Weigh What Each Office in the Chain Sees Well and Misses
The Sensor Map
Companion to You Are Not the Warfighter · Updated 2026-09-29
Use this to weigh what each function in the acquisition chain tells you about the fight. The map shows what each one sees well and what it systematically misses. Worked in “Major Programs Take Twelve Years, and Every Office Sees Only Part of the Fight.”
This is the core book’s blank Sensor Map, reproduced unchanged: the three columns that Table 3.1 fills (sensor, what it sees well, what it systematically misses), plus the blank form’s two columns for this month’s reports. The rows are Table 3.1’s defense rows.
The Sensor Map, with each defense sensor’s fixed biases and two columns for this month’s reports.
| Sensor | Sees well | Systematically misses | What it reported this month | Label (level and distance) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Requirements staff | Doctrine, joint needs, how a capability fits the force, the documents the process requires | The unit’s current workarounds, how the need has changed since the document was written | ||
| Capability developer | The branch’s view of the problem, lessons from past programs, test and training plans | Conditions at a given unit this year, needs that don’t fit the branch’s existing categories | ||
| Program office and PAE | Cost, schedule, contract terms, technical risk, the whole portfolio | How the system is used on a bad night, what the unit changed after fielding | ||
| Prime engineering | The system’s design, integration, certification, production, and sustainment | The fight the system is used in, beyond what requirements and test reports carry | ||
| Field service representative | How the system breaks, what units ask for, fixes that work in the field | The units that never call, the need behind a repair request | ||
| Developmental and operational test | Whether the system meets its specification, and how representative users do under controlled conditions | The conditions of the current fight that a test range can’t reproduce | ||
| Industry sales | What buyers ask for, what competitors offer, what the budget will bear | The warfighter who wasn’t at the demonstration | ||
| Senior leaders | Strategy, budget, the threat picture across theaters | The repeated friction of one unit’s daily work |
If a report falls inside its sensor’s blind spot (a program office describing daily use), get a second source before anyone acts on it.