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SMALLER, FASTER BITES STREAMLINE ACQUISITION


approach to software development. Te commercial side of the software industry had been leveraging faster development cycles with an approach known as Agile development.


GET AGILE Practitioners of Agile development subscribe to 12 principles outlined in the


“Agile Manifesto.” Te first two of these principles describe the value of “early and continuous delivery of valuable software,” and “welcoming changing requirements, even late in development.” Te thought of fluid, evolving requirements might make a traditional defense acquisition profes- sional cringe, but the commercial world recognized that tackling software develop- ment challenges with smaller, more easily accomplished steps ultimately resulted in more useful and more relevant software than when developers attempted to make one monolithic delivery of a grand design.


In 2012, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council updated its Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System


UPDATES ARE IN THE CLOUD


JWARN and JEM are available on milCloud, so any service member anywhere around the world can use the latest version without needing permission to download or install anything, or waiting for a new software package to be shipped to them. (Photo courtesy of the authors)


(JCIDS) manual, the “instruction book” for how the requirements process works to acquire new defense systems and capabili- ties. One such revision made allowance for the fact that software development occurs in a context where the rate of change—in both the requirements and the environ- ments in which software must operate—is so fast that it can often outpace the traditional acquisition system’s very bureaucratic required processes. It offered an alternative model in which a system’s requirements are bounded on four sides by


“Organization and Oversight,” “Hardware Refresh, Enhancements and Integration Cost Controls,” “Application and System Software Development Cost Controls,” and “Capability Requirements and Initial Minimum Values,” (which could be simplified as “Oversight,” “Hardware Cost Limits,” “Software Cost Limits,” and


“Minimum Capability Required”). As long as a program is staying within the “box” bounded by those four areas, the require- ments process can be delegated to a lower level, allowing for more rapid require- ments-document updates, which in turn


authorize more frequent updates and enhancements to the software itself.


In our personal lives, we are accustomed to software on our computers and mobile devices being updated on an almost daily basis, so this might still seem like an overly bureaucratic way of managing what is now “normal.” But it’s important to remember that without requirements documents stating a validated capability need, a program office is not authorized to spend money to develop or enhance something—even if it seems like the operational need is obvious.


On the other hand, the Defense Acquisi- tion System is designed around holding programs (and their managers) account- able for fulfilling all of the requirements outlined in the programs’ requirements documents, by a specified deadline. So, a requirements document that outlines a


“blank check” of continuous updates and enhancements to be pursued indefinitely is not an option, either.


36


Army AL&T Magazine


Fall 2019


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