Publication

Background and Purpose: The Acquisition Innovation Research Center (AIRC) and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) hosted the Agile Development of Hardware-Reliant Systems Workshop on 18–19 April 2023. The interactive workshop was comprised of practitioners in agile development methods and acquisition from across industry, academia, and the Department of Defense (from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Combatant Commands). The workshop:

• Disseminated AIRC study findings and collected further lessons and insights from industry and Department of Defense (DoD) best practices.
• The AIRC study of Agile development beyond software was requested by the Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference that accompanied the FY 2021 NDAA (House of Representatives, 2020, pp. 1761–1762).
• Invited Keynotes from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) on capability deployment needs and practices.
• Invited technical briefings from industry, academia, and DoD that covered agile acquisition issues, lessons, and best practices involving development, systems engineering, and management of hardware/software systems acquisition.
• Facilitated discussion sessions on different perspectives of agile development in systems and key enablers of agile practices in DoD acquisition.

Key Workshop Takeaways:

• Agile development of hardware-reliant systems is possible and is being done today!
• Faster delivery of the most critical capabilities to the warfighters can be achieved through a different mindset, agile requirements (capability statements), tolerance of early learning and failures, and short, iterative development and testing with user feedback.
• Decreasing the distance between the warfighter (combatant commands) and capability acquisition is an enabler toward more agile practice.