WILLIAMSBURG, VA. - Rapid Defense Department acquisition programs often fail to deliver scalable systems, said Rob Carey, the DoD deputy chief information officer, during a keynote session of the ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference.

Program managers of rapid delivery projects generally "haven't thought through their hurry up, get-it-out-there-quickly" process for how the system will scale or even if it will be usable downrange, he said.

Sometimes troops in the field receive the output of a rapid program and "they get it out of the box and they don't know what it is," he added.

The structured DoD procurement process is "bureaucratic," Carey acknowledged, also saying that it could stand to be improved and become quicker.

But, "the acquisition process has delivered a great deal of benefit and systems and information technology," he said.

Carey also said that the Defense Department is planning to make greater use of Information Technology Infrastructure Library practices.

The ITIL framework is "a standard way to present the [IT] services and offerings and to describe our world in a consistent language," Carey said. Among the biggest adopters of ITIL is the Navy, where Carey previously served as departmental CIO.

"You will see more and more of the ITIL framework coming from us," he added.

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