By: Roman Chanclor, Aerospace & Defense Lead, Mendix, a Siemens company

The Department of Defense has been quick to embrace the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool to help with software development across its mission areas, but hurdles – many related to acquisition – prevent the department from achieving the full benefits promised by new technology. The Pentagon stands on the cusp of a revolutionary wave of technology that may bring with it previously unmatched capabilities if its leadership embraces the culture shift necessary to make that happen.

Traditionally, the Pentagon and federal government in general lacked the skills to successfully deploy these capabilities. This is not a reflection on the people who develop code for the government but more about the way the government undertakes software development projects. It tends to focus attention on building out large-scale software modernization initiatives focused specifically on broadly deployed applications. Often, they need every developer in the organization focused on this instead of on more innovative software development efforts.

Consequently, developers in government cultivate skill sets focused on specific applications which aren’t transferable to others. This creates brain drain issues in which developers get bored of working on the same types of systems and end up leaving the government.

Government budgetary cycles and “low cost, technically acceptable” procurement strategies exacerbate this because they provide no incentive for innovation. As budgets zero out at the end of every year regardless of whether agencies implement savings or not, agency leaders have no incentive to improve efficiency. This leads them to continue with business as usual at the expense of innovation.

Low-code platforms can boost innovation that gets put on hold when large-scale software projects take precedence over smaller-scale advances. These platforms can span across multiple systems of record, delivering a true composable development environment and a low-cost way to tackle backlogs of applications.

Agencies can start with a very small application that’s able to deliver value within the first six weeks of deployment. Starting with smaller projects allows governments to test ideas, gather feedback and iterate without committing massive resources upfront. This contrasts with traditional “waterfall” methods that often lead to delays and failures. It also increases speed and agility by shrinking development timelines from months to weeks or days by enabling rapid prototyping and deployment. For instance, agencies can begin with simple workflows or apps for specific pain points, like digitizing forms or automating approvals, and expand based on success.

In addition, this approach creates cost efficiencies and reduces backlog, because smaller development efforts translate into targeted investments, avoiding the high failure rates of monolithic projects. It also empowers non-technical staff by democratizing development, allowing business users and domain experts to create solutions without relying solely on IT teams. This fosters collaboration, innovation and a broader talent pool.

Consequently, agencies can build up the skill sets they need, so developers can subsequently become teachers inside of their own agencies and share those skill sets as they grow the user community. Then, after an agency scales up, the integration capabilities become reusable. As new use cases come up, they can easily be integrated into the platform.

Pentagon acquisition reform provides a step in the right direction. The department’s new acquisition strategy looks to the private sector to build more capabilities and offer platforms and solutions based on software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) to the government while holding vendors accountable with things like outcome-based contracting. A good example of this is the Space Force’s Front Door website, in which vendors and others can contribute ideas to benefit the service.

The department should forego “lowest cost technically acceptable” procurements, which often fail to deliver value. If you want a Ferrari, you’re going to have to pay the bill for a Ferrari. The department also should augment the old guard from the procurement world with younger professionals who may be likely to bring new approaches to acquisition challenges.

The revolutionary advances promised by AI and low-code development technologies offer countless opportunities for innovation at the Department of Defense/War. Although various components within the department have already begun taking advantage of these opportunities, a culture shift regarding acquisition and deployment of technology is needed before this can happen on a broader scale. Embracing acquisition reform and low-code solutions can unlock innovation at the Pentagon and across government.