Cogs of War• Jun 3, 2025• 23:09Interview

Moving Fast and Breaking Things

From Cogs of War

Justin Finelli•Chief Technology Officer, Department of the Navy

Executive Summary

The Department of the Navy is shifting from traditional input-based metrics (cost, schedule, performance) to outcome-driven metrics like "user time saved" to more effectively evaluate and prioritize new technologies.
To overcome funding shortfalls and the "valley of death," the Navy is accelerating "Operation Cattle Drive," a structured divestment initiative to terminate underperforming legacy programs and reallocate resources to innovative solutions.
The Navy is aggressively adopting commercial technologies, such as satellite communications, which have yielded 100x improvements in shipboard bandwidth, demonstrating the power of a "commercial-first" approach.
A key strategy for innovation involves identifying and empowering internal "mavericks" with tools like an "innovation adoption kit" and authorities like OTAs to break through bureaucratic inertia and accelerate capability delivery.

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Concerns Raised

Slow procurement cycles stifling innovation
Legacy programs consuming all available funding, creating a 'valley of death'
Poorly defined metrics of success (e.g., inputs vs. outcomes)
Cultural resistance to risk and change within the bureaucracy

Opportunities Identified

Leveraging commercial technology for exponential performance gains (e.g., 100x bandwidth)
Freeing up significant funding for new programs through structured divestment (Operation Cattle Drive)
Improving warfighter effectiveness and quality of life with better enterprise services
Accelerating acquisition using existing authorities like Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs)

Key Themes

Acquisition Reform and Speed

The Navy is moving beyond slow, traditional procurement processes that can outlast a product's lifecycle. The focus is on using existing but underutilized authorities like Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs) and adopting a "commercial-first" mindset to accelerate the delivery of capabilities to warfighters.

This shift is critical for the DoD to keep pace with the rapid cycle time of commercial technology and maintain a strategic advantage over adversaries.

Strategic Divestment as an Enabler

The "Operation Cattle Drive" initiative is presented as a crucial strategy for funding innovation. Without actively terminating legacy systems, there is no funding runway for new programs, trapping promising technologies in the "valley of death."

This addresses a systemic problem in defense budgeting, forcing a disciplined portfolio management approach where new capabilities must prove their value by displacing older, less effective ones.

The Power of Outcome-Driven Metrics

The speaker advocates for a fundamental change in how success is measured, moving from input/output metrics (e.g., munitions used) to outcome-focused KPIs (e.g., "user time saved"). This reframes the value proposition of new technology in terms of its direct impact on the warfighter's mission and quality of life.

Adopting outcome-driven metrics aligns procurement decisions with operational impact, providing a clearer, more defensible rationale for investing in or divesting from specific programs.

Empowering Internal Innovators

The strategy for change relies heavily on identifying and supporting motivated "mavericks" within the organization. The Navy provides these individuals with tools, top cover, and streamlined pathways to experiment and implement new solutions, creating pockets of high-speed innovation.

This approach acknowledges the reality of large bureaucracies and provides a practical model for driving change from within by leveraging the most motivated personnel as change agents.

Human-Centric Technology Implementation

The discussion emphasizes that technology's value is realized through its impact on people. Examples like providing sailors with better bandwidth to video chat with families or using SD-WAN to enable at-sea training highlight a focus on improving quality of life, which in turn enhances mission readiness.

This human-centric view helps build buy-in for new systems and ensures that technology adoption is not just about technical specifications but about making sailors and marines more effective and resilient.

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Topics

Department of the Navy Acquisition Reform Procurement Operation Cattle Drive Divestment Outcome-Driven Metrics KPIs Commercial Technology COTS Other Transaction Authority (OTA)Innovation Bureaucracy Bandwidth Satellite Communications Enterprise IT

Processed Apr 20, 2026 yt-dlp + mlx-whisper + Gemini