Page 64 - FCW, May/June 2018

TheLectern
An agile approach to DOD weapons systems
If the Defense Department truly embraces agile development, it would be a much-needed tipping point for government innovation
BY STEVE KELMAN
In a recent report titled “Design and Acquisition of Software for Defense Systems,” the Defense Science Board raised its influential voice on behalf of a move by the Defense Department toward greater use of agile methodologies for soft- ware being developed for weapons systems.
DSB is a prestigious advisory body established more than 70 years ago to give DOD advice and recommen- dations on scientific, technical, man- ufacturing and acquisition issues. Its members are senior military, govern- ment and industry experts who are often retired.
The report, which was commis- sioned by Frank Kendall when he was DOD’s undersecretary for acquisition during the Obama administration, begins by discussing the importance of the issue. “While recognized as cen- tral to enterprise business systems and related information technology serv- ices,” it states, “the role software plays in enabling and enhancing weapons systems often goes underappreciated.”
In fact, the report continues, “many of the capabilities provided by our weapons systems are derived from the software of the system, not the hardware. This shift from hardware- enabled capabilities to software- enabled capabilities is increasing
“Checking a software system’s codebase daily keeps manageable the number of changes required to comply with a large base of cyber rules.”
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quickly. As a 2017 paper published by the Institute for Defense Analyses notes, ‘The Department of Defense is experiencing an explosive increase in its demand for software-implemented features in weapon systems.’”
Agile and F-22 modernization
The DSB report includes a fairly con- ventional discussion of the advantages of agile methodologies, which I sus-
pect will provide few surprises for people who have followed the general debate on agile versus waterfall: “The main benefit of iterative development — the ability to catch errors quickly and continuously, integrate new code with ease, and obtain user feedback throughout the development of the application — will help the DOD to operate in today’s dynamic security environment, where threats are chang-