Software collapses the division between design and manufacture. Once a software program is designed through coding, it can be almost instantaneously manufactured through compiling. Freed from the costs and time to build software, programmers can engage in a continuous cycle of software development and redevelopment to improve performance or meet other customer requirements. With hardware, such frequent redesigns would exact a price in terms of the tooling and material needed to manufacture each new variation on the product.
That was from Bryan Clark and Dan Patt at the Hudson Institute, “Embrace New Ways To Buy Software Or The Pentagon Will Fall Behind.” The authors point to new software appropriations and acquisition pathways as reforms leading the charge towards bringing 21st century business practices into the DoD. Here’s a bit more:
The U.S. military’s software reforms, however, can only make a difference if they are used and survive. DoD and service acquisition officials may not aggressively employ the new software pathway or comptrollers may be unwilling to exploit the flexibility of software appropriations. And in its 2021 appropriations bill, the Senate recently suggested that the new software appropriation category might be a means to avoid accountability and circumvent financial controls.
In Congress’ defense, DoD should update its reporting mechanisms to build transparency and trust, including for software projects. Although program plans that forecast functionality milestones years out into the future do not make sense for a DevOps approach, software development projects could still set measurable objectives such as capability drops, active users, and implementation of planned features. Leaders need to treat software differently than industrial production but can still enforce accountability.
Transparency and trust with Congress is definitely a key enabler to the success of the reforms. That doesn’t just mean the DoD must create new information systems and reporting streams, but Congress needs to meet in the middle by reconsidering its concept of oversight.
Currently, Congress is forcing the DoD to bend to fixed requirements, lifecycle cost estimates, and other industrial era processes — even for software programs using the new appropriation and pathway! That means giving up the basic premises of modern software development by using a waterfall lens to evaluate an agile process. It’s like asking classical physics questions to evaluate the work of quantum physicists.
Classicalist: ‘Hey, what was the exact position and velocity of the particle in your experiment?’
Quantumist: ‘I can’t answer that question.’
Classicalist: ‘Well, do you even know whether it was a wave or a particle?
Quantumist: ‘Nope.’
Classicalist: ‘Fail! Obviously this project doesn’t know what it’s doing. No funding for you!’
That’s not too much different from the following:
Congress: ‘What exact requirements will you deliver over a multi-decade timeframe?’
Agilist: ‘I can’t answer that question.’
Congress: ‘Well, do you even have a lifecycle cost estimate?’
Agilist: ‘Nope.’
Congress: ‘Fail! No funding for you!
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