Working with Defence Primes on Capability Programmes
Where a prime contractor is delivering a programme, capability requirement ownership needs to stay with Defence — here's where that goes wrong, and what good collaboration looks like.
Where prime-led programmes typically underweight capability
Primes are typically measured on delivery milestones — systems built, training delivered, timelines met — which can quietly deprioritise the capability requirement itself, especially where that requirement was never clearly defined and owned before the prime was engaged.
The interface between prime delivery and capability requirement ownership
The healthiest arrangement treats the prime as responsible for delivery against a capability requirement that Defence continues to own and can independently assess — rather than the requirement itself being defined, interpreted and effectively owned by the delivery organisation.
Keeping capability requirements owned by Defence, not just delivered by the prime
Where Defence loses ownership of the capability requirement, evaluation of whether the programme actually succeeded ends up relying on the prime's own delivery metrics — measures that describe activity, not necessarily the capability outcome the programme was funded to achieve.
What good collaboration looks like
Effective collaboration keeps the capability requirement, its evidence base and its evaluation criteria independently owned and understood by Defence, while the prime focuses on what it does well — delivery — against a requirement it didn't get to define alone.
Common questions on this topic.
No — primes bring genuine delivery capability. The point is ensuring the capability requirement itself stays independently owned and evaluated by Defence, not absorbed into delivery.
Ideally before the prime is engaged, or in close parallel — defining it after delivery has started risks the requirement being shaped by what's already being delivered, rather than the reverse.
Defence, using criteria defined independently of the prime's own delivery metrics — otherwise the evaluation risks measuring activity rather than the capability outcome that was funded.
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