Workshop for organizations winning their first DoD contract or entering the Defense Industrial Base. Covers the cybersecurity clause stack (DFARS 7012, 7019, 7020, 7021), CMMC level determination, SPRS account setup, the gap-assessment-to-implementation roadmap, and budgeting for compliance overhead.
Winning your first Department of Defense contract triggers a layered set of cybersecurity obligations that most organizations have never encountered. This four-hour workshop walks first-time DoD contractors through every major requirement in the correct sequence — from understanding which clauses flow down through your contract to standing up the systems and documentation that auditors and assessors expect to see.
The session opens with a structured breakdown of the four DFARS clauses that govern nearly every DoD cybersecurity obligation in the Defense Industrial Base. You will learn what each clause actually requires, when each one applies, and how they interact with one another:
Not every contractor needs the same level of CMMC certification. This segment teaches you how to read your contract and identify whether you handle Federal Contract Information (FCI) or Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), what that means for your required CMMC level, and where the boundaries of your assessment scope begin and end. Common scoping mistakes that inflate cost and complexity are addressed directly.
The Supplier Performance Risk System is often the first concrete deliverable a new contractor must produce. The workshop provides a step-by-step walkthrough of registering for SPRS access, conducting or validating a self-assessment against the 110 NIST SP 800-171 controls, calculating your score correctly, and submitting it with the required supporting documentation — including your System Security Plan (SSP) and Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M).
A raw gap assessment tells you what is missing. A roadmap tells you what to do first, in what order, and at what cost. This section covers how to structure your gap findings by control family, prioritize remediation based on contractual risk and implementation effort, and build a phased implementation plan that is defensible to both your customer and a future assessor.
Many organizations underestimate the full cost of sustaining a compliant environment after initial implementation. The workshop addresses the ongoing costs of continuous monitoring, annual SPRS score updates, personnel time for policy maintenance, and the cost differential between a CMMC Level 1 self-attestation and a Level 2 third-party assessment — so you can bring realistic numbers back to your leadership team.
This session is designed for compliance managers, IT managers, program managers, and security leads at organizations that have recently won — or are actively pursuing — their first DoD contract. If your team is responsible for responding to DFARS clause flow-downs, preparing for a CMMC assessment, or standing up a CUI handling program from scratch, this workshop is built for them.
It is equally well suited for operations and finance leaders who need to understand what compliance will cost and how long implementation realistically takes before committing resources. No prior experience with DoD cybersecurity requirements is assumed.
If your organization needs hands-on support beyond the workshop, Cleared Systems offers dedicated CMMC, CUI & DFARS compliance services tailored to Defense Industrial Base contractors at every stage of program maturity. Organizations that want ongoing strategic guidance can also explore our Regulatory vCISO services for fractional CISO support aligned to your specific contract obligations.
Ask about group rates, private delivery of this curriculum for your team, or whether this session fits your compliance roadmap.
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