The Need for Speed With Software Delivery
One anecdote from Ukraine demonstrates just how imperative it is for the United States and its partners and allies to develop, deliver and update software at the speed of need. As first reported by the Hudson Institute, the Excalibur 155 mm extended-range, precision-guided artillery shells initially hit approximately 70% of targets, but within six weeks, Russia adapted its jamming technology and dropped Excalibur’s accuracy rate to 6%.
Margaret Boatner, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for strategy and acquisition reform, cited the Hudson Institute report during a May 13 media roundtable with reporters. “In six weeks, Russia was able to counter that capability with their own upgrades and enhancements to their electronic warfare. When we’re on the battlefield, we have to be able to move quickly and inject these types of upgrades.”
Assistant Secretary Boatner and others, including Army Chief Information Officer Leonel Garciga, and Jennifer Swanson, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for data, engineering and software, are working with the major Army commands to implement Army Directive 2024-02: Enabling Modern Software Development and Acquisition Practices. The directive aims to institutionalize modern software practices, such as agile development and DevSecOps, or development, security and operations.
Make no mistake, the directive is a monumental overhaul of the way the Army does business when it comes to software. It streamlines virtually every aspect of software development, acquisition and deployment.
The need for such reforms has been a topic of discussion at many AFCEA conferences, and now it is becoming reality.
But it’s not just the Army transforming software policies and practices. The Air Force is expanding its DevSecOps capability known as Platform One. And the Navy’s Rapid Assess and Incorporate Software Engineering (RAISE) 2.0 Implementation Guide incorporates agile development and DevSecOps and uses automation and cyber verification tools to ensure applications are built, tested and deployed securely.
Just as importantly, the Defense Department and military services collaborate with one another, with industry and with end users as they forge these new policies and practices. As Jennifer Swanson told the audience at the AFCEA Belvoir Chapter’s Industry Days event in May, “Nobody’s doing this alone, and everybody wants to be able to leverage other people’s work.”
The Defense Department laid the groundwork for monumental modernization of software practices with the software acquisition pathway, which enables rapid and iterative delivery of new capabilities. The goal is to ultimately field capability into production on‐demand as required, which may be in hours or days—not months or years.
Challenges, no doubt, remain. Cara Abercrombie, the assistant secretary of defense for acquisition, said at the Naval Postgraduate School’s annual acquisition research symposium that program managers love the software pathway approach but are sometimes too risk-averse to use it.
Despite challenges, we are making progress. In her speech, which is available on YouTube, Assistant Secretary Abercrombie also announced the creation of a “SWAT” team of software specialists within her office that can “parachute into program offices to provide that deskside support to help walk program office teams through how to get the software pathway going.”
Also, last summer, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks estimated that by the end of September 2023, $5.5 billion would have gone through the software acquisition pathway over the last three fiscal years. As of November, 66 programs were using the software pathway, according to a Defense Innovation Unit web page.
A modern military runs on software. To illustrate, programs on the software pathway include the Air Force Air Operations Center program, the Space Force Delta V effort, the Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense program, the Navy’s Distributed Common Ground Station, and the Marine Corps Joint Cyber program.
Deputy Hicks touted multiple steps being taken to speed innovation to warfighters. Those efforts are shaving off up to six years of transition and delivery timelines for warfighter priorities such as wideband satellite communications and various electronic warfare tools.
Sometimes it seems the software on my personal computer is updated at least once a month. With the work being done across the Defense Department, warfighters may soon see similar technology delivery rates.
And no one needs or deserves it more.
