Air Force transforms existing program office into its new software development hub

By: Valerie Insinna

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force's program executive office for battle management has been redesignated PEO Digital, but it's more than a name change, the service's top acquisition executive told Defense News.

Instead, it's about taking one of the Air Force's most diverse acquisition portfolios — covering everything from JSTARS ground-surveillance planes to certain communications gear — and transforming it into the headquarters of agile software development as the service moves forward with evermore sophisticated information technology programs, said Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics.

In at least the beginning, it will look much like the service's program office for buying services.

“It won't do all of the software development for the Air Force. There's no way it could,” Roper said in a Sept. 7 interview. But the hope is that it will be able to manage agile software development for some of the Air Force's most tricky programs, while at the same time providing expertise and software development tools to the rest of the program offices.

“As programs shift to agile development, where they're pushing code out every month, where they are working directly with the user, where they are measuring their output using metrics that tell them whether it's good code or bad code, PEO Digital will provide Air Force standards for doing it and a playbook for making it work,” Roper said.

FUll article: https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/air-force-association/2018/09/17/air-force-transforms-existing-program-office-into-its-new-software-development-hub