CCA: Exploratory Case Study of Construction in a Contingency Environment

Top military leadership has identified problems with the timeliness and effectiveness of DoD contingency construction support. Qualitative data was collected in order to gain clarity on the problem space and lay a foundation for solution generation and selection. Interviews were conducted with agents with experience within the Iraq and Afghanistan theater of operation as well as support functions for the Pentagon. Commanders, Engineers, Lawyers, Acquisition Attorneys, Staff Officers and Program Managers have been interviewed. The interviews have been analyzed using open coding to answer research question and identify to emergent themes and concepts. The data collected has revealed that Contingency Construction Authority is technically meeting its intent for projects programmed through CCA, but not for large-scale infrastructure that have circumvented the CCA process. Additionally, the CCA process is not meeting the expectation of the war fighters. Furthermore, because it is not meeting the war fighter’s expectation the system is being manipulated in order to, “accomplish the mission” which is creating unintended adverse consequences with regard to cost, health, safety, force protection, Anti-Deficiency Act violations, mission support and safety. Significant negative consequences were found to be attributed to the interpretation of the term “temporary construction” and the time required to process CCA projects. To provide further insight and to assist with analysis, a value stream map was created in order to map the contingency construction approval and funding process. This research effort has provided clarity of the problem space of contingency construction and prepared a foundation for future research to address the problem