Articles

By Andrew Park | 2025-12-09 I attended the Department of the Navy Rapid Capabilities Office (DON RCO) kickoff today at the Capital Factory building in Washington, DC. It was standing room only. The office is so new their website went live today. For those who couldn't make it, here's what the Navy communicated about their new approach to rapid capabilities acquisition. Executive Summary The Navy launched a new Rapid Capabilities Office designed to deliver technology to warfig

By Andrew Park | 2025-12-01 Many founders enter defense tech through dual use products, venture backed prototypes, or commercial AI tooling. Early on, you’ll hear government labs, innovation groups, or advisors mention CRADAs. They’re not paid engagements. They’re a collaboration tool that shows up when technical maturity and government interest start to intersect. Understanding what they are helps you avoid wrong assumptions and plan your path inside the Department. Defense

By Andrew Park | 2025-11-17 This article is a follow up to "The New Acquisition Landscape: Implications for the Defense Industrial Base" [1]. For nearly two decades, DoD has pushed the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA), which is a strategy for designing weapon systems with interchangeable parts and open interfaces. Every major prime contractor framed itself as MOSA compliant. Lockheed Martin highlighted modularity across its naval, air, and missile portfolios. Northrop Gru

By Andrew Park | 2025-11-13 On November 7, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth launched a sweeping transformation of DoD's acquisition and requirements systems in his address, "Rebuilding the Arsenal of Freedom." This marks the most significant shift in U.S. defense acquisition since the Cold War. The reforms are intended to shift power from prime contractors to defense tech startups and suppliers, in order to dramatically accelerate the pace of procurement. Multiple comp

By Andrew Park | 2025-11-11 Why Defense Acquisition Reform will create the biggest demand for Product Managers since the tech boom The Department of Defense (DoD) just announced the biggest change to how it buys weapons since World War II. If you work for a defense contractor or you’re a Product Manager thinking about joining the defense industry, everything is about to change. The Pentagon is prioritizing speed over compliance, and they’ll need an army of Product Managers to

By Andrew Park | 2025-11-11 On November 7, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth eliminated the institutional machinery that enforced Waterfall development in defense acquisition and mandated Agile + DevSecOps for all software. For software engineers studying the history of their profession, this is the day the last major Waterfall stronghold finally fell. What Just Happened: A Historic Moment On November 7, 2025, the Department of Defense (DoD) released two documents that

By Andrew Park | 2025-10-26 Executive Summary The Project Management Institute's PMBOK Guide 7th Edition (2021) represents a fundamental paradigm shift in how software project management is conceptualized and practiced. This isn't a minor update. PMI has reconceptualized project management to integrate product thinking throughout the standard, moving from a 34 year old process based approach to a principles based, value delivery framework. This shift is most pronounced for so

By Andrew Park | 2025-10-16 The F-35 Joint Program Office adopted Agile-based methods in 2018 and DevSecOps practices shortly thereafter, while Lockheed Martin began implementing Scaled Agile Framework in 2013 and stood up its Software Factory with DevSecOps methodology [Fli20, Dov18, Loc25]. Over a decade of methodology adoption later, the results tell a damning story. In January 2025, the Pentagon's test office reported the F-35 program "has shown no improvement in meeting