Acquisition System Development: A Complex System Governance Perspective

The acquisition field is experiencing increasing levels of system complexity, environmental turbulence, and uncertainty. This is representative of the reality facing the acquisition field and practitioners. This paper examines the potential contributions that Complex System Governance (CSG) can make to the challenges facing the acquisition field. CSG is an emerging field focused on the design, execution, and evolution of complex systems. CSG is drawn from the foundations of Systems Theory (principles that define behavior of systems), Management Cybernetics (science of effective system structural organization), and System Governance (provision of system direction, oversight, and accountability). CSG is targeted to systems such as acquisition that are struggling to sustain performance in the midst of an increasingly complex environment, unrelenting expectations, and difficult circumstances. Following a brief introduction, we pursue three primary objectives, including: (1) examination of the foundations and fundamental concepts of CSG, (2) exploration of the contributions that CSG can offer for enhancing the acquisition field, and (3) suggestion of a path forward for further exploration of CSG to improve acquisition capabilities and performance. The paper concludes with a set of specific acquisition challenges for incorporation of CSG to advance the acquisition field.