HS ACS AAn FFRDC operated by the RAND Corporation under contract with DHSHOMELAND SECURITYOPERATIONAL ANALYSIS CENTERCHRISTOPHER SCOTT ADAMSTransitioning Joint Requirements to Joint AcquisitionsLessons and Recommendations for the U.S. Department of Homeland SecurityTo accomplish each of its six strategic goals, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs to acquire materiel capabilities: aircraft, cameras, sensors, information tech-nology systems, and more.1 To determine the capabilities that users require to execute the mission and to manage the acquisition of these capabilities, DHS has established comple-mentary processes for requirements development and acquisition. The Joint Requirements Integra-tion and Management System (JRIMS) governs management of capability needs and requirements (DHS, 2018b). The Acquisition Lifecycle Framework (ALF), established by Acquisition Management Instruction 102 (MD102) (DHS, 2023a), governs acquiring and fielding those capabilities, alongside the Systems Engineering Life Cycle (SELC) framework (DHS, 2021).2 The process steps and docu-mentation for JRIMS intentionally phase into those discussed in MD102 to enable a smooth transi-tion between the requirements development process and the acquisition process.However, for efforts involving more than one DHS operational component,3 considered joint per DHS policy,4 the meshing of require-ments with acquisitions can be more complicated. DHS’s eight opera-tional components are all different from each other and have different, although complementary, strategic goals. Determining joint require-ments necessitates aligning the DHS components’ divergent missions and authorities; implementing joint acqui-KEY FINDINGSIn assessing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy guidance and reviewing the approaches and outcomes for four joint acquisition efforts, researchers identified three common challenges with the DHS guidance and approaches that frustrate DHS’s ability to translate joint requirements into joint acquisitions: ■ lack of timely acquisition planning■ need for additional guidance on jointness■ lack of sufficient executive leadership.Research Report3with no final transition of capability out of the acqui-sition program and to the end user. This might have limited our ability to assess the ultimate outcome of these acquisitions.Joint Policy on Requirements Development and Acquisition at the U.S. Department of Homeland SecurityTo understand how and to what extent DHS require-ments development policies and acquisition processes provide guidance on the unique challenges of joint-ness, we reviewed the documents that implement and govern these processes, including the following:• DHS Directive 101-01, revision 01: Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (DHS, 2019d)• DHS Directive 102-01, revision 03.1: Acquisi-tion Management Directive (DHS, 2019b)• DHS Instruction 102-01-001, revi...
