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

Subtitle G — Provisions Relating to Software and Technical Data Matters

P. L. 115-

House Conference Report. 115-874

(a) In General.—Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall include the following systems in the pilot program to use agile or iterative development methods pursuant to section 873 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115–91; 10 U.S.C. 2223a note):

(1) Defense Retired and Annuitant Pay System 2 (DRAS2), Defense Logistics Agency.

(2) Army Integrated Air and Missile Defense (AIAMD), Army.

(3) Army Contract Writing System (ACWS), Army.

(4) Defense Enterprise Accounting and Management System (DEAMS) Inc2, Air Force.

(5) Item Master, Air Force.

(b) Additions To List.—Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall identify three additional systems for participation in the pilot program pursuant to section 873 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115–91; 10 U.S.C. 2223a note) and notify the congressional defense committees of the additions.

(c) Community Of Practice Advising On Agile Or Iterative Development.—The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment shall establish a Community of Practice on agile or iterative methods so that programs that have been incorporating agile or iterative methods can share with programs participating in the pilot the lessons learned, best practices, and recommendations for improvements to acquisition and supporting processes. The Service Acquisition Executives of the military departments shall send representation from the following programs, which have reported using agile or iterative methods:

(1) Air and Space Operations Center (AOC).

(2) Command Control Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC).

(3) The family of Distributed Common Ground Systems.

(4) The family of Global Command and Control Systems.

(5) Navy Personnel and Pay (NP2).

(6) Other programs and activities as appropriate.

(d) Report.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall report to the congressional defense committees on the status of the pilot program and each system participating in the pilot. The report shall include the following elements:

(1) A description of how cost and schedule estimates in support of the program are being conducted and using what methods.

(2) The contracting strategy and types of contracts that will be used in executing the program.

(3) A description of how intellectual property ownership issues associated with software applications developed with agile or iterative methods will be addressed to ensure future sustainment, maintenance, and upgrades to software applications after the applications are fielded.

(4) A description of the tools and software applications that are expected to be developed for the program and the costs and cost categories associated with each.

(5) A description of challenges the program has faced in realigning the program to use agile or iterative methods.

(e) Modifications To Pilot Program Selection Criteria.—Section 873(a)(3)(B) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115–91; 10 U.S.C. 2223a note) is amended—

(1) by inserting “or subsystems” after “In selecting systems”;

(2) in clause (i)(II), by striking “; and” and inserting “; or”; and

(3) in clause (ii)(II), by striking “; and” and inserting “; or”.

The Senate amendment contained a provision (sec. 883) that would provide additional direction to the Secretary of Defense in implementing the pilot program established under section 873 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115–91).

The House bill contained no similar provision.

The House recedes with an amendment to the list of participating systems; an amendment to make criteria for selecting program participation more permissive; an amendment that directs the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to establish a Community of Practice on agile or iterative methods and identifies programs that should contribute; and an amendment that directs the Secretary to report certain information on the progress of programs participating in the pilot.

The conferees expect the Department to attend to compliance with Section 873 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 (Public Law 115–91). The conferees note that the adoption of agile or iterative methods remains a challenge for the Department of Defense, despite the fact that delivery of increments of useful capability no less frequently than every six months is not only a best practice for software-intensive systems but is also a government-wide requirement for such systems. Further, as the Department implements such methods, it is important to ensure good principles of management and oversight are incorporated. In particular, given how frequently programs should be delivering features, having insight to costs and capability delivered is critical to understanding risk and overall return on investment.