The premise of the project was simple. Get valuable software released faster, with higher quality and reduced risk. Yet there was also a big problem, neatly outlined halfway into a PowerPoint presentation.

The project’s premise wouldn’t work because of stated reasons such as “we’re regulated” or “we’re not building websites” or even “our people are too stupid.” And the actual reasons, bluntly stated, were “our culture sucks” and “our architecture sucks.”

This kind of honest appraisal is rarely found in many corporate presentations, but what made this even more unusual is that it came from the slide deck for Project Kessel Run, an ambitious coding initiative run by the United States Air Force to deliver new combat applications for warfighters.

“We have a small team that was tired of working this way and tired of not being able to provide this capability to our warfighters,” said Adam Furtado (pictured), chief product officer at the U.S. Air Force. “Basically, Congress told us to figure something new out.”

Furtado spoke recently with Stu Miniman (@stu), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, at the Cloud Foundry Summit in Boston. They discussed the Air Force’s collaboration with the private sector, challenges of designing a new development process in a bureaucracy, project results and how cultural change has helped motivate the software team. (* Disclosure below.)

This week theCUBE features Adam Furtado as its Guest of the Week.

Mission to improve app development

Software drives a major part of military fighting capability in today’s modern age, and Project Kessel Run (named for a “Star Trek” hyperspace route used by smugglers) is designed to improve the speed, quality and cost-effectiveness of app development. The project team consists of approximately 70 airmen from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center working in partnership with Pivotal Software Inc.

The challenge was to develop the coding expertise and knowledge necessary for rapid software development and deployment that are mere table stakes for most technology companies today. It was a difficult mission when attempted in the highly regimented military world, so the airmen turned to private industry offerings and Pivotal.

“We frankly have a lack of software development and engineering talent that’s inherent to the Air Force,” Furtado said. “We kind of followed along and took some practices that we learned from [Pivotal] and tried to apply them to the government.”

One of the key changes implemented through Kessel Run was a dramatic change in the pace and quantity of software tool deployment. A process that moved at a snail’s pace, taking nearly a decade, to modernize the delivery of new applications in the combat field was a major point of frustration.

“We’ve been designing a brand new system to modernize for about 10 years, and we just haven’t been able to get it to the field for a ton of Department of Defense, bureaucratic and acquisitions reasons,” Furtado explained.

Significant cost savings

The project is already having an impact. A tanker planning tool was developed and deployed to the field in 120 days for $1.5 million. Kessel Run’s chief operations officer recently told a publication run by the Department of the Navy that the Air Force recouped its cost in a single week.

New features that used to be shipped every five years are now being shipped on a weekly basis. While the military can’t disclose many details around specific tools being deployed, another innovation attributed to the project involves a dynamic targeting solution to improve combat operations.

The project’s impact was noted by Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google and Alphabet Inc., in testimony this month before the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. “Kessel Run has already saved vast sums of money that otherwise would have been spent through the traditional acquisition process,” said Schmidt, who currently serves as chairman of the Defense Innovation Board. “Cycle times that may have extended years are accomplished in weeks.”

Dress for success

Kessel Run represents a culture change for the Air Force in more ways than just speed and agility in software development. One of the differences for airmen working on the project is that they do not have to wear military uniforms when coding on the team. Camouflage and dress clothes are exchanged for hoodies and Star Wars-themed apparel before getting down to work with civilian software developers.

“Uniforms are really a way to strip the individualism away from people,” Furtado said. “We kind of need that for creativity and solving complex problems. Our airmen have really adapted to it, and they love it.”

At one point in the Kessel Run slide deck, a photo appears of General Eric Shinseki, former chief of staff of the Army, with his quote: “If you don’t like change, you are going to like irrelevance even less.” Kessel Run is an attempt by a key military branch to inject new relevance into its software development, with a bias for action and a commitment to deliver war-winning software.

“We’re seeing a lot of momentum now throughout the services and the Department of Defense,” Furtado said. “We’re heading in the right direction.”

Here’s complete video interview, and there’s much more coverage of the Cloud Foundry Summit from SiliconANGLE and theCUBE. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Cloud Foundry Summit. Neither the Cloud Foundry Foundation, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE