DAU recently launched the Automated Requirements Roadmap Tool or ARRT. ARRT is a Better Buying Power initiative designed to help the acquisition community develop more effective requirements for services acquisitions. ARRT provides a structured approach for defining requirements, performance standards as well as how these results will be inspected. Completing the ARRT process results in drafts of your Performance Work Statement (PWS) and Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP).

ARRT is not a cut and paste tool, it requires a thoughtful assessment of the results you require to achieve the mission results you need. ARRT is based on organizing the requirement around a simple work breakdown structure (WBS). WBS Level One is the vision or objective for the requirement (why are we doing this, what do we hope to achieve). WBS Level Two is the high level objectives required to achieve the Vision. WBS Level Three are the task statements required to support each of the high level objectives. Task statements consist of three elements; the desired result, the context of the result and what action the contractor must take to achieve the result. The next step is to develop the performance standards to which the task must be performed. These fall into three basic categories, cost, quality or timeliness. After standards are established, the method and means of inspection is determined. Defining these basic elements provide enough information for ARRT to create the PWS and QASP.

ARRT is available at DAU’s Service Acquisition Mall (http://sam.dau.mil) or the "Acquisition Community Connection", free of charge. ARRT is a MS Access file and requires MS Access 2007 or 2010 to operate. I encourage you to download and explore the ARRT tool as well as viewing the videos in Services Acquisition Mall (SAM) which provide an overview and instructions on how to use ARRT. This will be an effective tool to help requirements developers achieve the goals of the BBP program.