy and interviewed service AC and RC subject-matter experts.

Compares aspects of the Joint Tactical Radio System network domain program with similar elements for the commercial long-term evolution waveform and analyzes acquisition programs that have repeatedly exceeded certain cost thresholds.

Issues with Access to Acquisition Data and Information in the Department of Defense finds that the process for gaining access to data is inefficient and may not provide access to the best data to support analysis, and that OSD analytic groups and support contractors face particular challenges in gaining access to data. Given the inherent complexity in securing data and sharing data, any solutions to problems associated with data sharing must be well thought out to avoid the multitude of unintended consequences that could arise.

Outlines directions the Army could take to improve its weapon training strategies and how they are developed to better support operational requirements and unit readiness processes, capitalize on training technologies, and increase efficiency.