Margaret Boatner, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for strategy and acquisition reform, said the military branch will continue running its software offerings under research, development, test and evaluation funding instead of transitioning them to sustainment as part of its software modernization efforts, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.
“We really have to retrain ourselves to think about and to acknowledge the fact that software really needs to stay in development all the time,” Boatner told FNN in an interview.
The move is part of a new software policy signed by Army Secretary and 2024 Wash100 awardee Christine Wormuth in March.
“It’s recognizing that a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) model software is never done. That way, our program managers can plan to use the appropriate color of money, which in many cases might be RDT&E, which is the color money you need to do true development,” Boatner said.
“So, that will give our program managers a lot more flexibility to determine the appropriate color money based on what they want to do, such that our software systems can really continue to be developed over time,” she added.
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