Page 26 - FCW, June/July 2021

The Path to Future-Ready Government IT
Executive Viewpoint
A conversation with
COL. JENNIFER KROLIKOWSKI
COL. JENNIFER KROLIKOWSKI
Senior Materiel Leader, Space C2, U.S. Space Force
An acquisition leader discusses why Space Force embraces data- centric apps, agile development and industry partnerships
Why is creating data-centric applications essential to Space Force’s success?
We are here to help support the warfighter but also to make sure we can protect and defend the assets we have in space so we can continue to provide capabilities like GPS to the warfighter and the commercial world.
We are striving toward more data- driven decision-making in the space domain, which is a lot more congested and contested than it ever has been. Having knowledge of what’s going on in the space domain, being able to figure out what’s normal and what’s not normal, knowing how to respond, and taking action require a lot of data.
We pull together information from our different sensors — both ground-based
and space-based — from our commercial partners and our coalition partners and then do the analysis so that we can make data-driven decisions very, very quickly. A lot of our applications help automate those processes so we can get through them much faster than we ever could with manual processes.
Why did Space Force partner with VMware on an agile platform for app development?
When I took over a couple of years ago, we formed the Kobayashi Maru Program to modernize our apps and moved toward agile development. In the past, agencies would typically hire one company to do
all the applications, the platform and the infrastructure. I wanted to break that apart to get the best of breed for each of those layers to help us accelerate and be on the cutting edge of the technology in that layer.
Instead of having one stovepipe stack from one company, now we’re able to open
up our system and have it containerized so that if something in the ecosystem is not working, we can pop it out and put something else in to better optimize what we’re doing. That allows us to work with different companies and diverse skill
sets while we’re all marching toward that common goal of delivering capability to our space warfighters, the Joint community and coalition partners.
VMware has helped augment our team to provide the platform layer. In our teaming relationship, the government still owns our technology baseline, but now we can have the best developers create applications on that platform — it’s plug and play.
How does Space Force plan to continue making progress on modern app development?
In Kobayashi Maru, we just delivered our eighth application to our customers. That’s eight capabilities we were able to develop and deliver in less than two years. It’s been amazing to see how things are progressing and witness the journey of where we were at the beginning to where we are now.
We still have our challenges. I would love to see us move even faster. That doesn’t always work with the processes and bureaucracy that are in place, but we’re working on getting them evaluated and updated so we can see where we need to optimize in order to deliver at the speed of relevance.
The big focus is delivery. If it’s not delivered and if warfighters are not using it, it didn’t make any sense to do the work. Having a user-centric focus and delivery mindset has been crucial to what we’ve been able to accomplish.
This interview continues at carah.io/ FCW-July-GovExec.
S-24 SPONSORED CONTENT