The Defense Innovation Board has recommended the implementation of a software acquisition category system as well as the creation of a talent recruitment role for Department of Defense digital operations, FedScoop reported Friday.
DIB announced during its pubic meeting in Austin, Texas, that it wants the DoD to appoint a “chief digital engineering recruitment and management officer” as outlined in the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.
The role entails recruiting personnel with sufficient technical background and consolidating the disparate human resources requirements across agencies.
“I just don’t think that we are going to get enough software people without having them have a more traditional pipeline,” said Eric Schmidt, a DIB member and former Google CEO.
The board also seeks a software procurement approach based on “colors of money” to enable the purchase of products and services without having to shift between purchasing categories.
“When you split things into multiple pots, that is not how software works,” noted Richard Murray, a professor at the California Institute of Technology.
