Identifying the impact of high-level policy changes on the day-to-day work of military service members

Why. It’s a frustrating but ever-present reality of work in the Department of Defense (DoD) that most of the people executing work have little to no awareness of the policy requirements that drive their actions. Further, when policy changes are anticipated, it’s difficult for policy writers in positions far removed from execution to envision the impacts of these changes on the warfighter. This problem is exacerbated in the operational contract support (OCS) and vendor threat mitigation (VTM) spaces because OCS is a cross-functional capability that is executed by different elements in each combatant command and component. 

What. To combat this, Technical Assent performs policy impact analyses for the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Logistics (ODASD Logistics) to identify the downstream effects of new policy and changes to policy on the day-to-day work of warfighters in operations. We leverage our human-centered design research techniques to understand “a day in the life” for impacted parties, analyze the intended and unintended consequences of changes to policy, and design lightweight solutions (such as communications programs, trainings, templates, and other tools) to help bridge the gap between policy makers and executors.