Daily Archives: 2013-02-21

Case Study: cASM

[Mirrored on Intelink-U]

Here’s another story about buying systems without a clear concept of who is going to operate it:

I was at my neighborhood spaghetti dinner and I happened to sit across from some guy who – it turns out – also works for OSD.  He’s a contractor working for OUSD(AT&L) on a system that he was quite enthusiastic about called “Contingency Acquisition Support Model (cASM)”.  (I have no idea why they capitalize it that way.)  This system, cASM, is a web-based application designed to assist people responsible for initiating contracting requirements in an contingency or expeditionary environment.  I understand it as workflow automation for contracting in a crisis.

Since I’d been thinking about this a lot, I immediately asked him, “Who is going to run it?”  and he said, “Oh, it’s hosted by DISA.”

I tried not to choke, and said something like, “That’s not what I meant.  Okay, DISA hosts it, but who is going to run it?”

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