Cost, Acquisition, and Management Sciences Center (CAMS)

The National Security and Cyber Risk Analysis capability provides risk, decision, and operations analyses to a wide cross-section of the intelligence community. This support includes countering weapons of mass destruction and C-Proliferation network modeling for risk, threat, and interdiction analyses, lone wolf indications and warnings, and supply chain risk management.

Within the Portfolio, Program, and Management capability, establishing the structures and processes necessary to manage a program, project, and related projects with aligned objectives is key. Experts in this field use cross-project integration, cost, and schedule performance management to design and implement program office functions that government leadership use daily.

This capability provides acquisition and contract design options, approaches, and recommendations to fulfill mission operational or sponsor organizational needs. Professionals in this field have extensive experience in the design and implementation of procurement strategies and mechanisms for assessing, monitoring, and measuring contract performance.

The Project Leadership competency focuses on the needs of our sponsors and internal MITRE staff as it relates to all facets of project management. It aims to equip managers and technical specialists with tools to be program and project management coaches and advisers.

The Risk Analysis and Management competency is among the oldest and most integrated capability in CAMS. It is a multifaceted discipline with a rich history of innovation and application across a wide range of sponsor problems; these include systems cost and portfolio risk analysis, engineering risk management, and risk and threat analysis that support our national security and intelligence communities.

This multidisciplinary competency adds the business perspective in engineering today’s systems. Experts apply a variety of business and economic analysis methods to identify, assess, and recommend options offering realistic technology of system solutions, including assessments on the viability of vendors and technologies in today’s globally competitive marketplace.

Within this capability, high-quality, defensible, cost analysis is integral in maintaining acquisition, affordability, efficiency, and effectiveness. To help meet these challenges, the cost estimation and analytics competency applies and innovates advanced analytical methods to model, measure, and estimate life cycle costs, schedules, and risks associated with acquiring today’s complex systems.

The Independent Assessment competency focuses on impartially gauging a project’s overall performance in terms of achieving its technical, cost, and schedule objectives. Assessments are evidence-based, with findings drawn from in-depth interviews and thorough examinations of program artifacts.

The Investment Economics and Decision Analysis competency is the discipline of defining and analyzing groups of investments and resource options that maximize economic-benefit return and minimize risk. This capability includes the innovation and application of modern portfolio theory to allocate resources in ways that strengthen effectiveness and address socio-political challenges.