Top DoD weapons buyer: How the Pentagon transformed its approach to information-age warfare

• The Pentagon is heavily reliant on software, using it to perform day-to-day business operations and employing complex weapons systems on the battlefield.
• But new and emerging challenges, demanded that the Defense Department become significantly more agile and responsive in its ability to leverage software.
• Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment since August 2017, recounts the transformation she oversaw in the department's approach to software and describes what must still be done for the military to fight and win in information-age warfare.

As DoD's chief weapons buyer, I oversee the acquisition and sustainment of a $1.7 trillion portfolio of warfighting and combat support capability that defends the nation.

I came to the Department of Defense (DoD) in August 2017 to improve the way we deliver capability to our warfighters. In particular, we needed to transform the way the department, the services, and our industrial base partners realize and field capability with software. Whether executing our day-to-day business operations or employing complex weapons systems on the battlefield, software is the foundation of information age warfare upon which the majority of our capability relies.

To protect our interests at home and abroad and stand with our allies against terror and aggression, we started a revolution to become significantly more agile and responsive in our ability to leverage software.

A February 2018 Defense Science Board (DSB) report provided an initial catalyst. With seven key recommendations that were largely informed by the innovation of domestic and global software industries, in short, commercial best practices pointed a clear direction for DoD's improvement. In accordance with the FY2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), I commissioned a complementary study by the Defense Innovation Board (DIB).

The culminating report we delivered to Congress in May 2019 contained an additional 10 recommendations to modernize our policy, people, and processes along four major lines of effort.

The revolution began immediately. In March 2018, I brought in Dr. Jeff Boleng to spearhead all aspects of the Department's software modernization. After analyzing the DSB report and assisting the DIB study, I charged Jeff with implementing the recommendations through pilot programs outlined in the FY2018 NDAA.

Half of these recommendations were existing programs with demonstrated challenges delivering software effectively and are on a three-year timeline for transformation. The other half were entirely new and thus able to be "born agile"; these programs were given a year to institute best practices and begin delivering capability.

Our partners in Congress reinforced our efforts in the FY2020 NDAA, calling for the creation of an acquisition pathway specific to software. As we were already amidst a complete redesign of our overarching policies - one of the most transformational changes to defense acquisition in decades - a software pathway fit perfectly into our new Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF).

After delivering an interim software acquisition policy just 14 days after the signing of the NDAA, we published the full policy, DoD Instruction 5000.87, in November 2020 - a year earlier than mandated. The software pathway represents a substantial departure from the Department's usual way of doing business, removing procedural bottlenecks and streamlining regulatory bureaucracy.

At its core, the policy is built upon commercial best practices - such as human-centered-design; development, security, and operations (DevSecOps), and Lean Startup - to enable innovation and rapid delivery of new capability under conditions of uncertainty. Programs are pushed to embrace faster time-boxed delivery cycles, while emphasizing and ensuring quality and cybersecurity.

It's important to note I specifically refer to this as the full policy, rather than the final policy. As with software development, we must institutionalize data-driven learning, adaptation, and agility into our policy stewardship. We intend for all elements of the AAF to be updated periodically based on data, lessons learned, and feedback from program execution.

In collaboration with DoD's Comptroller, we are also exploring the creation of a single, consolidated, multiple-year "color of money" specifically for software.

In the recently passed FY2021 NDAA, a pilot program was approved to fund select existing programs under a single appropriation called "Budget Activity 8." If this approach proves to support more effective and efficient delivery of digital capability with software, our goal is to create a new title of funding on par with Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation; Operations and Maintenance; or Military Construction.

This is a long road, but one we are intent on evaluating and fully implementing.

Alongside DoD's chief information officer (CIO), Research and Engineering department, and the services, we are laying the foundation for modern software development and deployment enterprise infrastructure. Our collaboration has already led to the initial publication of the DoD DevSecOps Reference Design as well as a department-wide policy memorandum favoring DevSecOps as the default and preferred approach to DoD software development.

In doing so, and in following commercial industry's adoption of DevSecOps, we now have a framework to achieve competitive advantage and deploy digital products with security, reliability and speed. There are also numerous efforts underway that are transforming our approach to software and security accreditation, enabling continuous release of software capability in safe and secure ways to outpace our adversaries.

People, however, are the most important aspect of this revolution. No policy change, technology offering, or amount of funding can substitute for our workforce. Two years ago, we established an interdepartmental, inter-service software workforce working group to transform three areas of focus.

First, upskilling our current workforce and institutionalizing modern software and digital competencies not only for software practitioners (developers and software engineers), but also for acquisition professionals (program managers, cost estimators, contracting professionals).

Second, and in conjunction with the Defense Digital Service, bringing modern recruiting and retention approaches to the Department for acquiring and keeping talented software professionals.

Third, pursuing the creation of a civilian software occupational series in partnership with other government agencies and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The services have already taken initiative with a uniformed personnel identifier for software and we must do the same for our civilian workforce.

While our accomplishments since 2018 are significant, the revolution has only begun. This is a long journey, and there is still much work to be done. I encourage the department and Congress to build upon the great partnership we've developed to see the mission through. Work with us, hold us accountable, and keep the spirit of cooperation and collaboration we've established to modernize, and keep current, our approaches to software development, security, and operations.

DoD's software revolution must continue to be prioritized for the United States military to succeed in an era of disruption, innovation, and near-peer competition. Software is the key building material for America's defense.

Contributing Authors: HON Ellen Lord and Jeff Boleng. Lord is the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. Boleng is the Special Assistant for Software Acquisition.