The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is preparing to ask a design-build team to begin work before anyone knows the final price. Progressive design-build (PDB) with other transaction authority (OTA) can deliver a usable facility sooner, but only if government and industry build a working partnership before design and price are settled.

The planned Multi-Domain Cyber and Intel Operations Center at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland shows the method in practice. The Corps programmed about $986 million for the project and plans to select one design-builder based on qualifications and experience. That team will refine the design and develop costs in an open-book process before the parties agree on a construction price.

During the third round of an eight-round professional fight, the nerves branching out from my neck that control my right arm gave out. A neuropraxia of my right brachial plexus left that arm hanging like it weighed a thousand pounds. My fingers were too heavy inside the glove to close into a fist. In my head, I watched what came next: getting beaten with no way to defend myself, dropping to a knee, telling the referee I could not continue.

Then I accessed my mammalian brain and processed. My legs worked. I was in shape. I could still think, and I had one good arm. I am a West Point graduate. He still had to beat me.

The Army needs a clear delivery lead when a high-priority capability depends on several organizations acting together. A new capability may require changes to funding, personnel, training, equipment, doctrine, and sustainment. If those requirements move on separate schedules, units may receive equipment before they can use it. The Army should assign a delivery lead to selected efforts, define the lead’s authority, and hold the lead responsible for tracking dependencies and elevating unresolved decisions.

Senior Army leaders have called for faster adaptation, while also pointing to the difficulty of changing defense processes. In her 2023 AUSA remarks, then-Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth called for transformation. In 2024, then-Secretary Dan Driscoll and then-Chief of Staff General Randy George described commercial and dual-use technologies as advancing faster than defense processes. A former Army Futures Command commanding general warned that the Army’s rate of change lagged behind the pace of the world. These statements establish a demand for faster adaptation.