The Department of Defense has approved a strategy to help facilitate the “delivery of resilient software capability at the speed of relevance.”
DOD’s Software Modernization Strategy has three goals and the first one seeks to accelerate the department’s enterprise cloud environment, the department said Friday. Objectives under the first goal include maturing an innovative portfolio of cloud contracts and securing data in the cloud.
“The Department’s adaptability increasingly relies on software and the ability to securely and rapidly deliver resilient software capability is a competitive advantage that will define future conflicts,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks wrote in the Feb. 1 memo.
“Transforming software delivery times from years to minutes will require significant change to our processes, policies, workforce, and technology,” added Hicks, an inductee into Executive Mosaic’s Wash100 for 2022.
The strategy’s second goal is establishing departmentwide software factory ecosystem. Under this goal, objectives include pursuing DevSecOps through enterprise providers and accelerating software deployment with continuous authorization.
Transforming processes to enable speed and resilience is the strategy’s third goal. Under this goal, the department should make acquisition more agile, incentivize the use of enterprise services and evolve regulations, policy and standards.
Hicks noted that the strategy provides the approach to accelerating the delivery of software cabailities in support of artificial intelligence, Joint All Domain Command and Contorl and other DOD priorities.
With the approval of the strategy, Hicks is directing the Pentagon’s chief information officer and undersecretaries of defense for research and engineering and acquisition and sustainment to lead the roadmap’s implementation through the software modernization senior steering group, which should come up with an implementation plan within 180 days.
