Accelerating and Scaling Defense Acquisition with Sharothi Pikar

Bonnie Evangelista [00:00:03]:
All right. I am here with Ms. Sharothi Picar. My name is Bonnie Evangelista. I'm with the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. Sharothi, thank you for joining me today.

Sharothi Pikar [00:00:12]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:00:14]:
Of course. Give us a quick 62nd rundown. Who you are, what's your role, and what's your background?

Sharothi Pikar [00:00:21]:
Okay, so my name is Sharoti Picar. I am the Be deputy CDA for acquisition at CDAO, the same office, aka.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:00:29]:
My boss, which is why this is.

Sharothi Pikar [00:00:30]:
A little funny and a little bit of my background. I call myself a former engineer. So I started out in the army about 22 years ago as an army civilian, as a computer engineer, and my specialty was in network engineering. So I ended up spending the first few years building communication systems. And I was just very fortunate because I happened to start right when army was entering the digital transformation period for itself. And it also happened to be right before we went into the war with Iraq and Afghanistan. So it was very much a forcing function in terms of taking your capabilities, making it operational at the same time as we're bringing in new technologies and new capabilities, making sure that you are able to continue to build on those legacy systems, make them interoperable. So I just spent, I would say, the first decade of my career just very quickly going through the entire acquisition lifecycle, fielding those prototype, rebuilding them, redesigning them, resetting them as an engineer.

Sharothi Pikar [00:01:28]:
Right, as an engineer to program management.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:01:29]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:01:29]:
So I started out as an engineer, quickly went into program management, raised my hand saying, I think I'll try that out and see how that goes.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:01:36]:
Okay.

Sharothi Pikar [00:01:37]:
And the rest kind of became history. But then I went south as chief engineer for my organization for about a year, realized that was not my thing. Went back to running the tactical radio organization and then coming to Asalt, the Army's acquisition executive office, for a couple of years. And that was a great experience. So I was at Fort Mahmoud, but I came, moved to basically DC to work at Asalt. And then I said, you know what, I should try something different. General Diarrno, who is the chief of Staff of the army, created this new think tank to directly work for him. And I ended up applying, and again, being very fortunate, got selected to be one of the five civilian fellows from the army.

Sharothi Pikar [00:02:16]:
And I ended up doing that for three years. So, again, one of the most rewarding experience from a career perspective, from learning perspective, and being able to put myself out there doing something very different than acquisition or engineering or program management. And as a matter of fact, at the time, I looked at data analytics and people analytics. So more than a decade ago now, which at the time, we weren't even talking about predictive analytics. And then I ended up going into cyber so I spent a few years at OSD. At the time it was at L, then became R E, overseeing their cyber portfolio. And then I went to Cyber Command as their inaugural acquisition executive, and here.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:02:55]:
So that's pretty cool. The first acquisition executive for Cyber Command. Now for CDAO. This might seem silly for us, but what is an acquisition executive? What do you believe your responsibility? Is? The person in that role?

Sharothi Pikar [00:03:13]:
No, not a silly question at all, especially considering the world we live in.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:03:17]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:03:17]:
That actually comes up a lot because people have different understanding of what acquisition means. Right.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:03:23]:
I would also offer most people are so far removed from the acquisition executive, they may not even understand or realize right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:03:31]:
Or what the role is, or what the authorities are.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:03:33]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:03:34]:
So I used to joke, especially when I first went to Cyber Command, I was like, how awesome is it? Because not everybody has a job where literally it's written in law what your job is. So if you look at the law when Cyber Command was given acquisition authority, it spells out exactly what Cyber Command's acquisition authority is for. There's an entire formal implementation plan for what the acquisition executive is responsible for, both in the law and that plan. So ultimately, the way I would describe it, right, and to make it simpler for everybody, is that you are overseeing and you're responsible for managing all of the capability development efforts, including all the way up into any formal programs that you're managing, et cetera.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:04:13]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:04:14]:
So it could be a rapid prototype that you're building on the fly, on the spot that's being done under your authority versus a major Acad one program that may have multiple, multiple users in across the department. And you are ultimately responsible for those capabilities being delivered and being maintained and sustained, and that the operational customer is getting what they need. And then part of that includes the procurement authority, which is making sure that the contracts that are being awarded again to meet what the customer needs is.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:04:47]:
There a difference between the service acquisition executive and the component acquisition executive?

Sharothi Pikar [00:04:55]:
So not really.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:04:57]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:04:57]:
It's really more about the scope. So service acquisition authorities, obviously, billions of dollars of budget we're talking about. And I actually also had the same conversation, like, what is the difference between SAE and CAE?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:05:09]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:05:09]:
So the commit and command, that's where the C kind of comes for. And then other government agencies have components, so they will be called like, component acquisition executive. Cyber Command, when it was first given acquisition authority, it had limited acquisition authority. It was basically temporary. We basically had $75 million procurement ceiling. It was actually very restrictive in terms of because it was the second combatant command to be given acquisition authority after SOCOM, which had authorities for several decades at that point. And I think there was a lot of concerns about giving a subunified command at the time, acquisition authority basically like a service like title ten authority and what could potentially go wrong when you do that. So there was explicit instructions about, hey, you cannot use your acquisition authority to build an enduring infrastructure or architecture or a capability that you're going to maintain more than five years.

Sharothi Pikar [00:06:08]:
But this was also a time when Cyber Command was not a fully unified command yet. And so there was a lot of concerns about, if I want to give you a service like authority, what could you do with it and what shouldn't you do with it?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:06:20]:
So you had different left and right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:06:21]:
Guardrails, many right and Cyber Command, obviously the leadership is dual hated as the director of NSA. So there were even restrictions in terms of the fact that you can't do any intel activities with your acquisition authority that would require notifying like the hipsi and CC. There were specific restrictions about the fact that Cyber Command could not execute the major critical cyber programs like Up, JCC, two Pct, et cetera, et cetera. So there was a lot of additional restrictions that were placed on it. But in my first year there as acquisition executive, because when I showed up there, cyber Command had the authority for about three years already. But I was the first permanent acquisition executive walking in through the door, right? So in a way, that's good and bad acting before that, there were several people acting with different backgrounds. So when I walked in, I was like the first level three program manager coming in and now basically have to figure out how do we execute acquisition authority? But again, we were very fortunate and worked with the staffers and the building stakeholders to help them understand, look, when this authority was given, we were in a very different world, right? We didn't even talk about offensive cyber in public. It was a secret term.

Sharothi Pikar [00:07:31]:
And now we are doing operations, we're publicly discussing it, and we're not going anywhere. This is a command that's here to stay. That acquisition authority needs to be made permanent. And, oh, by the way, in my first six months, halfway through the fiscal year, what I showed up there. But as the fiscal year is ending, there was panic in the workforce. The procurement team right, that we're about to reach our ceiling, and we may break the law because we may be awarding contracts that's going to go over $75 million.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:07:59]:
Not very conducive to mission, it's not.

Sharothi Pikar [00:08:00]:
Very conducive to mission at all. And the narrative was completely, I would say, upside down. The definition of success was, have you awarded $75 million worth of contract? And I had to explain to folks that, hey, the metric of success is not have I awarded to my ceiling. My ceiling should be a unlimited because depending on the operational requirements, I may be awarding $150,000,000 worth of award one year to get capability to get capabilities. The next year I may only award $70 million because that's what I needed to do that year for my customers. So, lots of great conversation, lots of great support. And ultimately Congress gave us full Acquisition Authority recognizing that, hey, you are not going to be mature enough to start doing a cat one anytime soon, but we recognize that you should have the full authority.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:08:52]:
So it's safe to say this isn't your first rodeo.

Sharothi Pikar [00:08:54]:
No, it is not.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:08:55]:
And actually it's a lot of parallels with CDAO. Our Acquisition Authority has a lot of similar limitations or guardrails. And I guess do you see it as a similar path being the CAE for us? Or do you see it as similar but different enough that you need a different strategy?

Sharothi Pikar [00:09:22]:
So I think it depends.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:09:24]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:09:24]:
In different places from a different aspect you can say it's similar, in other times it's not. And let me tell you, in some ways it's similar.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:09:32]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:09:33]:
So when Jake at the time where we got our Acquisition Authority from was given the Authority, it was a $230,000,000 organization, right? An operational kind of a center. And the language was nowhere near restrictive like Cyber Command's language was. And the only parallel was there is that, hey, you're going to get ten people, you're going to do the same again component. The CAE will perform pretty much the same functions. But some of the restrictions that I talked about the Cyber Command had from intel activities, enduring infrastructure, none of those things apply to Jake. That being said, I think where there are similarities in terms of hey, we have in Cyber Command, when I showed up, we were talking about, I had to quickly figure out that why aren't we delivering, why aren't we being effective?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:10:22]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:10:23]:
And I realized that there was a lot of in some organization, we're doing research efforts and we're not really showing the outcome.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:10:29]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:10:29]:
How are these actually helping the operator? And then we had to figure out, okay, what are the programs, no kidding, need to be actually maintained, sustained, indoor, grown, et cetera, and kind of set up the program office to help do that in CDAO. The way I would kind of describe it is that I feel like we're a little bit ten years behind in the sense that Cyber Command was an eleven year old organization when I showed up.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:10:51]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:10:52]:
So at the time, the newest combatant command, it had time to build an identity, grow itself into, hey, this is what our mission is. General Nakasini was just the commander like a year into his tenure. So we were growing the command and bringing it credibility in terms of what it is delivering from, again, operational capabilities perspective.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:11:13]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:11:14]:
Whereas CDO is a brand new organization. We are coming up from a deputy's memo IOC perspective two years just in January, but we are nowhere near from a maturity perspective as we're Cyber so from an organizational process maturity, figuring out who we're going to be when we grow up, we are not there.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:11:40]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:11:40]:
Which is normal. It's not a bad thing. It's just that's what happens when you create a brand new organization. Cyber Command had an operational arm right there. So we had the typical service component, unit service, cyber components, so the AF cyber fleet, cybers, the R cybers, right. Even JFH Dodin.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:12:00]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:12:00]:
But we also had Cyber National Mission Force, which was a operational force. Now it's a subunified command. At the time it wasn't, but it was at the headquarter. And so it was very easy to see who needs who is your customer, and figure out, okay, how am I going to prioritize this customer? Who do I deliver the capabilities to? In CDAO many times. And you've heard me ask this question to the program manager, who's your customer? The DoD, right, the Deputy secretary, all of the combatant commands. So the challenge becomes when you talk about similarities, like, okay, how do you say who are, what are your priorities? Who is, no kidding, your primary customer.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:12:38]:
Right? Because to deliver capability, you're saying customer. I would say end user. You have to draw those lines very clearly.

Sharothi Pikar [00:12:46]:
Right.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:12:47]:
Because that's how we know if we're being successful or not.

Sharothi Pikar [00:12:51]:
And then understand what they need.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:12:53]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:12:53]:
Because every combatant command is not necessarily going to need the same thing.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:12:57]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:12:58]:
And understanding that and then saying, okay, this is what I'm going to the for in the paycom versus this is what actually Ucom needs. Right. Or again, you can apply different models to say, these are the three things I will do for all of the commits, no matter what they are.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:13:14]:
Yeah, that's probably a good segue into, okay, so you're in this new role and you have a team like myself and others are on the team trying to navigate this. How do we do acquisition differently and differently can mean a lot of things. We can streamline, we can make things go faster, lower barriers to entry, remove red tape, all the things. From your perspective, what does adoption, whether that's AI data, digital data analytics, or digital, what does adoption, no kidding, mean to you?

Sharothi Pikar [00:13:50]:
Sure. Can I actually stretch that a little bit?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:13:52]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:13:52]:
Which is you're going after what our mission is as an organization right now, which is the accelerate the scaling and the adoption of the data analytics AI capabilities.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:14:00]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:14:00]:
And I almost think the scaling comes first, and then it's that adoption that kind of go hand in hand. And you've heard me say this, right, which is from even the acquisition perspective, the things we are doing, I don't want it to be just done in that be that pocket of excellence and we're doing these things, but it can be scaled across the board. And that applies to things like tradewinds things like try AI, the kind of vehicles you guys have created and now we're trying to proliferate and partner with that. So from scaling and adoption now the capabilities perspective, okay, no kidding, what are the capabilities CDA is going to build?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:14:34]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:14:35]:
And can they be then scaled so it's not just for a single end user, not that it's a bad thing, but again, can it be used by more than one user? Can it be used by more than one combatant command? Can it be scaled across the department? And then adoption comes in saying this is so good that everybody's either adopting that tool, that philosophy, that model, that.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:15:00]:
Capability and I would offer, that require so that's almost a recognition. I'm willing to change my behavior and stop what I'm doing today and adopt this new capability because it offers value to my day to day operations or whatever.

Sharothi Pikar [00:15:16]:
I think right now when I go out, whether it's interacting with other senior leaders in different and even in the training in the cohort that we're talking to folks at the people who are actually executing, right, there is a lot of hunger, a lot of this desire to understand hey, what can I do?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:15:34]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:15:34]:
So it's almost like have we told them, hey, these are the things that are ready for adoption?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:15:39]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:15:40]:
And I think that is one of the things we have to figure out to say hey, these are things that you can actually go out and use. They are ready for enterprise use. So the responsible AI thing we just awarded, right? That was one of those examples like we have tried this capability out, we demoed it, it's good, now it's available and now it's ready for, you can say scaling that we can help scale, but it's ready for adoption at the enterprise level, which means multiple services can use that if they want to. The question is what is the mechanism we're going to use so we can, I guess, explain to the department this is something you can adopt.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:16:17]:
So on that note of adoption or scaling and we've talked about teaching people how to fish with trade winds in particular, so we don't have to keep.

Sharothi Pikar [00:16:29]:
On fishing for them.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:16:30]:
Exactly, I know because you are like.

Sharothi Pikar [00:16:32]:
The single fisherman right now.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:16:35]:
We will proliferate and create champions across the services. So how do people who are executing, what would be tips or things you would offer to them in terms of I'm in a seat, I'm supposed to be or I want to be delivering capability, I'm executing, how can I be thinking of this either differently to kind of reach the state that we're talking about?

Sharothi Pikar [00:17:02]:
So this is the basic things we were talking about, right? Hey, what is the first thing you think about? Right? As an organization, many times we are so focused on just experimenting or prototyping that we don't pause to think if that prototype is wildly successful, what's my plan for that? Right so I always say start with again, what is your mission? And it doesn't have to be as an organization, what's your mission, but as the program manager, as that project leader, what is it? No kidding. You are responsible for, right? Who's your customer? You said end user. It could be multiple end user, single end user, doesn't matter who's your customer.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:17:36]:
Who'S going to use it?

Sharothi Pikar [00:17:37]:
Right? What are their priorities?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:17:41]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:17:41]:
Because again, you can't do everything. I like to say you're not going to boil the ocean the first time, right?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:17:46]:
At least.

Sharothi Pikar [00:17:46]:
So how are you going to prioritize? What is your scope? Right? How are you going to draw this? This is the things we are, no kidding, going to do in the next twelve months. And this is what my three year plan looks like. And then how are you going to get there? So a lot of the times I feel like the how is the thing that it's missing? There's a lot of we will go solve world hunger, but the steps for the basic steps, the basic planning is sometimes what is missing from the thought process, right? And then of course our favorite topic is contracting.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:18:20]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:18:20]:
There's so much focus on the contracting piece when I have to keep on educating folks that the contracting will happen. We have qualified, almost every organization has qualified contracting officers. It's not some may be more risk averse than others, but it's not the mechanism of the contracting vehicle that's the problem. Sure, many times a recompete takes a while, right. Depending on the complexity of the pro contract, the scope of the contract. But many times I would tell you it comes down to back the fact that we can't explain or define the problem well. So the contracting effort takes longer because it takes months for the user to come and say this is what I really need.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:19:02]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:19:03]:
So to me, the focus back to should be, hey, what is the problem you're trying to solve?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:19:08]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:19:09]:
How do you want to solve it? Because then it's very easy for you, Quentin and the team to come and say these are like the three ways we can solve this problem and these are the pros and cons of this approach. These are the pros and cons of that approach. And then the program manager can make the decision saying, okay, I'm going to go with this approach.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:19:23]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:19:23]:
But many times those basic steps haven't been taken or thought through because people are so focused on just going out and start executing.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:19:31]:
So with that in mind, I think we're talking about forward thinking.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:19:37]:
Yes.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:19:37]:
Beyond yes. We can create easy entry points, initiate piloting. I know our organization is promoting experimentation, like being empowered to experiment. And then I think where someone in your role, someone in the room has to be thinking, okay, love experimentation, even trade wins big experiment. What are we going to do next if it's successful, because those are the pivotal moments, I think, for the department to actually move the needle in the right direction. So how does it go from maybe a small scale thing to like, no kidding, we've got thousands of users using a tool as an example. So where would you like to see I was going to say improvement, but where do you see opportunity? Maybe that's a better way of asking to get to that, driving that momentum toward we have more forward thinking or better, because even I would offer plans can change. Like, you can have a plan and then something happens in the experiment you're.

Sharothi Pikar [00:20:44]:
Like, it does not have to be set in stone. First of all, I have never met a plan that is actually going to stay static.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:20:50]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:20:51]:
It's just about the fact that you're thinking about it. You are planning something, recognizing that you have to be ready to pivot, ready to shift. Depending on what happens, maybe you get, I don't know, a $30 million funding cut. Maybe all of a sudden you have a new requirement that is a much higher priority than what you had planned for. But a good program manager can adjust and go from there. Right.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:21:11]:
Do you think I'll say the more conventional acquisition process is prepared for that type of modularity I don't know if it's a good word, but to handle or embrace the art of the pivot.

Sharothi Pikar [00:21:26]:
So a couple of things, right? And maybe I'll give an example of how I approached acquisition at the command and how you can kind kind of of see a bit of a parallel there in terms of how do we do it here?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:21:37]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:21:38]:
So software acquisition pathway people talk about a lot right now, right. But this is not necessarily because DoD finally formalized the framework for software acquisition.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:21:48]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:21:49]:
For us, it's a recognition that more and more the world is going to be digital.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:21:54]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:21:55]:
I used to say that when I got to the command, hey, we're not building a tank here. That's going to take ten year to build and then field, and then we're going to keep it out in the field for 50 years.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:22:04]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:22:04]:
So it's the opposite of what we're trying to do, recognizing that there's going to be a spectrum of what it means to do acquisition.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:22:11]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:22:14]:
At the time, it was an applied research division, and I said, okay, we're not doing any research in the combatant command. We're trying to make sure we actually build tools and operationalize it very quickly. So we quickly pivoted that organization to become rapid development and innovation organization.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:22:27]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:22:28]:
And that organization was focused on really three main functions. One was go out and quickly deliver discover capabilities so it would go out and see what cool technologies or software is out there that we can bring in. We may further prototype it, mature it so we can operationalize it we had internal in house, right, software developers who were developing, no kidding, right. Actually developing the tools. It could be ours.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:22:52]:
New tools.

Sharothi Pikar [00:22:53]:
New tools, yeah, new tools. So again, a lot of it obviously is industry partners that we brought into the team. We had folks from JDAs, from NSAs and organizations like that, but lots of great talent who is no kidding, hands on building the tool right there we had the lab, right? We had that environment that allowed prototyping and continuous development, the entire devsock ops pipeline. Yes, exactly. And not only that, right? So you are trying out new things, you are building new things, you are testing those things and then you're validating them.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:23:32]:
You're probably hardening it.

Sharothi Pikar [00:23:33]:
Yes, absolutely. And then guess what? I, as the J Nine had to sign off on it, that it is ready for operational use.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:23:41]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:23:41]:
We have assessed that because we also had to make sure that we are compliant with the Dotne rules from when you're operationalizing a cyber capability, right, a cyber weapons or effects. So we did all that in that environment, in that depth office environment, in a combatant command in a DoD organization. Right. One use of acquisition authority. Then we had the other part of it, which is that program office, right, what you would call maybe a conventional program office. But even that conventional program office was like, again, we're not building that tank. Right, but recognizing that, hey, we have these major software acquisition cyber programs that are being built by the Air Force, by the army. And how does the command make sure? Because those programs were all awarded, created at different times.

Sharothi Pikar [00:24:26]:
So that integration from a joint perspective, nobody was doing that. So we recognized that's something that the command has to step up and do again, an acquisition function, but nobody was doing that from a joint integration perspective. So knowing that it was our role, because hey, we're the one, no kidding, validating, establishing and validating our requirement and very unique authority that most other combatant commands do not have.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:24:52]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:24:53]:
So common cyber command, the only ones that can have that. Oh, now we have acquisition authority. So we have the tool like it's of the tool, right? And then we went and made sure, working with the department and the Congress, that we also get our budget authority, right? So because now finally the command is empowered to do all three of its things, right? So now we can actually say, okay, this is what my operational requirements are, I validated it, I prioritized it, and then, hey, are the programs adjusting rapidly, quickly to those requirements?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:25:24]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:25:24]:
Yeah, very much in an incremental fashion. We were delivering capabilities in a three month fashion, depending on which programs you're talking about. And then the roadmaps were being adjusted. So again, you're not building this plan that's going to be stale for the status, stage status for the next five years. And you're building against that and then at the same time setting up quick program offices and bringing in augmentees from other office to, you know, we have this sensors piece, we have tools piece, and it's all fragmented across the place. So how do we do that?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:25:54]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:25:54]:
So I think there is a room for that model in CDAO and recognize, okay, what am I notating those big programs? And do I set up a program office for that? And how does that happen?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:26:04]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:26:05]:
Because the way I see it, and I may be biased, right? But I came from a combatant command, right. I served operational users pretty much most of my career as a program manager. If you're going to build a capability, you have to be responsible for maintaining and sustaining it.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:26:19]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:26:19]:
So we can't just do cool stuff and not think about all the boring things that go along with it. All that boring basic planning, right? And then if you don't think we can do that if we don't think we have the capacity to do that as a PSA and OSD staff, then we need to figure out who's going to be our partner, who can do that for us, who has the right talent, the right capacity, and the right to be that partner.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:26:42]:
Yeah.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:26:43]:
I'm curious that Cyber Command, in the midst of, I'm going to say the Agile framework or construct that you just described, was there a lot of tolerance or room for things, for uncertainty? I guess I'm trying to think through what I'm trying to ask, where a lot of times you can start things and you don't know where it's going to go, whether it's capability development and you have an idea. We call this ideation operations.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:27:16]:
Right?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:27:16]:
You have an idea and you're like, I don't know if it's going to work. So was there a lot of were people encouraged to do something even though they didn't know if it was going to work or not? And did that construct kind of allow for those things to go through the pipeline?

Sharothi Pikar [00:27:30]:
So it's interesting you say that. So first of all, there was a lot of, I would say worry or concern about acquisition executives coming in and providing oversight.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:27:39]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:27:40]:
So on one hand, I walked into an environment, and I think I gave you this example before, which is the CNMF Commander comes to me and said, hey, shroti, I don't know how to buy a pencil, right? And it was really a metaphor saying, I don't know how to get a capability, and I am trying to fight Ops every day. And I'm in this command because he's not the art Cyber Commander who can go to his service acquisition organization. So the component had the ability to go fall back on their service acquisition units. He did not. So it was my job as the J Nine to do that for him. But at the same time. There was a lot of concern that, oh my God, too much oversight and we're not going to be able to stay agile and be able to do what do we need to do. So we were able to quickly address that by making sure that the rapid development or innovation team that we talked about was fully integrated and aligned with that CNMF.

Sharothi Pikar [00:28:32]:
Right. What it means that I set the left and right boundaries. These are your resources, this is your capacity.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:28:37]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:28:38]:
Go sit with, go do things.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:28:41]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:28:41]:
Because the CNMF requirements, right. Their operational priorities, depending on the day, depending on the week, depending on whatever crisis is happening, changed.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:28:49]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:28:50]:
And that development team was pretty much taking direction from that operational commander and their leadership working as a team, saying, okay, what is it that you need?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:29:02]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:29:03]:
So you could be working on ten different capabilities on week one, and next week it would be 15, it could be five different ones, or your priority may have shifted.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:29:11]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:29:12]:
What it meant was, again, you're providing a very much real time agile capabilities. But at the same time, I was able to keep I would get the update, hey, how are things going? Oh, this is an issue, or we need some more help here, et cetera. And then I would make sure every two weeks or so, I would sync up with the commander, like, hey, how are things going? Do you have an issue? Can we provide more support here or not?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:29:34]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:29:35]:
So we created very much this synchronized way to operate because before we had the same talent, but people were not focused operationally that way.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:29:48]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:29:48]:
So there were things that were doing that were like somebody's good idea fairy.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:29:52]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:29:52]:
As I like to say it somebody's science project, but there was no actual operational customer that said, I actually want this, or somebody may have wanted it two years before they left.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:30:00]:
How did they get the resourcing to.

Sharothi Pikar [00:30:02]:
Do because that resource was still there, but the right direction and the leadership guidance wasn't there.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:30:09]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:30:09]:
So we have the tool developers and somebody's like, oh yeah, let's work on that.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:30:13]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:30:13]:
Versus like, did CNMF commander ask for that? Is this one of their priority from one to ten?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:30:19]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:30:20]:
So that kind of thinking was not integrated from an organizational process perspective. So back to the basics. Some of it is not because you don't have the capacity. Some of it is because are you using your capacity the right way as you should?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:30:33]:
Yeah. Maybe a criticism on the conventional acquisition process is maybe I wish it had more a closer DevOps loop that you're describing so that we probably have more assurance that the requirements are actually solving those end user problems. That's an area where I hope we can bridge a gap.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:30:58]:
Right.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:30:58]:
Just in general.

Sharothi Pikar [00:31:00]:
No, to me, but that was the metric of success.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:31:03]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:31:03]:
So by the time I left the command after close to three years, my sync with the CNMs commander was like, how are things going?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:31:11]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:31:12]:
Because we are so closely integrated and synchronized. Like, I would know already what the issue was and we would have probably already solved it or he would have already known to let me know instead of waiting for my sync to elevate an issue.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:31:24]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:31:24]:
We made sure we had a liaison in place, right? I mean, we also had a PM, by the way, right. We had a PM dedicated to that organization. So the people who are doing that capability, they are not bogged down by that program manager responsibility, somebody's helping manage that resources. So again, we put that rigor and discipline in place, but let the team do the work they needed to do.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:31:45]:
So what would you offer to others who are maybe trying to create something close to or something that's a little bit, maybe a little customized to their mission set? How can they get closer to this place where we are more integrated with the end users and we are delivering things at scale, at speed, all the things, right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:32:08]:
So it's going to sound probably better. It's that simple thing. Like, first of all, do they know what they're responsible for, right? When I walked into J Nine, not everybody knew what they're actually responsible for, what they should be doing. If we had the wrong understanding of what the definition of acquisition, delivery and success is, then guess what? The people working in that organization are not going to be focused on the right thing.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:32:30]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:32:31]:
So as the leader, I think the first thing you say, okay, no kidding, these are the things we're responsible for. Once you step with that back to your mission, right, then you can say, okay, based on your responsibilities, these are the things you're going to be focusing on. These are the things you'll be delivering. Based on your responsibilities, these are the things you'll be doing.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:32:49]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:32:50]:
So using that RDI example, RDI no longer were deciding what they should be doing, right? So it wasn't like the data scientist saying, you know, I want to go work on this cool analytics project because if you want to do that, let's go to the DARPAs of the world or the labs that we have right here. You're doing things because that's an operational, no kidding, operational requirement. So you are responding to that and then making sure that we are providing the support they need to build that capability they need to do so. I think right now, in many ways, people don't fully understand what they are actually responsible for delivering. And they might think they're responsible for all of it.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:33:32]:
Right?

Sharothi Pikar [00:33:33]:
So clearly separating who's responsible for requirement generation, who's responsible, how do you prioritize those? And I know requirements sometimes have this big a negative connotation, right baggage. But the way the organization I'm describing it was in the big R's.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:33:51]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:33:51]:
There was not a JRock approved requirements that I'm looking for at all. I didn't even look for a written little R. Right. Forget that we have to go against going to country X to do Y, we're going to go build that tool for you.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:34:05]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:34:06]:
Or give you the capability you need. So I say the word requirement, not to say where's my jrog validated memo. No, it's more like do you actually know kitty understand what the operational user needs? So I think people will again use that requirement as a bad word in the meantime, not really be able to articulate what is the problem they're trying to solve. So back to the simple do you know what you're going to solve?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:34:28]:
Back to basics.

Sharothi Pikar [00:34:29]:
How are you going to solve it? Who is going to solve it for you? Do you have the capacity? If not right. So if you don't have those things figured out, it's really easy to fail.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:34:38]:
Right? Where would you like to see? I'll be specific to our organization CDO acquisitions be in five years from now. Stop there. I feel like that's a loaded question.

Sharothi Pikar [00:34:54]:
No more loaded questions. This is the last loaded question. Yeah. So I've said this to no matter which leadership I'm in right. Hey, the acquisition organization is the enabler and we can design the end state for you depending on what the organization leadership focus is and their vision is based on where we are and tying it back to the fact that we are a brand new organization. Not the eleven year old combatant command that just got fully unified combatant command responsibility. We are still kind of figuring out who we are as an organization, who we're going to be as a five year organization.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:35:34]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:35:36]:
But if I had to make a decision today, I would say decide, are we really going to be, no kidding, own some of the capabilities like A to Z?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:35:47]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:35:47]:
Hey, no kidding. This is one thing that is our biggest priority and we want to be in charge of that.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:35:54]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:35:54]:
We will dictate the execution of it, we will shape it, guide it. Maybe we'll partner with somebody else because we're not going to have the capacity right back to even as J Nine, I had very limited billets, right. So I had to go out and partner with others. Whether it's a service as an executive agent, whether it's another organization in a component to say, hey, can you come do this for us?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:36:15]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:36:15]:
Detail leads, et cetera. So I think we need to figure out are we going to no kidding, own some programs and do them internally or are we going to focusing on, hey, we're going to kind of give you guidance and this is what we want to do. We're going to say what the requirements are from data and AI analytics perspective, but have somebody else build those capabilities. And I think depending on which way we go, right, no kidding, we want to do this, we can then start looking at structuring some program offices. And again, we don't have to set up a PEO or a huge program offices, but to do those things right, that you're going to provide a set of capabilities to all the combatant commands. It will require putting some substantial capacity and resourcing behind that and it's not going to come from CDA right now.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:36:58]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:36:58]:
So we will have to go out and find those right partners to do that. So five years from now, hopefully some of the hard work that a lot of talented people in CDO have been doing, hopefully the acquisition team will be able to help them kind of work with some of the other acquisition partners in the services to integrate and pull that team together so we can show some meaningful capabilities that are operationally, actually relevant.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:37:23]:
That's fair. All right, last question.

Sharothi Pikar [00:37:25]:
Okay.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:37:28]:
This will be interesting because we haven't had a conversation like this and I just think this will be interesting. What does being a defense maverick mean to you? Because even though based on what you just said, that is the logical next step for any growing organization. A lot of people like to say we were a startup and we were doing some things, we were forming Storming and all the things. And then you have to start taking steps to either create structure I don't like the word structure, you know that, but it has to exist in order for things to grow and to scale. However, I think there is a spirit of we are trying to break cultural norms and we want to be a pathfinder. And when I say we not just acquisition like trade wins, but I think CDAO in general is trying to be a pathfinder for this AI thing and it'll probably be merging technologies in general as that continues to evolve. So I think there is a spirit within our culture where we are trying to kind of be a maverick in the department, be like, yeah, we're going to create some glide paths that we're going to enable and we're going to help provide guidance and whatnot. So from your perspective, and I know I'm kind of putting you in the hot seat, what does that mean to.

Sharothi Pikar [00:39:00]:
So actually, the first thing I think of when you said that is back to my when I was a SSG fellow, and we used to have a lot of industry. Very senior leaders come in and talk to us about how to do things differently, how to be innovative.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:39:12]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:39:13]:
And that word maverick stayed with me because somebody from GE actually came and talked to us about the role of a maverick.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:39:20]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:39:21]:
And I would say right again, I'm a career civilian and I would say being a maverick in the department is really, really hard and I think you know that, right, just as well as I do. And you are challenging status quo. You're asking the hard question. You are, no kidding, speaking truth to the power and taking a lot of risk by saying that and doing that and then hopefully not getting burnt in the process because you've done that, right. We used to say that, hey, our program managers are not taking risks.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:39:54]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:39:54]:
And I would say, well, is the framework there that allows them to take the risk and when they take the risk, do they get rewarded? Right. When's the last time a program manager felt comfortable coming and saying what we are building is not working?

Bonnie Evangelista [00:40:07]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:40:08]:
I recommend this is a waste of money. The requirement creep is so much we're never going to get there. Either we pivot or do something that's not the culture we've created. So I think, Jake, the work you guys have done, clearly you could, I think, fit it under hey, we have become a maverick in the way just push the boundaries. But even then, right, we've talked about this. That your first thing you've said, right, which is like you don't have to go out and create new laws. You don't have to go out and look for a new statue or new far and default. Like you don't have to break that.

Sharothi Pikar [00:40:39]:
You don't have to create new ones. You have room within that for you to innovate, for you to be a maverick. And I think a lot of times the people are not thinking that way. Because, and I say this, that if somebody's grown up in a system for ten years, 20 years, and that is not what we have conditioned them to do or think that way, it is really unfair for you to all of a sudden say, I really want you to be a maverick and think outside of the box.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:41:13]:
Right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:41:13]:
And do things differently.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:41:14]:
I call that the actually somebody else said this but it stuck with me. The institutional incentives.

Sharothi Pikar [00:41:22]:
There is no incentive. So that is exactly so at SSG we had that conversation because I would be like, hey, general brought us in here for a year, right. I was there as the only fellow that was three years. But the military fellows would come in for a year and you're asking them to come in and say break the system, right. Tell me how I should redo, redesign, tradeoc. This person is going to go back right out to the big army a year after that fellowship. How can you expect them to really do that without any fear of reprimand or repercussion and all that? Oh, by the way, not every major or even an six is going to feel very comfortable telling the highest four star in the army this is broken, right. Because the culture has not been created to allow that.

Sharothi Pikar [00:42:08]:
It doesn't mean people didn't do it. But those were rarer right. So I feel sometimes it's the personality, because there are the bonies of the world. Even though they're all in the same environment, they're going to do things differently. They're going to push back and try to think differently. But you have to actually change the culture and framework back to the basics for you to have more Mavericks, because if you don't allow them to actually operate that way and then say it's okay for you to push back, it's okay for you to say question what I'm saying. It's easier for us to go out and say, we just need more innovation and more mavericks, but we're actually not creating the condition for that. Right.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:42:48]:
This was super fun. Thank you so much. Any last words?

Sharothi Pikar [00:42:54]:
I am just so proud to have you on the team, and it's really awesome to be here, especially this week with you and the team and then be on your hot seat. So hopefully I was able to all right. Awesome.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:43:08]:
Okay.

Bonnie Evangelista [00:43:08]:
All right.

Sharothi Pikar [00:43:09]:
Thanks for having me. Of course.