Page 14 - Federal Computer Week, May/June 2019

IT Modernization
Creating a culture
of modernization
A single team trained in lean methodologies can begin to transform an agency’s mindset
Paul Puckett
Chief Technology Officer for Federal, Pivotal Software
hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fuel a day because it didn’t have to launch extra tankers.
The role of highly focused product teams
The solution demonstrated that it is possible for the Air Force to field modern, secure, scalable software using lean methodologies. That approach involves combining agile practices with pair programming, test- driven development and user-centered design to create software that meets a mission need.
When an agency trains a team in those methodologies and sends that team back into the organization, two things happen. First, the outcomes begin to change the culture and the way that people look at problems. Second, leaders cultivate more teams that think this way.
The Air Force created the Kessel Run Experimentation Lab to teach other uniformed and government personnel and even contractors to solve problems using modern software development
and highly focused product teams. As a result, multiple teams are now designing, maintaining and iterating on services, products and mission capabilities.
The Air Force learned how to shape
a product team and identify a problem, form a hypothesis and then test it. In fact, a key to the Air Force’s success
is its commitment to shaping product teams around problem identification and resolution. By giving these methodologies to smart, passionate people who care about the mission, we can solve any problem.
WHEN MEMBERS OF
the Defense Innovation Board
visited the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base in
Qatar a couple years ago, they were stunned to see that Air Force logisticians were using a spreadsheet and whiteboard to plan tanker refueling missions.
They were getting the job done, but it
was taking 12 hours to put together each plan and there was no way to accommodate changes without erasing the whiteboard and starting over. They would often err on the side of caution by launching extra tankers to
stand by in case they were needed.
The Defense Innovation Board asked
their colleagues at the Defense Innovation Unit to modernize the tanker refueling process and do it fast. A team from DIU, the Air Force and Pivotal turned to cloud-native software design. They also tapped into a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency pilot project for accelerating security accreditation.
As a result, the Air Force’s new tanker planning app was accredited and running in a matter of weeks. Now that the mission was automated, the Air Force started saving
davooda/Shutterstock/FCW Staff
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