Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Merissa Daley/U.S. Navy
Section 811 of the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) tasked the Secretary of Defense, acting through the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with “Modernizing the Department of Defense Requirements Process.” Congress directed the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to develop “a streamlined requirements development process” to “improve alignment between modern warfare concepts, technologies . . . and reduce the time to deliver needed capabilities to the warfighter.”
DoD’s Section 811 Tiger Team—composed of representatives from the Joint Staff, the military Services, the unified Combatant Commands (CCMDs), the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Intelligence Community, FFRDCs, think tanks, academia, and industry—found a clear consensus that the Joint Capabilities Integration Development System (JCIDS) must be modernized to keep pace with advancing technology and evolving threats. The recommendations outlined in DoD’s final report to Congress constitute the most significant reform to the joint requirements process in the past 20 years.
The RAND National Defense Research Institute (NDRI)—a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) operated by RAND on behalf of the Department of Defense—supported the Section 811 Tiger Team in its research, analysis, and report writing.
