> “Just because you followed the software requirements spec doesn’t mean you met the capability need,” Kroger said.
Sage words.
I do wonder, though: becoming more agile (or agile AF as the case may be) is one thing, but is it healthy for an actual military branch to be moving in the direction of an industry whose unofficial motto is "move fast and break things"? That's one thing when the bad outcome might be that someone gets delivered the wrong thing or gets charged twice and you have to refund them. But broken things have much graver consequences when they involve guns and bombs and airplanes.
> in the direction of an industry whose unofficial motto is "move fast and break things"?
At Pivotal we have a different version: "go fast, forever". I believe Facebook updated theirs from "move fast and break things" to "move fast".
> But broken things have much graver consequences when they involve guns and bombs and airplanes.
We aren't to my knowledge participating in weapons systems or flight avionics (and I hope we never get involved in weapons systems).
Our work demonstrates a principle discovered in other industries a while ago: relentless focus on improvement breaks the iron triangle. Fast, affordable, good: pick any three.
But you can't do this by mouthing some slogans, skimming a book and then burping up code as fast as you can type. It takes a genuine and sustained discipline to keep to the core practices: pairing, TDD, CI/CD, IPMs, retrospectives, user-centred design, lean product management, balanced teams etc. But keep to it and the payoff in sustainable pace is remarkable.
The traditional outsourced approach seems to have been "Move slowly, waste money, and break everything."
My concern is that security is a potential issue, and short term savings could easily be offset by a massive security disaster later.
Enthusiasm isn't enough. I hope there's a standard, professionally tested, security framework being developed by experienced and capable security experts which other projects can rely on, as required.
That's not what that quote means. It literally means it's okay to not get it right, to make mistakes, as long as you can deliver quickly [1]. Not that weird for an industry where time to market is everything.
Sage words.
I do wonder, though: becoming more agile (or agile AF as the case may be) is one thing, but is it healthy for an actual military branch to be moving in the direction of an industry whose unofficial motto is "move fast and break things"? That's one thing when the bad outcome might be that someone gets delivered the wrong thing or gets charged twice and you have to refund them. But broken things have much graver consequences when they involve guns and bombs and airplanes.