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TITLE VIII--ACQUISITION POLICY, ACQUISITION MANAGEMENT, AND RELATED MATTERS

Subtitle I - Other Matters

P. L. 115-

House Conference Report. 115-404

(a) In General.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the President of the Defense Acquisition University, shall establish a training course at the Defense Acquisition University on agile or iterative development methods to provide training for personnel implementing and supporting the pilot programs required by sections 873 and 874 of this Act.

(b) Course Elements.—

(1) IN GENERAL.—The course shall be taught in residence at the Defense Acquisition University and shall include the following elements:

(A) Training designed to instill a common understanding of all functional roles and dependencies involved in developing and producing a capability using agile or iterative development methods.

(B) An exercise involving teams composed of personnel from pertinent functions and functional organizations engaged in developing an integrated agile or iterative development method for a specific program.

(C) Instructors and content from non-governmental entities, as appropriate, to highlight commercial best practices in using an agile or iterative development method.

(2) COURSE UPDATES.—The Secretary shall ensure that the course is updated as needed, including through incorporating lessons learned from the implementation of the pilot programs required by sections 873 and 874 of this Act in subsequent versions of the course.

(c) Course Attendance.—The course shall be—

(1) available for certified acquisition personnel working on programs or projects using agile or iterative development methods; and

(2) mandatory for personnel participating in the pilot programs required by sections 873 and 874 of this Act from the relevant organizations in each of the military departments and Defense Agencies, including organizations responsible for engineering, budgeting, contracting, test and evaluation, requirements validation, and certification and accreditation.

(d) Agile Acquisition Support.—The Secretary and the senior acquisition executives in each of the military departments and Defense Agencies, in coordination with the Director of the Defense Digital Service, shall assign to offices supporting systems selected for participation in the pilot programs required by sections 873 and 874 of this Act a subject matter expert with knowledge of commercial agile acquisition methods and Department of Defense acquisition processes to provide assistance and to advise appropriate acquisition authorities of the expert’s observations.

(e) Agile Research Program.—The President of the Defense Acquisition University shall establish a research program to conduct research on and development of agile acquisition practices and tools best tailored to meet the mission needs of the Department of Defense.

(f) Agile Or Iterative Development Defined.—The term “agile or iterative development”, with respect to software—

(1) means acquisition pursuant to a method for delivering multiple, rapid, incremental capabilities to the user for operational use, evaluation, and feedback not exclusively linked to any single, proprietary method or process; and

(2) involves—

(A) the incremental development and fielding of capabilities, commonly called “spirals”, “spins”, or “sprints”, which can be measured in a few weeks or months; and

(B) continuous participation and collaboration by users, testers, and requirements authorities.

The Senate amendment contained a provision (sec. 843) that would direct the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the President of the Defense Acquisition University, to establish an in-resident targeted training course at the Defense Acquisition University on agile acquisition, and a subject matter expert in agile methods to support implementation of agile.

The House bill contained no similar provision.

The House recedes with an amendment that would require a version of the course to be available to support pilot programs for agile development as directed by provisions elsewhere in this Act, and to be further improved based on that experience.

The conferees note the expectation that the pilot program leadership take seriously the views and observations of the subject matter expert in agile methods.