Qualified Capacity · The Founding Cohort
The Founding Cohort
Two Cohorts · 75 Days Each · Closing 10 November
The Founding Cohort is the first fifty U.S. DoD suppliers and subcontractors to earn Qualified Capacity Steward standing — delivered in two 75-day sprints that close before 10 November 2026, the day CMMC Phase 2 begins under 32 CFR 170.3(e).
Starting 10 November 2026, DoD intends to include the requirement for CMMC Status of Level 2 (C3PAO) — a certification issued when an independent C3PAO has verified that all 110 NIST SP 800-171 Rev 2 security requirements are met — in applicable solicitations and contracts as a condition of contract award. Primes flow the requirement down to subcontractors handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) under 32 CFR 170.23.
This page is for shops that need to cross that line with their quality management system leading, and their cybersecurity posture woven through it.
The Sprint at a Glance
Who the Sprint Exists For
The Founding Cohort is built exclusively for U.S. Defense Industrial Base suppliers who possess the discipline but lack the translation.
What You Walk Away With
- 01
- QMS-Integrated Information Protection. Your System Security Plan (SSP) and Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M) are no longer standalone IT documents; they are driven natively by your quality management system, mapping all 110 NIST SP 800-171 requirements into your existing quality manual sections.
- 02
- Level 1 (Self) Status Posted. Your shop completes the Level 1 self-assessment against the 15 FAR 52.204-21 practices — a strict subset of the 110-requirement NIST SP 800-171 Rev 2 posture the Sprint runs to — and your affirming official posts the CMMC Status of Level 1 (Self) in SPRS before 10 November 2026.
- 03
- Qualified Capacity Steward Standing. The participating leader completes the Founding Cohort and earns Steward standing on the Qualified Capacity Ladder — a continuity covenant of practice, not a one-time certificate.
- 04
- Founding Signatory Listing. Your shop is permanently listed as a Founding Signatory of Qualified Capacity on qualifiedcapacity.com (with consent). A public distinction signaling verified commitment to prime contractors and peers.
- 05
- Qualified Capacity Roster Entry. When the gated Qualified Capacity Roster opens in June 2026, your shop is entered (with consent) as a founding-year member. The Roster is read by practicing peers and by primes qualifying supply.
- 06
- Founding Cohort Stewards' Network. After 10 November 2026, the cohort becomes the first named Stewards' Network in Qualified Capacity. Quarterly cohort meetings on Teams. Annual Stewardship Reviews. A peer bench you will still be part of in 2029.
The Methodology
The Sprint is the direct operationalization of the thesis detailed in It Takes the Whole Shop. We teach you how to extend the quality system you already run to cover the information the warfighter depends on.
Each 75-day cohort is timed to land its shops ready to receive C3PAO assessment when the 2027 slot opens.
These fifty shops — twenty-five in Cohort 1, twenty-five in Cohort 2 — enter the Qualified Capacity Roster's founding-year cohort together — the group whose continuity is publicly measured on 30 April 2031.
Faculty
David Kirubi
Founder, Meridian Industrial Partners
Leading the Sprint methodology. CyberAB Registered Practitioner. Two-plus decades implementing and sustaining management systems in industrial sectors, with focused application to the Defense Industrial Base.
Lisa Salley
Senior Advisor
Co-delivering the Sprint. Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Former Energy Division President at Underwriters Laboratories; Chair, Advanced Manufacturing Workforce at the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center.
We live in the environments we teach
The Sprint operates on a dedicated Microsoft GCC High tenant, AOS-G provisioned. Collaboration runs on Teams inside that tenant, with sensitivity labels applied by default.
No shadow IT. No consumer SaaS. The data path reflects the CUI-safeguarding standard we hold our own practice to.
The Anchor Case — For Primes
If you run supply chain risk or quality for a prime or Tier-1, the Founding Cohort is a way to secure the posture of your critical sub-tier base before CMMC Phase 2 begins.
Two Paths to a Seat
Single-Anchor: A prime contractor or higher-tier integrator anchors fifteen or more seats — in a single cohort or distributed across both — to secure the posture of critical suppliers in their own chain.
Distributed: Individual shops enroll directly — selecting Cohort 1 or Cohort 2 based on readiness — to secure their own posture, build internal capacity, and definitively prove their readiness to upstream partners.
Cohort members are curated across primes, regions, and product families to preserve peer-learning variance within each cohort.